Ontario Nature Blog

I frequently visit the Carden Plain Important Bird Area in the Kawarthas to photograph the many birds that pass through there during spring and fall migration. Having read that it was difficult to photograph the eastern loggerhead shrike – a critically endangered species in Canada – I was intrigued by a captive breeding and release program ...

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Don’t look now; the Ontario government is quietly doing a hatchet job on environmental protection. Under the guise of Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) “transformation” and achieving a “balance” we are witnessing a period of rapid environmental deregulation. Speaking truth to power, Environmental Commissioner of Ontario Gord Miller blasted the government today for absconding from ...

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It’s almost Halloween. Pumpkins abound and spooky decorations are showing-up everywhere. As a bat biologist, I enjoy seeing bats hanging from front yard trees and porch lights this time of year. But as you may have heard, all is not well with our bats. Populations in eastern North America are experiencing up to 95 percent ...

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This summer, my team and I met with landowners, cottagers and visitors on the Bruce to dispel myths about the maligned Massasauga rattlesnake. We didn’t expect people to fall in love with rattlers, but we hoped they would come to appreciate and help protect them. After all, rattlers are as much a part of the ...

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Most people try to avoid encounters with venomous reptiles, but that wasn’t the case for the team of Ontario Nature staff that I accompanied to the Saugeen-Bruce Peninsula last week. These herpetologists and avid naturalists ventured fearlessly across tall-grass meadows, forest clearings and rocky beaches in search of Sistrurus catenatus, commonly known as the Massasauga ...

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