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, […]

Double-crested cormorants

Posted September 23, 2014

We had a couple of double-crested cormorants drying their wings here at Laurel Creek yesterday. Double crested cormorant populations are rising quite quickly in Ontario. Their numbers in North America were decimated by hunting and the pesticide DDT. DDT was sprayed around a lot in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and the pesticide made its way […]

Monarchs Reign

Posted September 18, 2014

Last year, I think I saw two or three monarch butterflies the entire year. On Tuesday this week, with a grade seven class from Edna Staebler Public School, we counted 21 monarchs on a ten-minute walk to the stream. They were fluttering over the tops of a field of goldenrod, warming up in the sun. Hopefully […]

Honey, You’re Sweet

Posted September 5, 2014

The Laurel Creek Outdoor and Environmental Education Centre has four bee hives. Two hives survived last winter, and this spring we split the surviving hives in half to create two more hives. So now we have four again… This week we took the surplus honey off the hives. Each hive can produce up to 45 […]

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