Macouners are notorious scavengers of skulls and bones, routinely raiding a friendly trapper's carcass pile with abandon, and dragging home items that parents with more sensitive noses may relegate to the garage, the backyard, or even earthen burial. But well chosen, cleaned, and prepared specimens can be things of fascination and beauty. OFNC member Jim [...]
Macoun leader Rob Lee lives in the forest, and today we explored part of it. We found a good lunch place where the bare deciduous trees (Sugar Maple, Beech, and Ironwood) let a little sunshine in, and a few White Pines provided dead, dry branches for a hot, steady fire. The temperature never got above [...]
A month ago, Macoun member Morgan told us about an amazing travelling exhibit of 30 live reptiles that is being presented at the Museum of Nature this winter. Today we visited as a group. With the benefit of prior experience, Morgan held intense consultations with some of the boys. Heads together, the three of them [...]
Our Study-Tree Woods is only 10 acres in extent, yet after 25 years of choosing trees, new Macoun members can still find ash trees and ironwoods that no one else has ever studied before. We spent the morning hours touring all those that current members are following (and picking new ones). One very large White [...]
We began by reviewing last week's field experiments, in which we measured the speed of sound by timing three repeat echoes off an isolated house (getting a result of 1010 feet per second). Rob explained how we can use that figure to tell how far away lightning is striking as a storm approaches. We had [...]
Indian River is a minor watercourse that runs slow and deep out into the farmland of Lanark County, but has its origins in springs and lakes in hilly country. We settled down for lunch in woods beside the last stretch of rushing water above miles and miles of marshy meanders. The steep valley sides seem [...]
Blue-footed Booby showing those namesake feet! Photo by Justin Peter by Marissa Carroll Justin Peter, director of programs and senior naturalist for Quest Nature Tours and vice-president of the Toronto Ornithological Club, brought his extensive knowledge of fascinating Galapagos birds to the Ottawa Field-Naturalist Club’s monthly meeting this past Tuesday. Host to unique [...]
What's out there as night falls? Not down here, where owls hoot and mice scurry, but up there where first one faint light and then another appears. People have been wondering in a serious way about the sun and the moon and the stars for thousands of years. Today Rob guided an exploration of the [...]
Late autumn on a cold, rainy day: what is there to see in the woods? We dragged a small sheet over the ground but collected no ticks at all. Apart from a solitary Raven circling high overhead when we walked away from the cars, there were no birds. Two types of mushrooms were seen several [...]
By Julia Cipriani Mushrooms collected in the forest, photographed by the MacSkimming Centre team On Saturday, October 1, well over 110 people met at MacSkimming Outdoor Education Centre to participate in the MacSkimming open trails event. There were members of the general public, of OFNC, and of les Mycologues amateurs de l’Outaouais (MAO). The [...]
