What’s going on out on the land?
Considering Chokecherries
In an older blog post I mentioned that I had been watching a specific Chokecherry or the Anishnaabemowin name asasawemin, where I was looking at Eastern Tent Caterpillar egg masses and how the caterpillars had emerged. I ended up taking a closer look at the Chokecherry in the days following as my interest had been piqued.
Chokecherry is a role model. How can we be in good relationship with so many different life forms, transform degraded and barren anthropogenic landscapes in preparation for new life? Yes, there is a note of caution to be had, an awareness of potential hazards, but the overall theme of this shrub appears to be regeneration, repair and creating spaces for life to flourish again.
Eastern Tent Caterpillar Egg Masses
We were in the midst of a mock evaluation at Mono Cliffs provincial park, making our way slowly through an old orchard which had been left to rewild, when Tamara called our evaluator Alexis over to ask if she could suggest a question for the evaluation. Only thing I heard from their quick conversation was “this will be a hard one”. They directed our attention to the end of an Apple branch where a small jeweled formation wrapped around a thin twig, like a bangle or elaborate armband. This broad ring or twig-band, about 3 cm long, seemed to be made up of smaller gemlike circles of gold lacquered together. These smaller circles were about .6 mm in diameter and tightly packed together. There could’ve been 200 of the small gold circles wrapped in this small shiny bundle. I made a guess right away that it must be an egg mass, but I didn’t know who made it. It was mysterious to me. I wrote out my answer and shared it with Tamara and waited for the big reveal.
Learn The Land at Bishop Mac
On a recent Sunday I was out behind Bishop Mac High School with one of the classes I facilitate with my colleague Annie. The program is called Learn The Land, and it’s a ton of fun. Together we have been exploring three different locations around Guelph over the past year and getting to know the local ecology (and so much more). When it comes to Bishop Mac, or the South End Community Park, we had been there a couple of times in the past year, though both previous times were in the warmer months. We’ve observed the Osprey nests, and went on a birding adventure but this was our first time out in the Winter months. Sadly there was no snow, but that didn’t mean we didn’t find anything to really dig into.
Fruit and Seeds pt. 2
This is part 2 in a series exploring fruit and seeds, an leaves as well I guess, of different summer fruits which might be found in some scat of common birds and mammals in my area. This is part two of a series.