nature articles

Herony

2009-08-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

When Nature Calls Earl Plato
A favourite evening drive out to Point Abino and the Bertie Boat Club often involved seeing a solitary Blue Heron feeding near the outlet of the Abino drainage ditch. Then one evening about ten p.m. the late Harvey Hollsworth called. “Earl. There’s at least ten Blue herons in the bay!” We counted eleven Blue herons that night. Usually solitary feeders Harvey said they flew in from the north all evening. What gives? Maybe the annual run of those small fish, the smelts.
***
We once had a huge Great blue herony in Stevensville to the north of Bowen Road. Tree cutters came in and took the largest trees and destroyed the herony. This article is my look at this phenomenal site before those destructive days.
We called the herony-Schneider’s Herony. We had asked permission to enter the wetland area where the heron nests were located. We had counted at least eighteen huge nests from Bowen Road. We had to navigate puddles of water as we entered the woods. The sight that unfolded was amazing!’ ”They’re at least forty nests in here!” As we walked around we counted twenty more. Our count was sixty plus!
I had counted 25 heron nests across the border in Alabama Swamp near Lockport N.Y. Stevensville was the greater site .
The nests were rough structures. Blue herons lay 3-5 pale greenish blue eggs. The pair line the nest with finer material on a platform of sticks. Have you heard the hoarse, guttural squack of this giant bird? One tree at Scneiders had five nests in it. Imagine the noise from just this one nesting tree let alone close to fifty others during nesting time.
During that next year through the winter the nesting trees were cut down. Man needs his profit. I have wondered as those giant majestic birds returned north from their migration and found their herony decimated where did they go. I know a few sites but nothing like the Schneider site. Great memories!

Names in Nature

2009-08-19T18:00:00.001-07:00

When Nature Calls Earl Plato
Names in nature that’s my topic. In the 1980’s the late Dr. Marcy referred to his Carolinian nature forest as Abino Woods. His sign at the entrance at the west end read for many years Abino Hills. I fell in love with the exceptional site. Some forty plus nature articles I wrote over the years I changed Abino Woods to the present appellation- Marcy Woods. Yes, I’ll take credit for promoting the deserved change.
As I walked the trails and side trails of Marcy Woods I now recall some of the names of flowers that grow in Marcy Woods. Here as follows: Gold thread, Wake robin, Queen Anne’s lace, jack-in-the-pulpit, buttercup, boneset, and black-eyed Susan.
The late American Ed Teale said thus, “Was there ever a real Susan whose name was bestowed on this flower of our fields?” No one seems to know. Who first referred to plants with these unusual names? I believe that it is part of the poetry of the common people of the past.
The late Bert Miller one spring showed us
Gold thread in the Marcy Woods area. He knelt down near the little plant related to the buttercup family. He lifted a stem and there it was - a stem of golden colour hence the name Gold thread. Daughter Allison in recent years rediscovered the plant on the way into Marcy Woods. Exciting for us.
24 carat gold? Could be.
Boneset plants exist in the butterfly fields.
Why he name “boneset” ? Ask me sometime.

2009-08-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Wild Carrot

2009-08-14T15:38:00.000-07:00

When Nature Calls Earl Plato

“Wild carrot!” Norma Benner exclaimed. Eight of us Fort Erie seniors were walking the lovely treed trails north of the Butterfly Conservatory on a hot August day. There on the edge of the trail was a stand of Queen Anne’s Lace also known as “ wild carrot”. The next day my wife and I were driving to Welland on the 3rd Concession. On our right was an entire field filled with Queen Anne’s Lace. Back in Ridgeway the day before we had seen a similar sight - a field completely filled with “wild carrots.” Yes, this biennial is the ancestor of our garden carrot. As kids we pulled the long tap root, brushed off the accompanying dirt, and nibbled away. This lacy leafed plant is flat-topped with clusters of tiny cream-white flowers. The late Bert Miller, Fort Erie naturalist, would take the bird’s nest likeness formation at the top of each plant and have us shake the head on a piece of leather he carried.
Tiny spiders, aphids, spittle bugs and other tiny insects often would emerge. It was one of Bert’s teaching points. Here is an ode to that memorable man.
Ode to Bert Miller
In nature you do excel
With you in charge things seem to jell.
I never knew that weeds had beauty.
To pull them up was my only duty.
From Queen Anne’s Lace to the mighty Mullein,
Wild flowers and such merely left me sullen.’
From Shades of Night to the great Bull Thistle,
Mr. Miller made it as clear as a whistle.

There’s the Gold Thread and the Devil’s Paint Brush,
The delicate Orchids - please do not crush!
The Wild Rose and the Sensitive Fern,
The Agronomy! - such a name gives one concern.\
Even to detect a bush of Poison Ivy.
Wild berries, buttercups and also the daisy,
And names of plants that would send one crazy.

Mr. Miller reminded us of all this
As we thoughtfully separated - nothing amiss.
Once again, Mr. Miller, our thanks to you
For your kindness in showing us something new
Of God’s wonder and handiwork all round,
More of God’s mystery that does abound.

A portion of the poem by Ruth Saunders

Bobolinks

2009-08-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

Bobolinks in Old Bertie by Earl Plato

I grew up with meadowlarks and bobolinks. The time was
WW2 and the fields to the west of our Bertie Township home were ideal for those two birds. No DDT then.
Here in 2008 daughter Allison and I saw bobolinks on the edge of Marcy Woods. Allison asked, “What are those birds with the white rumps? I looked at the birds which were black with white rumps. Bobolinks. That’s right in the fields on the Marcy farm Rob Eberly and I had seen bobolinks in previous years. This is the bird that winters in Argentina, South America! Here in late May he flies our fields again. I say that his flight is like goldfinches - an undulating graceful flight. Listen as they fly by. It is a series of joyful, bubbling, tumbling, gurgling sounds with each note I am told on a different pitch.
As a youth I uncovered a bobolink nest in our field. There were five spotted with red-brown and purple. They were well nestled in a cup of grass, stems, and small rootlets. It was not as well constructed as its neighbour the meadowlark. Migration? Apparently they flock together in large numbers for the migration flight south. In southern United States they are called “Rice birds”. That makes sense. They have to fuel up for they still have a ways to go. Like fir the white rump.

