to know the land

Winter Solstice has returned. Technically it’s in a few days but with the longer nights, it’s certainly being felt. This year I have been out tracking, indoor climbing and baking up a storm at home. It’s been a lovely, snowy descent into the dark.

Again, like last year, I have been reading, writing, listening to a lot of film soundtracks and watching silly movies. But I also try to make space for the reverence. Of course, this comes through the tracking, learning and sharing naturalist knowledge, and spending quality time outside, but I also celebr...

While out tracking in the new snow the other day I came across some relatively small tracks, reminiscent of a Chipmunk (Tamias striatus) or Red Squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), though small enough to be a Short-tailed Weasel (Mustela ermina). It took a second before I recognized them as Southern Flying Squirrel (Glaucomys volans) tracks.

I have been encountering Southern Flying Squirrels in various ways for a few years, including tracks, scat, feeding sign, live sightings, and I even pet one once, but through all of this, I didn’t know much about them. Hence, inspired by my recent tr...

While tracking White-tailed Deer at Mono Cliffs with the Earth Tracks apprenticeship, we saw lots of signs of the rut and the subtle ways deer communicate. We studied three main signs: scrapes, rubs and lick branches. Together, these clues form a multisensory language of scent, sight, and even ultraviolet signals that share details of identity, territory, and mating readiness. These clues along the trail are a real insight into how deer express themselves across the landscape in ways most of us overlook.

To learn more :
Ep. 256 : Apple Scat of Coyotes and Red Fox<...

I have missed a few of the notable migrations this year; Salamanders, raptors, and until yesterday, the Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). The salmon are a unique one on this list for me though, special in a strange kind of way. Firstly, fish and I never sat well until I got to know the salmon. They changed how I saw all fish species, and now instead of a feeling of ick, I get a wonder, awe and reverence. Secondly, this migration back to the homeplaces of the individual salmon, while bringing the promise of future life, also means imminent death...

It isn’t often that I get to see bear scat down here in Guelph, but in Parry Sound, there are many Black Bears, and while visiting the Sound for a trailing workshop, we came across some of their scat.

For me, it was an event. A highlight of the weekend visit with friends and practicing our trailing together as a crew. Black Bears are pretty majestic, if that’s the right word, and carry a weight, beyond their materiality, in my imagination of what is “wild”. Even if we don’t get to see the bear, their scat...

I am in love with Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) and I want shout all about it throughout the late Summer, early Autumn season. They are big, beautiful, and bountiful with their tennis ball sized fruit with bright green husks and nuts snug deep inside.

Slowly colonizing the sunlit fields and edges, home to all sorts of creatures both large and small, these towering monuments tell of the abundance of the land. They are amazing allies in healing, mentors in boundaries, relative buffet in mast years, and year round marker of beauty. Who doesn’t want to sing th...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 le...

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...

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 Fish...

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 we...

I have had a lot of conversations with biologists and ornithologists over the years, trying to learn about how different animals sleep. Are the functions of sleep in humans similar to similar animals? What about different kinds of animals, like insects, or birds?

More recently I have seen the Canada Geese along the Eramosa River where I live, standing or sitting still on the frozen river and wondered what’s up with the one-legged standing? When I got to thinking about birds resting, roosting and sleeping, I realized that I had a bunch of questions. Sometimes a bo...

I just got home from an amazing week away up North in Elk Lake, Ontario, Robinson-Huron treaty territory, trailing Lynx with Earth Tracks. It was an amazing time and I had a ton of fun. We trailed Lynx for days, as well as get on some trails of other animals including Peromyscus mice, Short and Long-tailed Weasels, Marten, Snowshoe Hares, Fisher, Grey Wolves, Moose, and more. There are so many stories to tell and so much to integrate over the next few weeks, but I wanted to share some highlights of these weeklong tracking expeditions.

I am...

I was out for a walk along the Eramosa River in Guelph with a pal on New Years Day, when she lifted a log and showed me some strange white patches along it. We both recognized them from our walk a couple of days before. I guessed by the appearance of them, being small, white and silken-like, with many around, that they were likely egg cases of some small invertebrate, but I didn’t know who may have made them. I also wasn’t certain about egg case, but it seemed a likely guess.

White, circular with a th...

It is nearing the Winter Solstice once more. Only days to go, and that means with the dark nights growing longer, I am spending a little more time indoors. I have been baking, reading, writing, listening to a lot of film soundtracks and just relaxing with friends.

This time of year also means the recurring celebrations of the solstice season are upon us again. Story telling, big fires, sharing food and giving gifts are big this time of year. More pertinent to the show though is the rebroadcast of the 1985 radio play by Alison McLeay “So...

I spent the day out tracking, first with a class backtracking a Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) and examining the track patterns and interpreting their gaits, an afterwards, alone, following up a possible Fisher (Pekania pennanti) sighting, and instead finding a Coyote (Canis latrans) bed and trailing them through a rough hewn White Pine (Pinus strobus) plantation. I got to thinking about gifts that are the tracks which are left behind without consideration of how the tracker might feel or what we may want out of the experience. I was struck by awe and wonder when I came...

