Don Scallen

Hairy woodpeckers brandish large dagger-like beaks; the beaks of downys are smaller and more chisel-like.

Opossums, having migrated north are also unlikely winter survivalists. Naked ears, feet and tails slough off frozen fragments during our harsh winters.

Many ferns boast exquisite form and are splendid photographic subjects. Seeking them is a fine excuse for a late season ramble.

Denuded and sterilized, the land waits sullenly for the homes and strip malls that characterize the inexorable expansion of Brampton.

Like everything in nature, mimicry is complex and nuanced.

Dragonflies have been on Earth an incredibly long time, way before the appearance of the first dinosaurs.

Giant swallowtail caterpillars are branded as “orange dogs” in the American south because they eat the foliage of citrus crops including orange trees.

Bobolinks, though, are only one patch in the quilt of the glorious grassland ecosystem that exists at the Forks.

Moth communication hints at the wealth of cryptic messaging all around us.

These plants can switch genders throughout their lives in response to growing conditions.

Twenty times more admirals than normal are moving into the province.

The next day spring peepers, chorus frogs and wood frogs heralded the early spring from sylvan pools.

Ten species of frogs and toads share our landscape, a rich assemblage of hopping amphibians for such a northerly clime.

There are probably more deer now than there were before European settlement.

Most of our butternuts are dead or dying, stricken by a fungal disease called butternut canker.

Help the turtles by signing a petition being circulated by Friends of Ontario Snapping Turtles.

Cardinals appear at feeders most frequently at dusk and dawn. Perhaps during the twilight hours they are less visible to predators.

A lovely shrub that waxwings find irresistible in late fall and early winter is a native holly called “winterberry”.