Two Brock U. scientists and Marcy Woods

2009-08-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

Fort Erie Post May. 2009 Earl Plato
We are concerned about the many hemlocks found in Marcy’s Woods. On May 15th we lead Sarah Leone, Plant protection inspector scientist, into Marcy’s Woods to look for an important pest of hemlock trees, the Hemlock Wooley Adelgid. Daughter Allison and I had already looked for the tell tale cottony white egg sacs at the end of branches. We found none but we are not scientists. Why so serious? The small aphid-like insects, the Wooly adelgid sucks sap from the needles. For most of its life it is covered by a white, woolly substance that it secretes over its body. They feed primarily on young branches causing cessation of growth. There is a discoloration and premature dropping of needles, the dieback of branches and possible death of the tree in little as one year! Infestation has been found outside of Rochester, New York. That’s not far away - 160 km - 100 miles. We need the least-toxic control when it arrives. Check your home hemlocks.Contact me at
plato1@cogeco.ca to report any local infestations. Thanks.
***
Brock Phd. Student, Aynsley Theilman, followed wife Elaine and I from Marcy Woods to the alvar area off M road on the DiCienzo property. That Thursday, August 6th was mosquito day.
Mosquitos every where! That’s exactly hat Aynsley wanted. In that alvar area
!limestone surface? She wanted to collect mosquito larvae. She believed that these crptic mosquitos were rare. She called me later to say that she was successful. Later she would let mosquitoes bite her. She would examine their blood for its DNA. A real scientist using Marcy Woods for research.

Westward Ho!

2009-08-02T05:45:00.000-07:00

Westward VIA Trail Earl Plato

Think big, really big! We travelled VIA Rail to Vancouver and back recently. We were four retired couples from Fort Erie. It was a trip of a lifetime. After a city tour of Vancouver we boarded the ferry for Victoria, Vancouver Island. We would explore this unique and beautiful island for the next five days. In our rented cars we headed north and reached Cathedral Grove. Elaine and I had been there in 1970. We had camped across Canada with our children. The Grove had been one of our highlights. Now here in 2006 we had returned with Fort Erie friends to walk the entire trails. We knew that it was a not-to-be-missed stop on Highway 4 to Port Alberni- a chance to be awed by nature. Think old. At Cathedral Grove there is a wondrous display of 800 year old trees. When Elaine and I were there in 1970 only a few trees were down. We had the children pose on one fallen giant. In January 1997 a severe windstorm damaged many of the ancient Douglas fir giants. There are short trails winding through some of the biggest trees in Canada. One Douglas fir in the South Loop Trail measures over 9 metres in circumference. Think almost 30 feet! Writer‘s note: We thought that Bert Miller’s giant local Tulip tree at Rosehill that measured 161/2 ft. was big. Look up. The tallest tree in Cathedral Grove is a Douglas fir 76 metres high. Amazing! That’s over 200 feet tall!
Among the many fallen trees lush growths of ferns and Red Cedar trees are interspersed in the under story. We walked in a wet area on a bridge made from a fallen Douglas fir. Friend Ken examined the sides of the bridge where the rangers had hewn out openings for the railing supports/ It as a long and strong bridge. Cathedral Grove is only a small part of MacMillan Provincial Park yet it is a most important part. The Park is still restoring other trails as a result of the 1997 storm. Cathedral Grove has been fully restored thankfully.
***
The eight of us sitting in the observation dome of our VIA Rail car looked for animals on our way both west and east. Collectively we saw the following: elks, deer, bisons (buffalo), bear, mountain sheep or goats, beaver, bald eagles, ravens and crows. One of the most exciting views was that of seven mountain sheep beside our stopped train. Led by a large horned ram they made their way up the cliff and posed for us on the way..

Bluebirds

2009-07-31T16:18:00.000-07:00

NNDec.28.06 Earl Plato

I have received more calls and personal connections this year about our bluebirds than ever before. Groups of ten or more at one time have been sighted in late Fall. To those bird watchers In Fort Erie and environs do you believe the following statement? “Bluebirds have made a promising comeback with the help of man-made nesting boxes.” Several years ago I heard of Rob Eberly and his passionate desire to re-establish blue birds through the placing of bluebird boxes in the area. I came to call him “Mr. Bluebird man” and rightfully so. With Rob’s help and dedication bluebird boxes have appeared throughout our community especially in rural areas where these beautiful birds really thrive. Do bluebirds have more than one nesting in a season in Niagara? Call me at 905 894-2417 or e-mail me plato1@cogeco.ca if you know
***
Dino DiCienzo Jr. informed me in mid-December of an old problem with Marcy’s Woods. ATV’S.! The Bert Miller Nature Club had planted some 500 trees on the sand banks some years ago. Chance of survival? Not much when trespassing ATV’S run their vehicles on the dunes and rip our little plantings out. I quote from Dino Jr.’s e-mail to me, “This fall brought a few ATV’s. We were able to catch two of them. A different ATV rode up and down the dunes numerous times but by the time I got out he was at Sherkston ( I couldn’t find him ).” Note: Dino Jr. made the comment that the ATV use is still low compared to before. Thanks DiCienzos for trying to protect the forested dunes of Marcy Woods. Final word from Dino Jr., “Spring will be here before we know it so let’s get ready for some tours.” Yes, I’m looking forward to those times. I now have a map to help on tours.
***
Two nature questions: Jim Westhouse at Crystal Beach Timmy’s asked me. “Why so less Purple loosestrife in the Town this year?” He’s right. What are the reasons?
Secondly I received calls from two different places in rural Fort Erie about ticks. “Never seen so many ticks before. My dog was covered,” was one callers concern.
Again let me know your comments.

