Follow our adventures living in the woods and meeting wild ones. Check out Gerry the ruffed grouse, our hiking buddy, and watch Makwa the black bear as he grows up! This year we’re talking about pollinators and their host plants.
Dear Wood Folk, In Ontario, monarchs are presently (as of 2021) of “special concern”, not endangered or threatened as they are in some areas. On our side of the Rockies they are doing okay, but they’re not out of danger. The largest threat to Ontario monarchs is habitat loss at overwintering sites in central Mexico …
Dear Wood Folk, Did you know that only recently the native common milkweed plant was removed from our governments official noxious weeds list? This is the host plant of the monarch butterfly caterpillar (an endangered species). /Facepalm. There’s far too much anti-bug and even anti-“weed” sentiment out there. But the sentiment is changing – hopefully. …
Dear Wood Folk, The vireo I see most around Haliburton county is the red-eyed (vireo olivaceus). I usually see the blue-headed vireo a couple times per year too. (Here are both in one of our Instagram posts!) iNat sightings here mirror this frequency. As I write this, one person besides myself has spotted and reported …
Dear Wood Folk, Around Haliburton, Ontario we have a few mimids/”mimic” birds. There’s the brown thrasher, which sometimes gets mistaken for a woodpecker or roadrunner. There’s the northern mockingbird, which I’ve yet to see, and has only been recorded once on iNat for Haliburton county. And there’s this slate-colored mimic called the gray catbird (dumetella …
Dear Wood Folk, Once in a while I see a meme about telling sparrows apart that has drawings of their heads with their different color patterns – super helpful really. There’s a flycatcher version. Except in the flycatchers case they just copy/pasted the same drab head for each one. It’s a joke, but it’s kind …
Dear Wood Folk, The song sparrow (melospiza melodia) is the sparrow I most often spot and especially hear around Haliburton. But I’ve seen 8 species of sparrows, listed here in order of my own frequency: our feature song sparrow, white-throated (zonotrichia albicollis), chipping (spizella passerina), dark-eyed junco (junco hyemalis), fox sparrow (passerella iliaca), American tree …