In 2017 I interviewed Arlene Slocombe for the second time but the first time it was recorded. She was telling the story of a successful event, “Waterstock” where thousands of people came out to support Water Watchers and raise awareness of exploitive water drawing in Wellington county to be sold as bottled water. The harm to the watershed, the incredible amount of plastic garbage, another corporation not listening to their neighbours resounding “No!”, it was the continuation of a bad relationship between, at the time, Nestle, and the people of the county.

Blue Triton was formed when two private...

In the later part of the Summer, I was walking with my friend and colleague Tamara when we came across some scat with Apples (Malus domestica) in it. I can’t remember what brought it up but she mentioned that she has seen more scats composed mostly of Apple left by Coyotes (Canis latrans) rather than by Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes). This got me wondering.. who eats more Apples, Coyotes or Red Foxes? This question began a weird hook in my mind, and everytime I noticed Apples, Apple based scat, Coyote scat or Red Fox scat, the qu...

Listening to the land, in a very tangible way, can lead to some pretty special moments. Whether it is Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapilus) scolding an Eastern Screech Owl (Megascaups asio), hearing the thunder heralding a powerful storm, or the waves washing up on the beach, the land speaks to us through sound in thousands of ways. We just have to stop and listen.

To wake up early and walk only a few feet to track on the chilly morning beach is a gift. To spend time connecting with one of my brothers while connecting with...

Aside of our human cultural space there is the broad other-than human animal place. A world we exist along with, and yet are still achingly removed from. This wilder edge is always calling out, audibly and silently, with gesture, scent, behaviour and sound. George Bumann has been practicing paying attention to this world in ways that I long to.

In his new book, Eavesdropping On Animals : What we can learn from wildlife conversations, George shares stories and studies which reveal and inspire would be listeners to hear what that imminently natural world is always already...

As Julie Beeler writes, it wasn’t until 1969 that fungi were taxonomically separated from plants and recognized as inhabiting their own kingdom. There is so much that we do not understand about their taxonomy, their natural history, their functions in their ecosystem, or their medicinal values. With all that we do not know, Julie Beeler’s amazing work, set on paper as the Mushroom Color Atlas draws a clear path towards understanding the possible tones and timbres of colour and shade which we can pull from some of members of this vast kingdom.

The Mushroom Color Atlas show...

While teaching up at the Lodge at Pine Cove this past weekend we came across lots of tracks and sign. Tons of Sawfly (wasplike insects) cocoons, some leaf miners, galls a plenty, Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus) holes and feeding sign, Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) and Moose (Alces alces) scat and lots more. But there was one bit of sign that was really annoying me… something I wasn’t sure about. There were mussel shells laying about all along the rivers edge. Along the beach, the rocky cove, and all across the depths of the French River. They had...

For the last couple of years, I have been going to Pawpaw Fest which my friend and neighbour Matt Soltys organizes. Matt Soltys, for those listeners who don’t know yet, is The Urban Orchardist. He teaches me about fruit and nut trees and I help him try and sort out which insects are leaving their sign on the trees.

But back to the point… Pawpaws. Asimina triloba. A fruit with a comeback story. Have you tried one yet? I bet most folks listening have. They are growing more and more, both literally on the...

Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) is a very common, very attractive and conspicuous species on the landscape. We see them often and are probably pretty familiar with the flowers, fruit and form. I see them down by the river, in the understory of thick forests, and sometimes on the edge of wet meadows. I have also been hanging out with them recently in areas which can be called “post-industrial wastelands”; lands where industry has so polluted and harmed that there are still pollutants and chemicals wrapped up in the soil. But still the Jewelweed thrives.

For this episode, like most...

As an aspiring wildlife tracker I want to know about the signs that animals leave behind. Due to my annoyingly excitable curiosity this includes all animals, and all types of sign. This includes the regurgitated masses of undigested food that makes up a bird pellet.

When it comes to pellets, I have found a couple before. Some full of hair, assorted skulls and other bones, feather parts and even a couple full of seed husks from plants. But when it comes to sorting out who left these pellets behind, there is an extraordinary lack of...

While looking into possible Red Wolf (Canis rufus) genetics found in a Coastal Louisiana Coyote (Canis latrans) populations, biologist Dr. Joseph Hinton set a trap. Sadly, when a Coyote, later named LA25M was caught in this trap, his leg was irreversibly damaged. Joe decided to bring this Coyote to a vet and get the leg amputated, an unusual procedure when working with study animals, but possibly better than euthanizing the canid. Shortly after the surgery, the LA25M was released with a radio collar and monitored to determine his use of territories. Turns out this Coyote did quite...

Every year I get the privilege of co-leading a spiritual retreat weekend with the wonderful Greg Kennedy at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre. This year we revamped the “Trees” retreat from a couple of years ago and I switched it up, including a talk on Friday night on “What is a Forest : Of exclusion and of Community”.

