Don Scallen

The mellifluous trilling of toads resonates through our hills at this time of year. The tranquil sound wafting through an open window on a warm mid-spring eve is delightful.

On warm evenings in April and May our hills awaken to the life affirming voices of spring peepers. Their shrill calls stir the winter weary soul.

Don Scallen introduces us to three species of salamanders that are starting to appear in our hills. The first half of April is salamander time in our hills.

Herons and egrets wading in local wetlands or silhouetted against blue skies, excite people whenever they are seen. They speak to us of grace, elegance and regal bearing. We would do well to listen to what they have to say.

Once gleefully slaughtered as “bloodthirsty villains,” hawks have reclaimed their status as lords of the sky.

In Headwaters country eighteen species of warblers flourish among the trees of the Niagara Escarpment and the Oak Ridges Moraine.

From dusk until dawn, our local bats perform an aerial ballet, devouring millions of flying insects.

If beavers are permitted to help reverse wetland losses, frogs will be among the happy beneficiaries.

With piercing eyes and haunting cry, so flies the lord of the midnight sky.

“What would you rather have, spiders sitting in webs where you can see them, or bugs wandering around undetected?” asks Tom Mason.

More than sixty species of fi sh make their home in the Credit Valley watershed, but many of them are strangers to all but the most avid observers. Let us introduce you.