By ANN BROKELMAN This winter, and now continuing into the spring, I have discovered the joy of using trail and inside cameras. For the longest time, our dog, Rory, would be sitting on his ottoman by the front windows and would tell us, better described as ‘losing his mind while howling’, whenever we had a […]
By ANN BROKELMAN What a winter this one has been! One day it felt like -20 with the wind chill and the next I’m driving with the windows down . I’ve certainly taken advantage of the warmer days to get out more often and observe some local animals’ winter behaviour. A few weeks ago I […]
By ANN BROKELMAN What strange weather we are having. One day it is +5 and the next it’s -15! Does it do this every year, and we just forget? I can’t prove this isn’t just my biased memory, but I honestly don’t remember it changing this dramatically when I was growing up. Well, not only […]
By ANN BROKELMAN Wednesday, Nov. 27 was a cool, sunny, and beautiful day without any snow on the ground. I used the nice weather as an excuse to get outside, walk through three of my favourite places, and look for inspiration for my next article. My day started at the Rosetta McClain Garden Hawk Watch, […]
By ANN BROKELMAN In this article, I’d like to bring up the dangers of fishing line, sports netting, and other loose garbage to our local wildlife. The first question that comes up is usually: is this stuff really that dangerous/problematic? Does the media just take one or two bad pictures every year and make it […]
By ANN BROKELMAN Well, summer sure left us in a hurry this year! It was the first of October, it was cool, and the winds were blowing something fierce. As an optimist, I try to remember that, while I may not like all types of weather, there will always be an animal that will take […]
By ANN BROKELMAN This summer I became a crazy butterfly lady. After having knee surgery in July, and almost immediately getting cabin fever because of my limited walking, I decided to try raising monarch and black swallowtail butterflies. What started as, what I thought would be, a quick learning curve for a small scale science […]
By ANN BROKELMAN Here’s a quick story about a little animal we often hear, but rarely see. One day, while I was looking for shorebirds and herons, I saw a beautiful plant, who’s name I couldn’t tell you for the life of me, which caught my attention and brought me over to it for a […]
By ANN BROKELMAN Have you recently sat in your yard and just listened to all the songs being sung? Maybe it’s too hard to really remember and compare summer to summer, but I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard so many birds in my yard. Even my husband, Erle, asked if we’ve been having more […]
By ANN BROKELMAN I have spent the last 10 days watching all sorts of animals and birds on Prince Edward Island, but it was the foxes that made this a trip to remember. While away I not only saw the red foxes, like the ones we have here in Ontario, but an abundance of the […]