This wasn’t a talk about a particular ecosystem necessarily. Instead it was an exploration of the shady history of the word and concept of “forest”, The first English use of the word forest doesn’t describe a specific ecozone; instead it was the place...

I have been feeling a little bit distant lately. Like some sort of anxious attachment distant. Avoidant even. While trying to not be too clingy or handsy with the land, I have slipped into a disconnection, being one that just observes but doesn’t participate in the ways that brought me into relationship with so many plants in the first place. I have been feeling this disconnect, and recognizing something had to be done. Then along comes Red Clover.

After attending a workshop on edible and medicinal plants I felt called by the Red Cl...

In the midst of a lowland forest at the edge of town, out for a slow walk with a pal, we heard the calls of Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) and started looking for them. We saw them first in an Eastern White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis) tree, as they were quickly making their way towards the South. Then when we turned a corner we got to witness some courting behaviours which somehow reached deep and woke me from a slow low mood I was in.

Sometimes Cedar Waxwings are regarded as a “just a..” bird. “It’s just a Cedar...

For the past few years I have been going out at night in May to record the calls of American Toads (Anaxyrus americanus) and Leopard Frogs (Lithobates pipiens) by the Eramosa River. I used to live much closer to the river and I could hear the songs from my window at night. When I heard those songs, I knew it was time to go record, and that the radio show that week was going to be the calls of the Anurans.

The problem was that lately, it has been pretty quiet on the home front. Maybe it...

The Eramosa River Valley is the place where I live, play and work. Having spent roughly the last 20 years along the banks of the river, sitting, running, riding, and learning about the lives lived along the shores and walls, there are many days where I just sit back and realize how much I love this place.

When I heard about a group of folks who were working to conserve the land as a national urban park, I admit I got a little wary. Who were they? Do they care about this place as much as...

This past weekend I got to participate in my second track and sign evaluation with Tracker Certification North America and one of the most interesting things I learned was some new Earthworm sign which triggered the thought… I really don’t know much about Earthworms (class Oligochaeta), but I want to start digging in.

I ended up crawling through all of my books to see what I had on the topic, but there wasn’t much. A couple paragraphs here, a photo or two there, but there was enough to tickle my curiosity. They are a slip...

I have been thinking a lot about the diversity of sexuality and gender in nature. Wondering about how different animals, plants, and fungi present sexually. How do different species mate? What characteristics are considered belonging to one sex, but in reality, may be shared by many sexes? Many sexes? How many are there? Why do some species have thousands of sexes, and some species only have one?

Maxwell Matchim (they/them) has been asking some similar questions but through a different lens, thinking “about the ways in which Trans people exist between worlds, much like amphibians. The wa...

When I look into the authors who wrote most of the naturalist, ecology, natural history books on my shelves, I mostly see white people, especially the older books. When I do interviews with folks in the field, I still find a majority of those who I am talking with are white folks. I wholly recognize that is on me in a lot of ways, but I also recognize that historically, access to these fields has been gatekept by and for white folks, mostly men.

When I come across initiatives that challenge that dynamic, I get stoked. When...

Ok, so this is weird, but I love death.

Dying, decay, decomposition, breakdown.. synonyms that sort of warm my heart in a strange kinda way. When I think of death I think of nutrients breaking down into small parts, making it easier for other things to consume and to continue to grow and live. I think of how death makes all life possible. How without consuming things like veggies, grains, fruits, mushrooms, and maybe even meats, all things which were once alive, we could never live. I am grateful to death so that I may live. I...

This passed weekend I was able to go out tracking with folks at Wiijindamaan where I once again notice the Poplar Vagabond Aphid Gall. And last week, I was having another conversation with folks about the Spruce Pineapple Adelgid Gall. Galls persist through the Winter and into Spring when many of the insects which have created them will begin to emerge.

Since now is the time to be keeping an eye out for the insect emergences, I figured I would share my excitement for these two galls. Not only are they beautiful and unusual, but they also...

Did you know that birds are more closely related to turtles, than turtles are to snakes? I just learned that. Did you know that the scutes on a turtle’s back are made from keratin, the same stuff as our fingernails and Rhinoceros horns? Just learned that one too. Even better, do you know what cloacal breathing is? I bet you do… but how does it work? That’s some of the interesting stuff I got to ask naturalist, author and educator Kyle Horner recently when we spoke about his new book Turtles of North America out now on Firefl...

I just got home from Algonquin Park. I got the privilege to spend the past week tracking Wolves, Moose, Martens, Grouse, Flying Squirrels, and so many other creatures throughout the length of the park. We woke up at 6am every morning and were out by 7, scouting for new trails. When were were through with our day we came back to hit the books and share stories of all that we’d seen. It was magical, inspiring and motivating. Restful as much as exhausting.

One animal I spent some time learning about over the week was the Pine Si...

