Notes from the Wild

Naturalist Don Scallen explores the many species of Warblers found in Ontario; though if you want to see them, you’ll have to leave suburbia.

Long-tailed and tiny-legged, these slow moving salamanders face formidable challenges as our urban footprint grows.

Listen closely for their distinctive vocalizing and you just might manage to catch a peek of these pint-sized predators.

As development continues unabated, our growing population and urban footprint will inevitably diminish biodiversity.

During a trip south, naturalist Don Scallen gets a closer look at introduced lizards in Florida and asks questions about our own invasive species in Ontario.

Most of us have the good fortune to raise our families in safe, comfortable houses. Birds want nothing less. 

Rivers in the Headwaters region still flow clean, clear and cool through areas not yet urbanized. This natural heritage is a gift to area residents and well worth protecting.

Male tree crickets – rock stars of the insect realm – sing to attract females, and display other courtship behaviour not so different from ours.

Fall is the perfect time to get down low and take a closer peek at the stunningly diverse and complex organisms that are fungi

From a swath of turf grass came a thriving meadow ecosystem full of wild flowers, pollinators and biodiversity.

Bats hunt with their astonishing echolocating ability, sending out pulses of sound and then “reading” the returning echoes for the shape signatures of potential prey.

Could the answer to my pollination puzzle be butterfly wings?