Reflections Spring

2009-07-31T07:16:00.000-07:00

Reflections Earl Plato

Reflections. Pleasant memories. What a difference a few warm days this year can make. Warm days and warmer nights in mid-spring can make the difference. On a Tuesday 2009 we headed out mid-morning to Marcy Woods. A faint misting as we took the road through the kennels to The Woods. There they were - a few yellow-headed Coltsfoot’s flowers showing up. Yes, to our left in the wetlands the sound of Chorus frogs. This was going to be a good day. The fine mist kept falling but not enough to deter our mission. That was Marcy pond and hopefully Wood frogs. No Wild leaks yet. A huge nest was to our left a hundred feet in or so. I focused my bird glasses. No globular squirrel nest but a nest well constructed of twigs - Red Tail hawk or a Horned owl? We’ll keep an eye on it. Further along the Lower Trail we saw the buds appearing on the Spice bushes. Soon delicate little yellow flowers will appear on its branches. We spied a single Spring Beauty plant with its delicate little white flowers. We rounded the Lower Trail and headed south toward the pond. We were approaching the pond and I asked for us to be quiet and hear for the frogs. Listen. We could hear the high pitched sounds of the Spring peepers. Not many. Then the sound of the Chorus frogs in greater number. Run your finger over a stiff comb. That’s something like its sound. Then as we approached quietly to the pond. We heard that to many is not a typical frog sound. Two - three - ten - perhaps twenty “quacks”. Yes, the Wood frogs were here. Not too many but Marcy pond once again served as home. I have an excellent slide of a Wood frog but I also sketched one. It started to sprinkle but we continued on to the cabin. Strange to see no seats outside the porch. Our rest seats inside are all gone. No let up in the sprinkle so across the Willwerth bridge we went. Fallen trees - go over or under. Be careful. Down the wet and slippery steps. My old arches were aching. Three things I appreciated this day. Spring unfolding at Marcy Woods; seeing and hearing the Wood frogs once again; and walking with friends and relatives enjoying Marcy Woods. Thank you DiCienzo family.
***
Carl Winger, John Piett, Keith Bailey, and Dave Renshaw. What do they have in common? All recently saw the magnificent Bald eagle in Fort Erie. Dave saw the giant bird off of old Fort Erie. He said that it plunged into the water to retrieve a fish. The Bald eagle has battled back from the threat of extinction because of habitat loss and the pesticide DDT. Welcome back to Fort Erie. Long may you live.

Sketch in Nature. Why not?

2009-07-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

The Garrison Road School Gang, all five of us and our wives, just came back on September 21st last year from the Thousand Islands of the St.Lawrwnce River.. We took the three hour boat tour. Beautiful weather and a most beautiful setting. We passed the nests of one of my favourite birds, the osprey. That’s my drawing below. Here is a flashback article.
Like to draw birds? I’ve got the perfect place. It’s the second floor of the Buffalo Museum of Science. Take your sketch pad and find an appropriate mounted bird specie and take a seat. I chose an osprey perched on a branch. ( I added the fish). I have visited this ornithological section many times over the years. It’s a usually quiet place. The late Fort Erie naturalist, Bert Miller, encouraged me to draw birds. I was only ten years old and that early start stayed. I still sketch when I am alone. Encourage your children to sketch in nature, why not?

2009 Marcy Woods has been Saved!

2009-07-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

Marcy Woods. That’s a place dear to many of us. I have been “Marcyized”. My little office is replete with shots of the precious woods. I have my favourite pics enlarged and plaqued. There’s the cabin, two of my grand daughters sitting in a bed of Marcy trilliums, the pristine lake front, the bridge, the twin oaks of he Lower Trail, the Marcy steps to the higher level, and many more adorn the walls. Friend, Neil Reichelt, made a little sign for me to put on the wall, Marcy Woods 1985-2002. Why 2002?
I visited Marcy Woods (Abino Woods) with the late Fort Erie naturalist Bert Miller as a ten year old kid. I was with him when he transplanted Wild ginger at the base of some of those trees. The years passed. Then in 1985 I met Dr. George Marcy on the Halloway Bay Road. He invited me to sign in at the farm and tour the woods. Friend, Tim Seburn, told me shortly after to ramble Marcy (Abino) Woods as he had been doing. He said, “You’ll love it.” I did and a love affair for me began with a special place, Marcy Woods.
Why 2002? I thought we, the nature loving public, had lost the Woods that year. Spring 2003 will bring the answer. Theres’s room for more than 100 plus Marcy Woods lovers on Saturday, April 26th at 2:00 p.m.
Where? In Stevensville, at the Fort Erie Conservation Club, 2555 Ott Road. Bob McDonald of CBC’s “Quirks and Quarks” will speak. Bertie Elementary students, who made the excellent video on Marcy Woods, will be recognized along with political dignitaries who have supported the purchase of this Carolinian gem.
Marcy Woods has been saved - Great news here in 2009
The DiCienzos of Niagara Falls purchased the Woods and are preserving it. Yes, I still arrange for walks once again.

Snakes Anyone?