It’s that time of year again, when the animals are getting out and getting down. While driving home the other day I drove past a forest where I had once trailed a part of courting Coyotes (Canis latrans) and realized that now is the time we will be seeing these courting behaviours. I had written about them before, but it was worth revisiting as it will likely be coming up on the land, and in my classes.

As I had written before:

“Getting the chance to follow along and watch the intimate live...

We had just crossed over from the thick White Cedar forest into a little more spacious deciduous forest, when, in a very unassuming tone, a friend called us over to check out some tracks. I don’t know if he realized at first how cool the trail he had just found was, but as we stepped off of the path and looked down at the tracks everyone leaned in a little closer, and our voices started to ring with a little more excitement. Our colleague had found a Fisher trail.

Once again I have been inspired by th...

s we get ready for the longest night of the year, it’s also a time to celebrate traditions and set our sights for the new year with the rebirth of the Sun.

Making radio for me also holds traditions embedded within the episodes. Every Solstice I dig into the archives and pull out a rebroadcast which was originally aired December 21st, 1985 at 10:30pm on the BBC. And now, for the 6th year in a row, I get to broadcast one of my favorite pieces of radio. Step aside War of the Worlds or Gunsmoke (bo...

You know when there is someone kicking around the party whom you recognize, maybe even say hello to, but you just don’t know that well? Or perhaps you two have been acquainted for a while but something comes up and that gets you talking a little more intimately? I feel like that with Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor). I wanted to try my hand at foraging and creating some medicine, but really I needed to read up on what others have sorted out before I prepare anything for ingestion. To learn more, listen to the show.

Here ar...

If you didn’t know already, I work at an outdoor school doing place-based, or nature-based education. Through this work I have come to know many people who have challenged and supported me to grow and to learn more about the complex relationships that exist within this field of work. How do we aim to teach about a land which has been occupied through theft, displacement, war, and genocide? How can we say we work towards loving relationships with ourselves, with each other and the land when this is the past and present reality of the place we inhabit an...

My room, my house, my bags are all full of books, twigs, fruits, feathers, seeds, nuts, and bits of mushrooms this time of year. So too my stomach, my dreams, and my heart. My bedroom is littered with naturalist books and books of fairy tales and myths which I pull out and read before I turn out the light. I love the folk tales because if you read them in the right light, they share stories of relationships with the land from before christian colonization. For me, of european descent, this gives insight to how my ancestors may have...

Every big mast year for Black Walnuts (Juglans nigra) I like to harvest a ton of them and then process them for both the husks and the nutmeat inside. While the nutmeats are very troublesome to access it is getting easier as I learn which tools are better than others, and the food value is totally worth it. As for the husks, it’s pretty easy to rip or cut them off of the nut. This year, as in previous years as well, there has been a small ethical dilemma which has come up when using the husks for dy...

A week ago, I got to join the Field Botanists of Ontario on a field trip to the Dufferin County Forest Main Tract site for a mushroom I.D. walk. We saw all sorts of different mushrooms and had a ton of fun.

Scattered in the back of the Main tract there are many American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) trees. Some tall, some small, but they are there amidst the Red Oaks (Quercus rubra) and Sugar Maples (Acer saccharum). If you look close at the branches of these Beech trees you'll find little white fluffy insects dancing about in...

Lichens been a draw for me for the last few years. When it comes to a diversity of lifeforms coming together in a fungal structure to draw down nutrients from the atmosphere, to beautify a landscape, to feed some of the largest land mammals down to sheltering some of the smallest arthropods, I’m hooked.

For many of us, the problem has been where to start, how to get into the lichens, how to identify them and how and where do we learn what roles and functions these forms of life have on the land?

In...

Last Thursday a call came over the radio at work. “I just want to let everyone know that there are two Walking Sticks mating on the tent”. I can’t really remember what I was doing with the students at the time, but we all dropped everything and made our way, some faster than others. I had seen a couple of Walking Sticks over the Summer, but realized, while jogging through the forest on my way to see these two going at it, that I knew very little about the life cycles, ecology and overall natural history of this specie...

Animal Forms is a project is all about empathy, about remembering how to be in connection with the other-than-human world. As Miki asks, “aims to explore how we (humans) can imagine ourselves in the place of the other people we share our planet with. How might our thoughts and actions change if we practiced seeing the world through another's eyes?”

Miki Tamblyn has created a project where folks can practice being an other-than-human animal. What does that look like? We are invited to sit in the woods by ourselves with a mask, a journal and pen, a came...

In some circles, reciprocate is the new “sustainable”, a hot word which implies a lot but isn’t always doing what we might imagine. But how can we try to actually live up to, and create the reciprocity, the giving back and forth, to that and those who give us so much?

For me, Moth Garden feels like a project trying to demonstrate reciprocity in a real, tangible, replicable ways. Christina Kingsbury and Lisa Hirmer have been researching, planting, growing and shaping a garden with an intention of creating sensory worlds for/of the more-than-human, nourishing spaces plante...

