Macoun Club kids traverse the “old” Study Area (Sept. 24, 2016)
For a change, we made a cross-country trip from the Greenbelt's Lime Kiln Trail north to the Wild Bird Care Centre. Only Rob knew, and he never mentioned it, but this is the terrain of the Macoun Club's old study area, the one we used from 1968 to 1970. We petitioned for a new one because this area was being despoiled by indiscriminate logging. It has some features that our current Study Area does not have: the aftermath of a [...]
Macoun Club kids find invasive species at every turn (Sept. 17, 2016)
With warm rain expected, netting aquatic life in our Study Area seemed like a good way to put in our time. At the Sarsaparilla Trail, however, the observation dock has become so closely surrounded by tall stands of Narrow-leaved Cattails (and their hybrids) that little open water was available for our nets. We managed to catch a couple of Brook Stickleback minnows, and let them go. Working south along the shore, thick masses of Reed Canary Grass lay between us [...]
Early fall birding along the Ottawa River
Northern Flicker, photographed by Sarma Vishnubhatla. On Sunday, 11 September, Jeff Skevington led an outing to Britannia and points west along the Ottawa River. At least 28 participants spent the day visiting the best birding spots along the river, looking for migrants and, especially, shorebirds. As Jeff reports, "We had many groups of warblers and ended up with 20 species of warblers for the day. My personal highlight was a group of warblers at Shirleys Bay that were coming [...]
The importance of snags and downed logs to wildlife
by Christine Hanrahan Snags are standing dead trees. They are also known as den or cavity trees and increasingly as wildlife trees. (photo by Christine Hanrahan) Walking through our local forests and along trails at the city's edge, your eye may be caught by the stark form of a standing dead tree or by a fallen log stretched across the forest floor. Perhaps you have seen a woodpecker fly from a hole in the tree's trunk, or noticed a [...]
OFNC’s 16th annual butterfly count
The butterfly count is an annual OFNC event organized this year by Jeff Skevington. Working in groups or alone, participants patrol the same location - a 24-km diameter circle centred on Manion Corners - each year from about 9 a.m. to about 4 or 5 p.m. Data are submitted to the North American Butterfly Association. Ideal habitat for a large number of butterflies, the count site includes both alvar and swamp. This year, the count got off to [...]
May 14, 2016: Artists at work
Rob introduced today's nature-art workshop with a slide show of prehistoric nature art — cave paintings from Altamira, Chauvet, and Lasceaux in France. He pointed out that these vibrant works of art were created with just three colours: black, from charcoal, and red and yellow from iron-based ochre. The forms are simple yet evocative because the artists knew the anatomy and movements of their subject intimately and successfully portrayed them. And although the bulk of each bull or horse's body [...]
June 4, 2016: an afternoon at the waterfall
There are several places where we could have got into the water on this hot day — the floating bog (pictured at the top of this page), a deep cool basin in a beaver pond up on the plateau, or at the narrows on Indian Creek. But Morgan asked to go to a fondly remembered place from when she was new to the Macoun Club, the waterfall. For miles upstream, Indian Creek meanders through a marshy floodplain, but here it [...]
Ducks and gulls along the river
by Roy John Report of an Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club excursion on Sunday, 22 May 2016. A dozen people went to Mud Lake to take advantage of the recent change from cold windy weather to lovely warm sunshine. This had brought in numerous, much delayed, migrants over the last few days. Wood Duck photographed by Roy John As soon as we arrived at Mud Lake we were told that a rare Yellow-throated Vireo had been found in the woods. [...]
May 28, 2016: Beech Bark Disease: what are we going to do about it?
It's been 125 years coming, but Beech Bark Scale Disease is here. It was accidentally introduced at Halifax, NS, in 1890, on some European beeches sent over by Queen Victoria. It is a two-stage disease, the first being the introduced scale insects. Though tiny, they proliferate over the bark of a tree, visible as a scurfy white waxy covering. When the feeding activities of the scales have opened thousands of tiny wounds, fungi invade and kill patches of bark. The [...]