2009-07-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

Snakes Anyone? Earl Plato

What continues to fascinate an almost five year old little girl? As parents and grandparents you would probably say dolls. Not so entirely with Ashlyn. This little granddaughter loves nature - bugs, worms and yes, snakes! Her parents watched in amazement as she latched onto the tail of a garter snake as it entered its burrow. Ashlyn pulled and pulled. She wanted to see the snake up close. The snake won out. No fear only curiosity for her. Let’s not dampen this gift of learning about new things but temper it with good advice. Not all snakes appreciate a pull on their tail! This article is about an ugly but relatively harmless snake found in Niagara. It’s the Northern water snake. I say ugly but late naturalist, Ed Teale, said, “a rather pretty banded reptile.” I have met the water snake as a youth at the Plato pond on Bertie Road and recently on Point Pelee Island. It’s not attractive to me. I remember cousin Sam yelling out, “It’s a water moccasin!” Sorry Sam, no water moccasins ever existed naturally in Niagara but we all reacted. “Try to stone it!” The water snake will strike repeatedly at you when cornered. It is often killed because of this defensive reaction. No, it’s not poisonous but can inflict a puncture that bleeds freely. This snake has an anticoagulant quality to its saliva. I remember Johnny showing us his bitten finger as the blood flowed freely. Ashlyn, avoid any snake that does not flee and tries to strike at you. Yes, even a garter snake can coil as it tries to defend itself. Be curious but be careful. In May look for this snake around area ponds. Ed Teale, who lives on about the same latitude as us, wrote the following in early may back then: “Up until yesterday we had one resident water snake in our pond. ... yesterday morning I saw it had been joined by a stranger. By noon a second newcomer had made its appearance. By evening a third had arrived. This May pond is a rendezvous, a mating place, that has drawn water snakes from the surrounding area. ... our snake is a female, thick bodied, older, and almost black in colour. The males are younger, brighter, more reddish in hue. ... the males try to mate with the one female without any evidence of fighting among themselves. Next dawn we will see only one, the resident female.” My memory as a youth says that that ugly, thick bodied, black snake at Plato pond was a female water snake. If you have a reptile guide look it up. Check your snakes around our May ponds. Let me know if you see any Northern water snakes.

start again

2009-07-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

Starting nature articles again as of Sunday, july 26th 2009 - Earl Plato

Bird calls

2009-07-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

Nature article by Earl Plato
“teacher-teacher-teacher” That was what we heard deep into a wetlands with knee boots. Naturalist Ernie Giles, Debbie a botanist and me a nature lover sloshed along. South of Niagara Falls is an extensive wetlands called Willougby Marsh. No visible trails. Ernie our fauna and flora expert stopped. There we three marvelled at the tallest Jack-in-the-Pulpit I had ever seen. Almost four feet tall! A Cooper’s hak soared over on this bright but very humid day. It was late June. Ernie Giles the complete naturalist. Keen eyesight, keen hearing and a wealth of knowledge makes up this man. Ernie stopped. He heard scratching sounds. He motioned to Debbie and I to stop. Look below. That was what we saw. An ovenbird was emerging from its nest. My first. This warbler gets it name from its peculiar ground nest. What we saw that day resembled a miniature Dutch oven. The ovenbird is olive-brown above and white below with dark streaks. Some call it a wood warbler. Ernie smiled at us two teachers. “Do you know its call?” it’s a loud staccato song - “teacher, teacher, teacher.”
We watched as the ovenbird oblivious to us entered its side entrance. A neat bird for this old teacher.
***
“Peter, Peter, Peter” That was a familiar call. I walked down the lane at Bruce Beach on the Lake Huron shore. Across the road in a thicket I recognized the call of a Tuffted titmouse.This sparrow-sized social bird adopted us on this last week ofuly of 2009.
Loud and clear just outside our beach cabin came the morning greeting - “Peter, Peter, Peter” Another neat bird. Look it up if you don’t know it.

End of Blog

2009-07-09T06:51:00.001-07:00

2009-06-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

I am closing down Nature Article
Blog until July 27th.
If you want me to ontinue let
me know by June 26th
My e-mail is: plato1@cogeco.ca
Thanks Earl Plato

A Special Breakfast

2009-06-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #123 Earl Plato
A special June Breakfast at Teale’s
“ a green bowl accompanies me down he slope to the edge of the pond this morning, I am off to gather wild food for our breakfast.
At Cattail Corner I halt beside a stand of the green sword leaves and upright stalks. At this season of the year each stalk supports two closely packed masses of flowers. The lower, the female flowers. resembling an elongated greenish-brown sausage comprises
the female flowers. The upper, now yellow with the pollen that will descend’ in a fertilizing shower over the pistil late blooms below, is formed of the male flowers. The familiar brown cattail heads of fall and winter with their thousands of densely packed seeds with silken filaments attached result from the fertilization taking place on theses June days.”
What’s with Ed Teale’s bowl and breakfast?

Teale's Tails

2009-06-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

The Green Bowl

2009-06-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #123 Earl Plato
A special June Breakfast at Teale’s
‘ a green bowl accompanies me down he slope to the edge of the pond this morning, I am off to gather wild food for our breakfast.
At Cattail Corner I halt beside a stand of the green sword leaves and upright stalks. At this season of the year each stalk supports two closely packed masses of flowers. The lower, the female flowers. resembling an elongated greenish-brown sausage comprises
the female flowers. The upper, now yellow with the pollen that will descend’ in a fertilizing shower over the pistil late blooms below, is formed of the male flowers. The familiar brown cattail heads of fall and winter with their thousands of densely packed seeds with silken filaments attached result from the fertilization taking place on theses June days.”
What’s with Ed Teale’s green bowl and breakfast?