A couple of days after my recent interview discussing Mulberries with Matt Soltys, the Arboretum at the University of Guelph shared a couple of posts on instagram about the Red Mulberry Recovery Program where researchers are looking into how to identify, propagate, and eventually distribute Red Mulberries (Morus rubra) to their partners (mostly conservation organizations). They are also trying educating the public on how the White or Asian Mulberries (Morus alba) can be detrimental to conservation of the Red Mulberries. Immediately I wrote to them to try and set up and interview.

Some of the same questions...

I have had a long curiosity regarding Water Hemlock (Cicuta maculata) ever since I had heard of them. Perhaps the most toxic plant on Turtle Island/North America. Of course I would be enamoured! I misidentified them for a couple of years thinking I knew who they were, but it wasn’t until the past four or five years that I began taking a closer look, seeking them out, learning the lore, and reading the sometimes sparse literature on the plant. This show is an effort to collect my thoughts and learning, and to make the recent blog post, wh...

The Serviceberry (Amelanchier spp.) is a widely distributed edible fruit tree which fills my heart as much as my belly. It’s just sweet enough, with berries just big enough, just in reach to make me so happy to come across. Sometimes we happen upon them wandering through the woods, sometimes we go visit our favourite individuals, sometimes we make detailed extensive maps of every tree the city has planted… or maybe I just do that.

To eat something builds relationship in a very particular way, which I appreciate, especially when that edible is shared by many spec...

Mulberries are a well known and popular wild urban edible that a lot of foragers come to know early in the development of the craft. They are easily identifiable, taste great, and prolific in urban and peri-urban environments which means lots of people can get to know them. Not only are there an abundant of Mulberry trees out there, each fruit producing tree makes buckets of fruit that litter the sidewalks for a month if the birds, squirrels, Raccoons and humans don’t get at them first. And while Mulberries don’t seem like a political focal point in the...

In the previous post I mentioned that I had been watching a specific Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana, or the Anishnaabemowin name asasawemin) looking at Eastern Tent Caterpillar (Malacosoma americanum) egg masses and how the caterpillars had emerged. I ended up taking a closer look at the Chokecherry in the days following as my interest had been piqued.

Chokecherry is a role model. How can we be in good relationship with so many different life forms, transform degraded and barren anthropogenic landscapes in preparation for new life? Yes, there is a note of caution to be had, an awareness...

The car broke down on our way to visit my mum. My brother and I got out of the car, and while he researched how to change the alternator, I went behind the vacant garage where we parked the inoperable vehicle. When I explored to the far back of the lot I was grateful to find a small wetland, thriving with tons of species. Trees, tall and low shrubs, and understory thick with both native and non-native, aggressive opportunistic plants vying for life. I was totally impressed and appreciated this wild oasis in the midst of an annoying happenstance. <...

Lately a lot of folks I know have been finding Morels (Morchella spp.) in and around the city where I live. Possibly one of the most prized edible fungi on the planet, everyone seems very excited to bring them home and cook them into an ephemeral dish. If I find a bunch I may do the same, but until then I wanted to look into this amazing fruiting body a little bit more.

It wasn’t long ago that I assumed that this genus was just one or two individual species. Turns out I was incorrect. I ha...

I was out with a couple of friends the evening before. We’d been thoroughly engaged listening to the painfully loud calls of the Spring Peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) when I pointed out an Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna) call to one of my pals. He pulled out his phone and got on the Merlin App to try and id the call a little better. Lo and behold, on the list of birds included in his immediate recorded was a Sora (Porzana carolina)! Now, Soras aren’t too rare, or too interesting to many, but they are a bird I have neve...

Cardinals, Blue Jays, Robins, Mourning Doves, Mallards, Black-capped Chickadees. Quite common and familiar birds most folks seem to know. One of the reasons is that they have very distinct patterning and physical traits that render them easily identifiable. Even some of the Sparrows can be differentiated by a slightly advanced beginner.

Flycatchers? They can be tough. When I see a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (Empidonax flaviventris) in the woods, despite being one of the more recognizable, determinable Empidonax species, I am still left uncertain, full of doubt and just generally end up calling it a Flycatcher.

But...

Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) are always exciting to see. However ubiquitous or plentiful they may be on the land, it is always a gift to observe them circling and soaring overhead. I have been noting their behaviours for a few years now, trying to catch a glimpse whenever I can. A couple of years ago I watched a pair eager to find out if they were nesting in the valley I walk or ride on my way into work. I never did find that nest, but I hoped I would in the future.

On Monday, a colleague...

When you want to get to know someone, you listen to the stories they have to share. We might ask some questions once in a while, but mostly we watch and listen and that’s how we learn more about who they are and how they exist in the world. We might go visit them in their spaces and ask more questions, like why do they hang out in a particular space more than another? Slowly we start to build a deeper understanding and awareness of who this someone is, and usually, deeper connection.

Listening to...

