What’s going on out on the land?
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.
Corvid Tracks at Bishop Mac
I ended up driving across town this morning to visit a spot where I’ve found Osprey nests, plenty of White-tailed Deer trails as well as tons of Coyote scat and trails in hopes of trailing some animals. While I did backtrack, and later fore track a deer for a good portion of my morning, the most interesting find were the corvid tracks I found in the parking lot as soon as I stepped out of the car.
Deadly Galerina Study
One of the mushrooms I found today at work was the Deadly Galerina. I decided that I wanted to learn as much as I could about this species as they were a hazardous species which I may encounter on the daily with my students. I feel like if I know all of the poisonous species right off the bat, then if I make mistakes with benign/harmless species, then it won’t be as big a deal than if I made that same mistake with the poisonous ones. Make sense? Know the things that will kill you, and then you can take the time to learn more comfortably, and more forgivingly, with the harmless ones.
Tracking the Smith Loop, 2022.09.05
hello,
i'd like to go tracking today. I'm going to head out this afternoon, maybe to smith trail because i just need to wander. want to come? i know it's last minute, so no pressure, but it would be fun to track with you.
carolyn
I was just thinking that I wanted to get out for a little and see what I could find, but I couldn’t decide where to go and I was in the midst of researching. I needed a push and when Carolyn’s email arrived, I was stoked. I was most definitely down to go.
First Wildflowers of 2022
I think Crocus’ and Snowdrops may be beautiful, but they are certainly overrated. They may herald the warmer months and the coming of Spring, but they’ve been planted as early evidences and don’t have the same force that some of the native plants have. This spring has been cooler than last year, but seems to be on pace with 2020 for early season blossoms. I am noticing the leaves of Trout Lily along the trails and Wild Leeks in the open woods and even the small dark shoots of Blue Cohosh just coming up in the deeper forests. None of the species mentioned above though have been flowering. Who did I see in flower?
An old s****y mystery
A few years ago I was walking with a friend of mine along the trail towards the forest where I work. Along the way I happened to spot some scat in the middle of the trail. It was tapered and long, fairly fat, and had some seeds in it. The scat appeared to have come from a Coyote but I was at a loss as for what kind of plant the seeds had come from. I looked up a couple of books I have which have a few photographs of seeds but never found an image of a seed which looked right. The mystery haunted me.
A Couple Late Winter Wonders
While out trailing some domestic Dogs, Short-tailed Weasel, and Red Fox, I encountered a couple of things that I did not know about and decided to examine. This post is just detailing those things a little more and sharing whatever information I can find so far.
Eramosa River tracking journal, 2022.01.23
I left the house just before 8am so I could get out before too many people were out walking their Dogs. There ends up being a bit of a jumble in the trails when the Dogs come out and it’s just easier to spot everything without much distraction. I also feel a little weird sometimes, standing in the middle of a path, road or even the frozen river where everyone is walking by. If more folks stopped to ask about the tracks or even say hello it would feel less awkward, but usually they just stare, and then walk by cautiously while their Dog barks at me. Even the Dogs know there is something amiss about a person standing there noticing the world. I recount a bit of these feelings because it happened again this morning while I was checking a Grey Squirrel bounding trail along the road by my house.
In Search of Fisher Tracks, Tracking Journal, 2022.01.11
I was out on the ice real close to where I’d fallen through last year, looking for signs of a possible Fiser (Pekania pennanti) that my friend had said she may have seen a couple of hours before. She had told me about the possible Fisher earlier in the day when were were skating on the frozen river closer to my house. As soon as I was done with the skates, I put on my big boots and went upstream in search of this maybe Mustelid.
Osprey and headless fish at Bishop Mac
I went out to Bishop Mac with my pal Tamara to practice trailing Deer and Coyotes but when we got there we watched an adult Osprey fly in with a Goldfish and land atop a nest. We watched as the adult leaned over the brim and two small Osprey heads emerged. Almost as soon as the Osprey had arrived they took off again with the Goldfish still in their talons. We both thought this was strange…
Eastern Cottontail Rabbit killsite on the way to work
The blood was still bright and vibrant when I took the photo. That's what first caught my eye while walking by, the living red against the white. Tufts of brindly hair strewn about the edge of the Staghorn Sumac grove, with lots of Rabbit pellets punctuating the bounding tracks through the snow.
I couldn't make it all out with the short time I had but I have a feeling the Coyotes were coming from the Southeast, making their way Northwest. More wild spaces Eastwise, and the city was behind me to the West. The Coyote tracks are often headed Westwise, flowing with the river.