His Tail

2009-06-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

A Tale of a Tail

2009-06-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #122 Earl Plato
In his early June log Teale continued with his view of the natural world. Let’s move on to a lighter subject.
Elaine and I have many grandchildren.
One, eight year old named Ashlyn, is a budding naturalist. Recently a garter snake headed for a hole. As it wiggled in Ashlyn grabbed its tail. She extricated it and showed it to her siblings. It peed on her arm an orange colored liquid . No problem for her. Quite a girl.
Ed teale a fully grown naturalist tells of his “tail pulling” tale one mid June at Trail Wood. We read as follows:
“ Probably I will never do it again. Certainly I have never done it before. I have just pulled a chipmunk’s tail. It is hard to say which of us - the chipmunk or I - is more surprised. It has happened this way.
Leaving the pasture as we come home Nellie and I draw near to the apple tree beside the terrace wall overlooking the slope to Hampton Brook. From a lower limb we have suspended half of a coconut shell to hold sunflower seeds for chickadees and nuthatches during he winter. This year we have continued feeding on into June - a fact that has not escaped the eye of one of our chipmunks.
As I draw close I notice That its head is invisible, thrust down inside the shell. But its tail is hanging down on he outside. On an impulse I creep silently toward it, never expecting to succeed in my attention to give he hanging tail a little tug. The chipmunk blasts out of the shell. It scatters the sunflower seeds. Its wild leap into space carries it to the grass below. There it bolts away and vanishes in a crevice un the wall. In all the long history of Trail Wood it no doubt will be the only chipmunk ever to have its tail pulled by a man.”
Note: How many animal tails have you pulled?

Eastern chipmunk

2009-06-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

Raptor Time

2009-06-12T06:47:00.001-07:00

Owls, anyone? Earl Plato

So I missed the annual Bert Miller Club Owl Prowl this year. We were in Simcoe at our grandson’s hockey playoff game. So I lost on both accounts. Writer’s note: We did beat Simcoe 4-1 in the final game back in Fort Erie! What did I miss nature-wise? Here’s an old memory.
We have met Blayne Farnan of Port Colborne, noted owl expert, and have walked with him. during the day. Blayne has developed “owl finding” skills to a high degree. I made some notes over the past years. Blayne took us to owls’ appropriate habitats. We found areas where conifers grow - such as spruce, arbor vitae (cedar), and red pine. Owls like these most.
1. Walk slowly and quietly looking down on lower branches and on the ground for white droppings and the dark, usually oblong pellets of fur and bone that owls cough up daily. We have found a treasure trove of Great horned owl pellets. I counted easily ten pellets in the area. As we approached the pellet site there were the tell tale white washing on the trees.
2. When you find a tree marked by either or both signs look up into the tree for a dense spot which may hide or be an owl. Don’t expect any movement unless you disturb one. Be quiet and look carefully. This is how Bob Chambers uncovered a little Saw whet owl. 3. As soon as you spot an owl back off immediately to the farthest spot you can see it. Why? The owl is then more likely to relax, less likely to fly away. I have been with Rob Eberly when he focused in on a Short eared owl on Ott Road. There staring at you were these two huge yellow orbs. amazing closeness! 4. Blayne Farnan takes many large groups out but usually it’s he, his wife, and a few of us. Make it a small group and avoid surrounding the bird. If the owl has to continuously turn its head to see all of you , it may fly off.
5. Be alert for the loud, frenzied calling of birds mobbing a predator (owls and hawks). This is how Ernie Giles and I once had a good look at a Great horned owl in the Stevensville Conservation Park. A large flock of crows had surrounded the raptor as he sat in deep in the protection of a pine tree for several minutes until finally he tried for an escape. The last we saw him he was flying east pursued by the crows. Remember that these owl day hunts occurred in winter and early spring. Keep birding, eh.

Raptor Time

2009-06-12T06:41:00.000-07:00

Cheevers5.09 Earl Plato

Raptor time. We drove west on the Q.E.W. and turned north on Christie Street and turned at the top of the escarpment right to the Beamer’s Conservation site. See the signs. It’s just at the edge of the Niagara Escarpment. This was another clear, sunny day but still quite cold. I have always been fascinated with the seasonal arrival of the raptors since I saw my first ones years ago in Ridgeway. A fox had died in the fields to the west of us. First one, then two, three and four appeared drifting in circles over the dead animal. Turkey vultures are highly skilled specialists with an acute sense of smell not possessed by other raptors. Their eyesight is excellent too. They are commonly mistaken for hawks. Our largest local hawk, the Red-tail, is much smaller. Vultures in wingspan (circa six-feet) compare to our Bald eagles. I have seen Turkey vultures across Ontario. They usually are seen drifting over fields. cliffs or lakes. Because of their slow take-off speed they avoid road kill on our highways unlike crows with their quick take-off. They are consummate scavengers. Look for their wide wings on a shallow ‘V’, slowly tilting from side to side on wind currents. At these times at Beamer’s Point they almost never flap their wings. Beautiful to watch but ugly to see up close.
***
Those of you who know Beamer’s Conservation site know it has the elevated lookout. Six birders with scopes were up top. There to the north in the very top of a tree was a Horned owl. It’s been there for years. Of course it’s a fake. That Tuesday, April 12th was not a good day for seeing the Turkey vulture, Diane and I saw only three. However. we met Ed from Mississauga at the most eastern lookout. Here in a more protected area we were able to warm up. Wear layers of warm clothing. You can always down layer. Ed was at Beamer’s the day the great ingathering of the migrating Turkey vultures came in from the southeast. He said, “1700 total they estimated. 1400 or so of the Turkey vultures along with Bald eagles, hawks, and songbirds. The sky was filled. I had to come back here again and again. It was an amazing experience.” He had his Pentax camera with its telescopic lens ready. Ed had a chair, a bottle of water, and his lunch. We were still chilled and headed back. The trails are good there and the days will become warmer. “You can count on it,” said Ed. Beamer’s Point overlooking the Town of Grimsby is worth the visit any time.

