Don’t Blink or You’ll Miss The…

Posted October 30, 2014

[wpvideo QMMBf3b4] I only got one short video last night before the trail cam batteries died. Do you know what kind of animal it is? The scientific name for this animal is Neovison vison. Google it if you’re not sure…

Trail Cam Fun

Posted October 28, 2014

Mama always said, “Trail Cams are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” We put the camera out in the forest at Laurel Creek last night. Got this at 5:30 PM: [wpvideo XWqC3Wxb] Tonight I set the camera up beside the stream where beavers have been working. And I […]

Raccoon Video

Posted October 24, 2014

I put the trail cam on video mode last night, and got 65 fifteen-second videos of animals coming to eat the sunflower seeds. Most of the videos were raccoons. Count the raccoons in this video! [wpvideo qi6zj4Zk] The raccoons came all night from 7:30pm to 5:30 am. Here is a rare non-raccoon video: [wpvideo LY7uv8QP] […]

Raccoon Family

Posted October 22, 2014

I picked up a trail cam at Canadian Tire recently and put it out in the forest at Laurel Creek. It has a motion detector, and can take pictures in the dark with an infrared camera. We threw some sunflower seeds in front of it, and last night it took 93 pictures. The first few shots had […]

House-building Insects?

Posted October 22, 2014

The video below is of a caddisfly larva and the mobile leaf-house it has constructed.  The head and legs emerge from the tube, and the larva trots around the pond or stream bottom fairly well protected from predators. Each species of caddisfly builds a uniquely different casing depending on the habitat and their needs, everything […]

Baby Snapping Turtle

Posted October 16, 2014

I blogged about a baby snapping turtle here in the spring. Today a grade 9 class from Bluevale Collegiate caught a smaller one in our pond. This guy would fit back in a snapping turtle egg, no problem. I told the class that this baby would hopefully survive the winter in the mud under the ice. When the […]

Thanksgiving Birds (of the non-gobbler kind)

Posted October 13, 2014

Our family spent the Thanksgiving weekend at the cottage on the Bruce Peninsula.  Once the bird feeders went up – a priority on arrival – they were quickly re-discovered by a variety of birds.  We had lots of blue jays, chickadees, and nuthatches to keep us entertained.   A red-breasted nuthatch comes to Sydney’s hand for […]

Winter Finch Forecast

Posted October 1, 2014

Annually, information about seed crops, berry production, and resulting bird species movement is collected from various sources, compiled by Ron Pittaway, and shared online. This is a really wonderful glimpse into what our winter bird species lists might include. http://www.jeaniron.ca/2014/forecast14.htm For example, the paragraph about Pine Siskin states ” those that fail to find adequate […]

Baby Cockroaches

Posted September 30, 2014

On Friday, we played the Instincts for Survival game with a grade seven class from Laurelwood Public School. I used a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach to talk about instincts, and neat behaviours animals use to survive. The cockroaches hiss at predators as a defense strategy. Males hiss at other males to establish dominance, and males will also […]

Acting on Climate Change

Posted September 24, 2014

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio addressed the United Nations climate change summit yesterday. In addition to being an actor, he currently holds the title of “United Nations Messenger of Peace.” Pretty cool. The UN gig gives him the opportunity to speak eloquently to important people. This is what he said yesterday: “Thank you, Mr. Secretary General, your excellencies, […]

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