Recently while tracking a Fisher (Pekania pennanti) in Algonquin Park we encountered a large galloping trail that had a long stride length of 106 cm (41¾ in). This was about 28 cm (10 in) longer than what is recorded in Mark Elbroch's “Mammal Tracks and Sign” (Stackpole, 2019). When I finished measuring, I was discussing this extraordinarily long stride with some colleagues. They told me about a National Geographic article, based on a paper about increasing body sizes and range expansion of Fishers in the Northeast. I was immediately interested. When I got home from Algonquin, I looked the paper up. I read the abstr...

Over and over on this podcast (and through the blog) I have spoken to the need to be outdoors and the value for us emotionally, physically, spiritually and socially in participating with the wider wilder world around us. But when these opportunities are interrupted by white-supremacist narratives on who belongs outdoors, the BIPOC Outdoor Gear Library steps up and reminds us that everyone belongs outside!

BIPOC Outdoor Gear Library is a community-based lending library focused on providing access to outdoor equipment for the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) communities of (so-called) Guelph and the surrounding...

Tracker Certification North America is an evaluating body in the field of wildlife tracking and trailing, and so much more. They host evaluations which double as in depth community tracking and trailing training sessions, going deep on the explanations and pointing out how the evaluator can see what they can see. This process encourages dialogue, feedback and reflection, community discussion and a deeper understanding of the trails the animals are leaving behind.

From a tool which was designed by Louis Liebenberg to celebrate and employ ecological knowledge of indigenous trackers in southern Africa (namely the San of...

Cop City is an urban warfare training facility being built on the South side of Atlanta. To construct this sprawling $90 million compound stretching 85 acres, developers are bulldozing a forest. The stated motive for this project was to boost morale of police in the wake of the George Floyd uprisings, which showed that the public in Atlanta and elsewhere had lessening faith in the role of policing in keeping them safe.

I first heard about the Stop Cop City campaign in 2022 when a friend shared the story with me. We were inspired by this campaign that brought together...

Dani Kastelein-Longlade and Amina Lalor along with with guest artists Katherine Rae Diemert and Brenda Mabel Reid have created an inspiring and beautiful exhibition, Journey With Our Kin,  at the Queens Square Idea Exchange gallery in Cambridge Ontario. The exhibition is open until Feb. 5th, 2023.

I got to talk with Dani and Amina about their work at the exhibition, and about how getting to know the lands where we live may interrupt the colonial frameworks we daily navigate. We discuss relationships with the land, the Nokom’s House project we have all been a part of, and abo...

Without much snow so far this winter, my tracking has been shifting towards other sign out on the land. Lately this has been signs on plants, scats, rubs, with a focus on Pileated Woodpecker feeding sign written in the bodies of the trees.

I first noticed this kind of sign along the Bruce trail many years ago, and then again in Algonquin Park. These days, I just see it everywhere, and through sharing what I am noticing with friends, colleagues and students, I am coming to realize that others just aren’t as excited as I am. So...

I have a big affinity for the suburbs (I know, it’s weird), and the Eastern Screech feels like a suburban bird. They hang out along the riparian corridors with the tall older trees, hunting mice, crayfish, songbirds, and whomever else they can catch. I did the same when I grew up in Brampton, Ontario, but instead of mice, crayfish and songbirds, I was hunting for feral Apple (Malus domestica) trees, Wild Grapes (Vitis riparia), and anything else I could eat. I bet there were Screech’s along the Etobicoke Creek, too.

Last year, 2022, on January 4th, I re...

“Wither, wither, black flowering night. May your dark juices bleed, burn up like a pool on the summer plain, shrivel like a stain upon sand, dwindle to a basalt pebble, tiny as a slow-worms eye is. Vanish, to nothing.”

Here we are again, in the deepest of the doom season, yet with light on the way. The rebirth of the Sun. A time for our seasonal celestial celebrations with stories, food and fire. Celebrations to beat back the cold. The winter solstice is such a special time for me these days. I used to get so depressed in the Wint...

It started with a suggestion that I could learn a little about how to differentiate between Canada Yew (Taxus canadensis), Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), and Balsam Fir (Picea balsamifera), but then it turned into a zany rabbit-hole of discovery, confusion and awe.

This episode details a lot of the complicated information I have been coming into while trying to learn more about Canada Yew, and the Yew family, Taxaceae, more broadly. A beautiful family, holding long lines of mythos and medicines. I keep being challenged in my assumptions as I pull the threads of knowledge, and it...

Many of us have been there. You find a nest, you look inside, and there huddled amid the grasses, vines and twigs are small nearly naked nestlings. Maybe the nest isn’t familiar, or soon as you realize it is occupied you get out as fast as you can so as to not disturb.. but later when reviewing some photographs you begin to wonder who is was in the nest?  Or maybe you are a wildlife rehabilitator, and someone calls your team with a baby bird, separated from their kin and they aren’t sure what to do next?

“Fewer ramps per pound means more ramps in the ground”.

