Recently I was talking with one of my adult programs about successional and keystone species. Successional species are those early plants which come into disturbed landscapes, helping to knit the ecological neighbourhood back together. They are quick to come and quick to go, providing the land with nutrients to heal and grow. Keystone species are those species who are provide for many other forms of life. Their work in sustaining the community around them is vast relative to their abundance. They provide food and the place to eat it. The make space for life to thrive and sustain. If the keystone suddenly goes missing than the community make up will drastically change, often for the worse. Goldenrods, especially those which make up the Canada Goldenrod complex are some of the most important successional an keystone species in my area.

Over the years I have investigated Goldenrod on different levels, from the technical and scientific to the intuitive and relational. Both vantage points have served in getting to know these amazing and powerful plants better. I decided to head out with a makeshift milkcrate studio to sit with the Goldenrod, Bumblebees and Crickets and make a show together. I hope this helps shed a warm golden glow on these essential components of the Great Lakes bioregion.

To learn more :
The Asters, Goldenrods and Fleabanes of Grey and Bruce Counties. Owen Sound Field Naturalists, 2000.
Wild Urban Plants of the NorthEast (2nd ed.) by Peter Del Tredici. Cornell University Press, 2020.
Newcomb's Wildflower Guide by Lawrence Newcomb and Gordon Morrison. Little, Brown, 1977.
Stokes Nature Guide to Enjoying Wildflowers by Donald & Lillian Stokes. Little, Brown 1985.
Summer Wildlflowers of the NorthEast by Carol Gracie. Princeton University Press, 2020.
NorthEast Medicinal Plants by Liz Neeves. Timber Press, 2020.
The Book of … Field and Roadside by John Eastman and Amelia Hansen. Stackpole Books, 2003.

Sisters Alex and Tasha Sawatzky’s knowledge of and growing appreciation for the land they lived on was tangible and real, so how could they tell the stories of the species they were coming to know and love, while also countering the dread of our modern world? They decided to start Minnow, a magazine about ecology, conservation and all sorts of species we share a home with.

This magazine project has become a bit of a community space for the sisters and others to write of their own knowledge and care for the land, inviting in readers to deepen their own sense of connection and community with the other-than-human world. There are articles cover the gamut of interesting and sometimes threatened species in the Great Lakes region, including Redside Dace, Piping Plover, Hart’s Tongue Fern, and the lovely Chimney Swift.

With two issues launched, and a third underway, Minnow has become a bit of a deal amidst friends of mine who are intimately involved with the land. I had to do an interview to learn more. And big thanks to Nava for bridging the gap.

To learn more :
Minnow Magazine instagram page
Minnow Magazine website with ordering info
Minnow Magazine mailing list

Sight is the dominant sense in humans, followed close behind by hearing and perhaps touch. Many of us have cut ourselves off from the natural world by “gating” our senses, only using what is needed to navigate an urbanized, mechanical, constructed and conditioned environment, and we end up isolating ourselves, and leaving the more than human world behind.

In times of ecological, political, and climate horror, I wonder at how we can remain connected with the wilder places we love? How do we engage with the land with all of our bodies and minds, working and practicing the gifts we have inherited from millions of years of evolution?

To learn more :
Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm by Stephen Harrod Buhner. Bear & Company, 2014.Reconnecting with Nature by Micheal J Cohen, Ed. D. Ecopress, 1997.
Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram. Vintage, 1997.

An ancient plant of the genus Equisetum, (the only extent genera of the family Equisetaceae, and only living member of the order Equisetales), Horsetails are some of the most primitive of fern species, being closely related to the Calamites of the Carboniferous era some three hundred million years ago.

Inspired by a fun workshop I got to host, along with such an amazing history of evolution though incredible cataclysmic epochs, chock full of climate upheaval, I really wanted to learn more about these amazing plants. Many of the Equisetum genera are now extinct yet there are about 9 species in my area, and of the species which persist in the area, I will be focusing mostly on Rough Horsetail.

I hope you enjoy the show.

To learn more :
Michigan Ferns & Lycophytes by Daniel D. Palmer. University of Michigan Press, 2018.
Ferns, Spikemosses, Clubmosses, and Quillworts of Eastern North America by Emily B. Sessa. Princeton University Press, 2024.
Peterson Field Guide to Ferns by Boughton Cobb. Houghton Mifflin, 1963.
The Flora of Wellington County by Richard Frank and Allan Anderson. Wellington Historical Society, 2009.
A Natural History of Ferns by Robbin C. Moran. Timber Press, 2004.

Grey Treefrogs (Hyla versicolor) are my favorite frog species at the moment. They are cute little colour changing, antifreeze laden, Lichen-Spirits who really belt it out when trying to find a date. I have been hearing them pretty much nightly lately, screaming their short trill all over nearly every wetland I encounter as long as it is fairly adjacent to trees. Because of their powerful calls permeating my late night waking life, I have been wanting to take a deeper dive. Hope you enjoy!