Take Care mankind

2009-06-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #122 Earl Plato
Teale applied natural laws to mankind
In his June log. We read:
“ We are on earth under certain conditions. We adjust to those conditions to survive. To live is to be in peril. It is up to the individual to be alert, to avoid injury and death, to survive as long as one can. Nature looks on without concern . If you step on a rotten branch or fall out of a tree and break your neck. If you walk out on thin ice break through and drown; if you eat poison mushrooms and die - just as nature displays no interest in the mouse caught by a weasel, the rabbit surprised by the fox, or the bird that falls into the talons of a hawk. It is up to us - to all living things - to man and mouse and rabbit and bird to be on guard.”
That’s the message. Take care, eh.

Natural Laws

2009-06-07T16:39:00.001-07:00

Trail Wood #121 Earl Plato
Ready for more of Pulitzer Prize Winner,
Edwin Way Teale’s outlook on nature. Still June 7th. Memories of D Day, June 6th, 1944! Momentous times.
“ Like the general deploying troops before a battle, thinking not in terms of individuals but in terms of divisions and armies, nature is concerned with classes and genera. It is up to the individual to survive as best he can. Nature is not a mother concerned for the welfare of each member of the family. Nature is not friendly or well intentioned toward the individual. Nature is neutral. But if disaster to the individual is not averted, neither is it planned. If there is no compassion, there is no malice. There is only the working of natural laws.”
You may not agree but I believe that the Creator gave us those natural laws.

Realistic View of Nature?

2009-06-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #120 Earl Plato\
On a June 7th day at Trail Wood
Edwin Teale waxed philosophically about nature. Seated beside Hampton Brook he penned these words:
“ Yet even here the calm is transitory.
No lasting peace is anywhere on earth where life exists. Each living thing has its foes; Each creature lives a mortal life. Each nestling bird, each branch in a tree competes with its kind for food. For all, danger in many forms lies waiting, temporarily sleeping perhaps, but never gone entirely. The beauty we see in this time of bird song and flowers is the beauty of form and colour and sound. The spirit that extends through all nature is one of never ending competition. Of parasite and predator, of a shifting balance of power, of harmony achieved through discord. Everything alive, plant and animal, spends its days in a world at odds, surrounded by perils, competing each in its own way, in a realm of strife.”
Realistic view? I think so.

Tranquilty at Trail Wood in June

2009-06-04T13:20:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #119 Earl Plato
It’s early June at Trail Wood. Let’s find out what the Teale’s are doing.
“ Sunshine filters down through the new leaves. It warms the mossy rocks and the woodland meld. We have been sitting ere for some time where the Hampton Brook winds through the Far north Woods among skunk cabbages and hellebore, under overleaping trees, along quiet stretches where the transparent water slides above a sandy bed. Idly we watch he water striders drift or skate across the surface. This is the good time of the year.
These are the Elysian days, the days we dreamed of in January and February and early March. Around us stretch the calm woods and the tranquil hills. The sun shines. The brook flows. The June air is redolent with earth perfumes. We seem in a woodland paradise where all is peace.”
Do you know of such a natural place where you can find tranquility? I hope so.

Great Gray Owl Ontario

2009-06-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

Cheevers2.09 Earl Plato

There it was staring me in the face! Do you remember the National Geographic Magazine of a few years ago? There it was! The Great Gray. Inside is a very informative article on this giant owl that stands almost a metre high and with a two metre wingspan. It’s Ontario’s largest owl. No kidding - Maggie Chambers of Fort Erie sent me a few years back via e-mail a close up of this rare raptor in Southern Ontario. She wrote, “This great gray owl visits my sister’s back yard off of Highway #10 near Bradford regularly.” Friend naturalist, Ernie Giles, sent me a close up of a Great Gray sitting on a post near his Lake of Bays homestead. I know what this giant raptor looks like. I am on the Birders’ Hotline and I recall a few years ago the sighting of a Great Gray south of Buffalo. Brother Ed, and I went with American cousin Willie Stein to the last sighting of the bird, We walked up and down several rolling hill trails in the rural Western New York lands, No luck. Some day I hope to see one alive. What do we know about the Great Gray? You can see the great photos and read that piece in the National Geographic. Here is some of what I remembered about the bird. It is not a raptor that has the muscular strength of our Great Horned Owl. Strip this guy clean of his feathers and he is a “skinny-minny.” His impressive layers of feathers is a cover-up. His sharp peak and impressive talons are only good for preying on field voles. He doesn’t have the strength to capture anything bigger. A field vole is like our fat meadow mice. The Great Gray mainly feeds at night but the Geographic says they hunt in daylight too. That would be a magnificent sight to see. When there is an major epidemic among our Northern Ontario voles the Great Gray must come to the south to survive. I believe that is why Maggie’s sister was seeing a Great Gray now. Hoo-hoo-hoo knows when we might see one.

Great Gray

2009-06-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

Orchid Hunt at Trail Wood with the Teales

2009-06-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #117 Earl Plato

Oh to visit Trail Wood in spring with Edwin and Nellie May. Here in Niagara we had Bert Miller and Ernie Giles to lead us on nature explorations in floral spring time. Now here in Teale’s May 29th log we read his account.
“ With a picnic lunch packed in a market basket, we set out about nine o’clock. A leisurely half hour later we deposit the basket on the heavy chestnut plank. It is supported by twin piles of flat rocks to form a bench beside the cascade where Hampton Brook cuts across the Old Woods Road. Unencumbered we begin our search for the largest of the orchids.