Ramps? Wild Leeks? Allium tricoccum? Whatever you call them, they are a type species for foraging and everyone wants to be in relationship with them. Often that means everyone is looking for them and trying to bring some home, or sell them at markets or fine restaurants, sometimes without care or consideration as to what is best for the Ramps themselves. This hasty desire to be in relationship, through foraging and consumption, can lead to dangerous results like overharvesting(1) or even poisoning through misidentification(2). But when we slow...

This episode is a bit of a vulnerable one. I talk about some profound lessons which really impacted me, and shook some of my self image. I also feel a bit exposed by acknowledging I have honestly received some profound lessons from interactions with a dead Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus).

Essentially the show is about theft, and honouring our values & commitments to the world around us, and how we want to be in relationship with those we share this world with and with those whom we teach and mentor. I feel that this story telling is...

Tis’ the season to be considering the concepts of death and decay. We can smell it in the cool wet woods, and we can see it draped across the doorways along our streets. Skeletal trees sway with boney branches scratching at grey skies, and the dark is ever creeping in. Why not celebrate some of the most profound and interesting parties involved in this death and decomposition : Fungi!

This weeks show I zoom in on a game, “Death and Decomposers” to help teach about how essential these factors of life are, as well as the Deadly Galerina (Galeri...

“One of the things we tend to do culturally, the framework is to separate humans from the earth and to see them as two separate entities, rather then seeing that as an interconnected relationship..”

My experience with Memona is that she is all about challenging that feeling of separateness and working towards restoring and remediating that disconnect between the sacred Earth and us humans who may have forgotten it. She has described Ecopsychology in the past as “the area of study that explores the connective, holistic relationship between humans and the Earth,” and her passion really drives that hom...

It’s easy, pretty accessible and turns out to be a lot of fun and often full of learning. A sit spot, or magic spot, or secret spot or whatever else you might call it is simple. Just go find your sit spot, close to home, accessible and easy and then sit there, quietly.

That’s it. The act, or lack of acting really, really pays off. I have a ton of stories of exciting encounters with the world beyond the human. Perhaps it was noticing the infinite detail in Goldenrod (Solidago spp.) flowers, or the diversity of l...

After a delay of a week, Justin Kestler and I got to talk about his new book The Hair Scale Identification Guide to Terrestrial Mammalian Carnivores of Canada. This concise book is a quick guide to interpreting the origin of hairs based on the morphology of scales along the cuticle (outer side) of the hair. It’s not like a fingerprint per se, which attempts to identify an individual human, but instead may help to identify a species. This is because the scale structure is different across species but not so much individuals of that species. Make sense?

...

Gallformers.org has been referred to me by a few friends over the past few months as they helped me to identify some unknown galls I have found in the field. I have written about galls on the toknowtheland.com website many times as well (1)(2)(3), usually having to refer back to gallformers.org finally figure out who made them.

I got to ask a ton of questions and we got to talk about why Jeff and Adam started gallformers.org, what a gall is, gall research resources, individuation between gall forms based on the inducer and the...

“It was a clear night, and the stars were as visible as they get around this area within the city. I made out Polaris and the Big Dipper earlier while looking for a place to record. I noticed a faint breeze, coming from my neighbourhood blowing down towards the river…”

Just over a year ago I went for a walk along the river by my house and I pressed record and put my recorder down. I walked away for while and came back with a score written by millions of years of evolution and speciation coupled with the fe...

I am overwhelmed sometimes by the sheer diversity and quantity of Spider species I encounter. So many! I take a ton of photos and bring them up on my computer hoping to try and identify a couple, and maybe write about who I am seeing out there, but the precious few who I have been successful in identifying are just that, the precious few. Not many at all.

It has been hard to find a good field guide to Spiders. A friend at the University of Guelph Arboretum was/is? working on one, and there is a...

Daniella Roze lives this stuff. Seriously. She has spent years living off grid in a small community of folks learning how to live in closer connection with their land base out West. She has done month long adventures with a crew of women living with only the hides on their backs and whatever they could harvest from the land. She is also the founder, and was the former director and lead instructor at the Thriving Roots Wilderness School. Land based learner, educator, ecopsychologist, and PhD candidate, Daniella is well acquainted with the healing and possibility in the work of...

What is scat? Well, in the great words of a creative crew of naturalists*,

Starts with “S” and it ends with a “T”
It comes out of you and it comes out of me
I know what your thinking but don’t call it that
Let’s be scientific and call it “SCAT”

Why would someone write a book about scat? Why would someone need a book about scat? What’s so special about scat?

Finding and identifying scat is definitely part of a trackers repertoire as scat is a gateway into the n...

Jenna Rudolph has been running an nature school on unceded territories on the West coat of the continent. What does it mean to support students in developing connections to a land base that is stolen from indigenous people? It would be easy to shy away from the question, as many have for so long, but Jenna and her colleagues at Soaring Eagle Nature School are trying to explore this question directly, with humility, patience and deep care.
Not only the school, but also within the broader “nature connection” industry, Jenna is one of a few voices who have been...