To learn more :

The Dermal Chromatophore Unit by Joseph T. Bagnara, John D. Taylor and Mac E. HadleyMetamorphosis by Peter B. Mills. Self-published, 2016.
Energetics of vocalization by an anuran amphibian (Hyla versicolor) Taigen, T.L., Wells, K.D. J Comp Physiol B 155, 163–170 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00685209
Familiar Amphibians & Reptiles of Ontario by Bob Johnson. Natural Heritage, 1989.Reptiles and Amphibians of Toronto : Biodiversity Series pamphlet (pdf)
Amphibians and Reptiles of the Great Lakes Region by James H. Harding & David A. Mifsud. University of Michigan Press, 2017.
After the Ice Age by E. C. Pielou. University of Chicago Press, 1991.

It started with a little hole at the base of an Eastern White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis) tree, and a couple of seeds. Who had collected and consumed the contents of the seeds? What about the feathers? And the boney remnants of bill?

Join me as I go deep down a Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) hole.

To learn more :
Mammal Tracks and Sign by Mark Elbroch and Casey McFarland. Stackpole Books, 2019.
Natural History of Canadian Mammals by Donna Naughton. Canadian Museum of Nature and University of Toronto Press, 2012.
Bird Feathers by David Scott and Casey McFarland. Stackpole Books, 2010.
Animal Skulls by Mark Elbroch. Stackpole Books, 2006.

I have been excited about Song Sparrows (Melospiza melodia) for a while. Theirs was one of the first complex songs I learned to identify, and being such a common neighbour on the landscape it’s hard to go a few days without hearing them, even in Winter, but especially in the Spring.
While out today, I came across a couple Song Sparrow tracks in the silt newly laid down by the receding Eramosa River flood waters and it pricked my interest to dig in a little deeper to this common figure in my life.

To learn more :
Song Sparrow tracks on Inaturalist
Bird Tracks and Sign by Mark Elbroch and Eleanor Marks. Stackpole Books, 2001.
Bird Song : Identification Made Easy by Ernie Jardine. Natural Heritage, 1996.
Peterson Field Guide to North American Bird Nests by Casey McFarland, Mathew Monjello & David Moskowitz. HMH, 2021.
Baby Bird Identification : A North American Guide by Linda Tuttle-Adams. Cornell University Press, 2022.Birds of Forest, Yard, & Thicket by John Eastman. Stackpole Books, 1997.

I have found sign of three dead White-tailed Deer in the past three weeks. One, killed by Coyotes. Another, hit by a vehicle, found on the side of the highway. And also, I found a White-tailed Deer leg while trailing a Coyote. All of these encounters have been teaching me a lot about the legs of the deer and I wanted to look a little bit deeper into these moments, and to share the stories.

I go on to detail what I have been learning about the legs, especially in the context of the hind legs, about the glands located there. Of course, you can read the blog post, or you can learn a little bit more from listening to the show.

Enjoy!

To learn more:
Glands on a White-tailed Deer Leg blog post
The Deer of North America by Leonard Lee Rue III. The Lyons Press, 1997.
Deer (The Wildlife Series, Book 3) edited by Duane Gerlach, Sally Atwater & Judith Schnell. Stackpole Books, 1995.
Deer of the Southwest by James R. Heffelfinger. Texas A&M University Press, 2006.
Biology and Management of White-tailed Deer Edited by David G. Hewitt. CRC Press, 2011.
What The Toes Show - A question of deer hooves - another blog post
Mammal Tracks and Sign by Mark Elbroch and Casey McFarland. Stackpole Books, 2019.

Fishers aren’t known as an urban adapted species. They tend to avoid our built up landscapes and prefer landscapes of mature forests comprised of appropriate denning habitat such as old trees with cavities and lots of course woody debris (think of big piles of dead branches and fallen logs), characteristics not usually found in urban forests. Because of this Fishers avoid our cities… or so we thought.

Sage Raymond is a researcher who studies urban adapted Coyotes in Edmonton. While out checking some trail cams intended to catch Coyotes on the landscape, she happened across a Fisher trail in the snow, in a small wooded area along the North Saskatchewan River. Later confirmed with footage from one of the remote cameras, Sage realized that this was a very unusual circumstance. Thankfully she wrote a paper about it and I had to read it, and, again, thankfully, she agreed to talk about her findings on the show. There is a link to the paper below.

To learn more:
Ep. 159 : Tracking Urban Adapted Coyote Ecologies with Sage Raymond
Sage Raymond’s Research Gate profile
Sage Raymond’s instagram
Fisher Use of an Ecological Corridor Near the City Center of Edmonton, Canada, A City of Over One Million People by Sage Raymond and Colleen Cassady St. Clair. Urban Naturalist, No. 77 (2025).

Pictorial Guide of Important Fisher Habitat Structures in British Columbia (pdf)

As I mentioned on the previous show about the Lynx trailing trip, I was planning on heading up to Algonquin Park to trail Moose, Algonquin Wolves, Martens, Snowshoe Hare, Flying Squirrels, and whomever else’s trails we may come across. Well, I went and it was great. So good that I wanted to offer a bit of a report back from the trip and tell some stories of what we saw.

This is the 24th year of this trip, and I am so grateful to get to not only be there, but to be helping lead the week. Kid me would be stoked… hell, adult me is still stoked!

Big thanks to Alexis for being a great colleague and mentor, and to everyone who came. It was a blast.

To learn more :
Algonquins of Ontario overview of land claim
More information on the trip from EarthTracks.ca