Lady's Slipper Orchid

2009-06-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

The Goldenrod Gall

2009-05-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

Gall Time with Teale

2009-05-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #117 Earl Plato
Naturalist Edwin Way Teale was essentially a botanist. Many of his writings center around flora in nature. This late May entry is no exception.
“ On this late May morning, along the varied paths I follow, my pace is even slower. Everywhere in this time of new and tender leaves and plant growths, those variously formed and tinted swellings we call galls are enlarging and taking shape. … All galls produced by insects - and their varied forms number in the thousands - harbor larvae inside. Each starts in the same way. The abnormal plant growth is induced by an irritant introduced into the tissues when the eggs are laid or added as a byproduct of the life processes of he larva. Wide is the variety of the egg layers - flies, wasps, wasps, moths, aphids, beetles, sawflies, lace bugs, and gnats.
The spindle-shaped gall of the goldenrod shown has a mottled brown and gray moth about three-quarters of an inch in length.”

Slow Down!

2009-05-28T07:42:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #116 Earl Plato

At Marcy Woods some years ago I lead a small group of botanists from the Buffalo Museum of Science. We took them on the Upper Trail. This is a winding narrow path and more rigorous than the Lower Trail below us. Have you walked with keen botanists?. Every step was slow and methodical. They would often stop to examine a plant and a healthy debate might follow. What normally was an hour walk ended two and a half hours
edLater. Edwin Teale shared a similar recollection.
“ Years ago I talked with someone who had been a companion of John Muir’s walks in Yosemite Valley. His pace, I was told, was unhurried. Muir stopped often to enjoy a view or examine a tree. For ten or fifteen at a time he would sit down beside some favorite wild flower along the way. It might take him ten hours to walk ten miles.”
On my next nature walk I intend to slow down more and enjoy creation in May!

Nellie Tried

2009-05-27T18:22:00.001-07:00

Trail Wood #115 Earl Plato

Nellie in her natural empathy tried to save a dying bird. We continue with Ed Teale’s record.
“A few minutes later as we come up the hill to the house, Nellie sloshing along in water-filled shoes and dripping dress, she relates the events that preceded what I had observed.
In a leisurely circuit of the pond, when she was drawing near the flay, tilted surface of Summerhouse Rock, a swirl of fighting grackles swept past her and out over the water. In the melee one of the black birds was borne down, driven lower and lower. Nellie saw it strike the surface with a splash, struggle with flailing wings but struggle in vain, unable to lift itself into the air again. At that time the floating bird was only five or six feet from the edge of the pond. Snatching up the first stick she could find, Nellie tried to reach out and pull it toward her. But a stiff wind carried the bird away. Second by second the gap widened as the helpless grackle drifted farther into the pond. As it continued its struggles Nellie followed until the bottom pitched steeply downward. But always the stick fell short of the ensnared bird. Its efforts grew weaker, then ceased entirely, and it floated lifelessly on the water.”
Ed, you have good wife. How much empathy do we have for injured animals?

Trail Wood pond and Nellie's episode

2009-05-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

forgot this photo

2009-05-27T07:20:00.000-07:00

Nellie in deep water at the pond.

2009-05-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood # 114 Earl Plato
Do you really know your spouse? Ed Teale in late May sees his wife, Nellie, do something unusual at their pond. We have stood there at the edge of the water. I can picture the scenario. Teale wrote:
“I have glanced down the hill toward the pond. What I see is the most incredible sight I have encountered at Trail Wood. Near Summerhouse Rock Nellie, fully clothed, is wading out into the deeper water of the pond. Already she is a dozen feet from the shore. There the water is week above her hips, For a moment I stare incredulously. Then I shout. Nellie looks up but continues her advance. I sprint down the slope. As I run I observe that she has a stick in one hand and reaching out as far as she can. She is pawing the surface of the water. When I am pounding along the path at the pond’s edge I catch sight of a black object floating on the surface just beyond the reach of her stick.”
What is Nellie after? Next: As a lover of nature Nellie Teale tries her best.

Which Month?

2009-05-26T06:23:00.000-07:00

Wood #113 Earl Plato

Edwin Way Teale had two favorite months - May and June. This is what he said about them.
“ Here at Trail Wood there is always a tug=of-war between two months - May and October. Which brings the finest hours of the year? On some mid-October day when we stand in the sunshine breathing in the crisp air of fall surrounded by the glory of the fall foliage. I am sure we will vote for the tenth month of the year, But tonight watching these first fireflies, listening to the lone whip-poor-will in the darkness, savoring all the late May scents carried on the breeze, remembering the bird song and the wild flowers of the day. We have no doubts these are the best hours. These are the beat days. The minutes of very weeks e are living in, the hours and days of this fifth month are merging together into what - it seems to us now - surely must be the finest of all.”
Living in the Niagara peninsula I agree with the Teale’s concerning May.

Whip-poorwill

2009-05-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

Whip-poor-will Time

2009-05-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #112 Earl Plato

Have you heard the plaintive call of a whip-poor-will? Ed Teale wrote May 24th.
“ Far away, somewhere off toward the hill pastures of another farm to the north a whip-poor-will begins its calling.”

Edwin Teale

2009-05-25T13:32:00.000-07:00

Firefly Trail Wood

2009-05-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

Let There Be Light!