On July 24, 2017, Jessica Reznicek admitted to engaging in acts of sabotage to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,886 km long (1,172 miles) underground oil pipeline running through indigenous territories, crossing beneath the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, as well as under part of Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Her actions resulted in 4-month delay in pipeline construction. Despite the fact that the pipelines were not running at the time so there was no chance of a spill and no one was hurt during the acts of sabotage U.S. federal Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger later applied a domestic...

Baptiste Morizot has changed the way I look at the world. He has offered a depth to the nuance of my relationships by giving them words and concepts to draw from. He examines in great detail how we relate (in the familial/ancestral sense, and the geopolitical sense) to other life forms with whom we share the planet.

In anxious times we need to hold each other closer, and that motion is still alive when I think of my encounters with the more-than-human. I draw solace and comfort, safety and a sense of resilience when I interact...

Every year I bring the recorder out listen to some of the other-than-human animals in our shared spaces. I then come home, dreamily relisten to the recordings and then set them up as a show. Why would I broadcast an hour of other animals making noise? Well, that’s a long story which if you have listened to the show before you probably know already.

The other-than-human world is alive and breathing. They sing and mate and eat and die, just like us. We honour all the varied stages of our human lives through words and song, of...

Birdwatching is obviously a thing as birds are everywhere, loud, demonstrate interesting behaviours, and they are often brightly coloured. Squirrels too are everywhere, loud, and demonstrate interesting behaviours. They aren’t brightly coloured, but their brindled, black, red, brown, grey, or even white in the case of some albino individuals at Trinity Bellwoods downtown Toronto, are still a joy to observe. So why not take up Squirrelwatching?

Elizabeth Porter is the project coordinator for the Squirrel Life project which is developing an app to collect community sourced observations of Squirrels (all species within the Sciuridae family) and th...

By calling, Greg is a Jesuit priest. Lorraine, a textile artist. Both have a keen eye for observation, and translation. Learning to see the wonder and awe embedded in the guardians of the air we collectively breathe, the trees, they render the arboreal grace and might into earthly transmissions which allow us to know the land a little better.

On Earth Day weekend, April 22-24 2022,  Greg Kennedy, Lorraine Roy and I will be facilitating a retreat at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre with the theme of Trees. We will be taking the time to give thanks, make beauty, t...

Nature Guelph was established in 1966 and since then has been promoting connection with the lands in and around the city I now call home. I have been attending their events for years, always drawn in by their knowledgeable speakers and presenters and great community. It has been a hub for naturalists in Guelph and I have been so lucky to get to know the broader community of humans and non-humans through their efforts.

I got the chance to talk with John Prescott long time member of the organization to talk about the past, present and future of...

Knowing the plants who are in relationship with the animals we track can help us find the animals we want to learn about. They can point in the direction of where the animals are going or where they will be going. They can show us if we are in the right environment or if we need to keep looking.
This episode is pretty much a story of a recent afternoon spent tracking in the Lake of Bays region, just South West of Algonquin Park, where we spent a few hours following the food and then finding the animal.<...

I have been tracking Deer Mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) a lot lately, and trying to learn a little bit more about them through their tracks and all the questions that come up. What are they eating right now? How can I tell them apart from Voles and Shrews? How many live together in the Winter? Who ate this one’s brains? You know, the usual.
I have also been looking at bird tracks a bunch, especially in this past week, when I noticed a Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) feeding on the withered stalk of an uncertain forb on the si...

I have seen and been part of a lot of Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) removal efforts, and while initially hopeful, often there is a inevitable return of the non-native to once again take over the forest understory in short time. What if there were strategies, without herbicides or biocontrols to reduce or prevent the likeliness of Buckthorn’s recolonization?

Mike J. Schuster from the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota recently co-authored a paper looking into native phenological competitors to Buckthorn which can be planted after Buckthorn removal to help keep R. cathartica out. Luckily fo...

It has been the Winter of the Fisher indeed with long tracking missions following three different Fishers at three locations in Southern Ontario between November 27, 2021 - January 16, 2022. I had only written of one of the experiences and hadn’t really told the story of the second and third, I thought I could detail some of what happened, and some of what I had been learning about for this episode.

Fisher (Pekania pennanti) is a hefty member of the Weasel family (Mustelidae) only found in North America. Once trapped widely for their pelts, Fishers were once extirpated from ma...

A friend told me that someone in their small village had spotted a Northern River Otter (Lontra canadensis) in the same river the passes through the city where I live. This is the closest sighting of a River Otter to my neck of the woods I have ever heard of. I was so excited that I ran to my  desk where I had all of my mammal books out anyways, and flipped to the River Otter entries and started learning.
I ended up recording some of the important things in a couple of the entries, but then got t...

My friend Julian Fisher recommended a book to me he thought I would enjoy. It was Baptiste Morizot’s On the Animal Trail from Polity books. I got it and began reading when he told me he had just finished the book and was working on a review for the journal Environmental Philosophy. In light of this, I asked him if he would like to do a “book report, not a review” with me, where we could just have a good conversation about what we were thinking and learning about through reading the work. Julian is a philosopher, and I am a...