2009-05-25T12:06:00.001-07:00

Trail Wood #111 Earl Plato

We grew up with fireflies. Our quest at that time of year, late May, was to capture one and place it in a bottle and observe them. Then we would release them. Teale in his May 24th log wrote:
“ Walking in the deepening darkness this evening glimpse the first fireflies of the year - two sparks of light brightening then fading then brightening again. We watch them go drifting away low above the night-clad slope of Firefly Meadow, Their wandering airborne little lanterns mark the commencement of a new era of the spring.
On his evening a soft, faint breeze flows idly out of the south. It is filled with the fragrances of May collected mile after mile from flower and stream, from new leaves and crushed grass, from all the host of growing things that have unfolded, expanded, and added their particular scents to he air at dusk.”

Apple Blossom Time May

2009-05-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

Blossom Time

2009-05-21T17:51:00.001-07:00

Trail Wood #110 Earl Plato

It’s blossom time in Niagara this week. Apple, peach. And cherry are in full bloom. So it was in Trail Wood those many ears ago.
“Here downwind from an old apple tree I check my walk in the midst of a shower of blossoms. Petals stream toward me, swirl around me, scud past me. They unroll in a thin carpet of white over the green of the grass.
For a week now fruit bearing trees along the walls and near the brook and scattered through the woods - chokecherries and wild plums and seedling apple trees - have reached the the height of their blooming. One lone pear tree living out its life rooted close beside te north wall has lifted in a towering, foaming fountain of white. Rounded apple trees, remnants of an earlier orchard, transforming from glossy green to shining pink-tinged white, rise in billowing clouds of blossoms.”

May in Marcy Woods

2009-05-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

Spotted salamander

2009-05-18T08:41:00.000-07:00

Salamanders

2009-05-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #109 Earl Plato

Edwin May Teale and wife, Nellie, headed home to their cottage. It was still May.
“ Later on in slow motion in the heat at the end of the day we follow he curve of the pond on the way home. Thunder, still far away, rolls and mutters along the western horizon. Halfway down Azalea Shore where slippage from a small spring has collected into a shallow pool three or four feet across we bend down to examine a whitish mass of salamander eggs, probably those of the common spotted salamander. The cluster suggests a smooth rounded piece of ice spongy with air.
Our last stop before climbing the slope to the house is beside Driftwood Cove. The toads are still trilling but now singly, scattered.”

Hemlocks in Danger?

2009-05-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #108 Earl Plato
How many Eastern hemlocks are there in Trail Wood sanctuary? I don’t know but there is a Hemlock Glen there. Teale mentions it but doesn’t say too much about this evergreen. However, we are concerned about the many hemlocks found in Marcy’s Woods. On May 15th we lead Sarah Leone, Plant protection inspector scientist, into Marcy’s Woods to look for an important pest of hemlock trees, the Hemlock Wooley Adelgid. Daughter Allison and I had already looked for the tell tale cottony white egg sacs at he end of branches. We found none but we are not scientists. Why so serious? The small aphid-like insects, the Wooly adelgid sucks sap from the needles. For most of its life it is covered by a white, woolly substance that it secretes over its body. They feed primarily on young branches causing cessation of growth. There is a discoloration and premature dropping of needles, the dieback of branches and possible death of the tree in little as one year! Infestation has been found outside of Rochester, New York. That’s not far away - 160 km - 100 miles. We need the least-toxic control when it arrives. Check your home hemlocks.

The Last Two Stops

2009-05-11T12:41:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #107 Earl Plato

The last two stops at Trail Wood - Stops 6 & 7.
“Stop 6. In the yard below the terrace one of our cottontails nibbles tender new grass, washed by rain in the night. I watch it nip off a blade and chew rapidly beginning at the lower end. He blade grows shorter and shorter until the tip disappears. A blue jay flies into the apple tree with a raucous note of alarm. I notice how the rabbit instantly sits up, its head held high, looking around and ready to leap. It is an animal tuned in on all the warning sounds around it.
Stop 7. One last pause before I come indoors, a pause to watch a white-breasted nuthatch at a feeder still stocked with sunflower seeds. I see it pick up a seed, discard it, pick up another seed and discard it. I begin counting. It discards twenty-eight seeds before it chooses one to its liking and flies away.
The Walk of the Seven Stops. On every trip afield it is the halts, the pauses, the moments when activity ceases that mark encounters of special interest.”
Writer’s note: Do you get Teale’s message? Slow down and observe what is around you on your next walk.

soaring red-shouldered

2009-05-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

Stops 4 & 5 Trail Wood

2009-05-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #106 Earl Plato

We continue on with Teale’s Stops 4&5

“ Stop 4. Out in the meadow I look up. High above two red-shouldered hawks spin in an updraft. Just as I gt my glasses focused on obe of the soaring birds, it sweeps back its wings, tilts steeply downward and like an arrowhead it streaks in a long plunge toward the earth. I follow it down and down. I see it near the ground, open its wings, check its descent and begin climbing upward again. A hawk sporting in the air of spring.
Stop 5. Another hawk one of the broad-wings goes beating across the field low above me. Looking up again through the round, magnifying windows of mt binoculars I see it as it passes by give a little flutter to its tail as though it had been bitten by a parasite.”
Next: Stops 6 & 7.

Tuffted titmouse stop2

2009-05-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

Stops 2&3

2009-05-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #105 Earl Plato

Stops 2 & 3 at Trail Wood, May 9th
“ Stop 2. The beech leaves are off their twigs at last. All winter on this sapling tree beside the rail the pale, tan flags of the slender, last year’s foliage have fluttered in the wind. Now the swelling of he buds has loosened their grip upon the twigs.
Stop 3. At the edge of the woods I pause to listen to the clear call of a little tufted titmouse. It is repeated endlessly. The sound comes to my ear with small variations. Sometimes it is “Cheer! Cheer! Cheer!” Sometimes “Chew! Chew! Chew!” sometimes “Hear! Hear! Hear!” At other times it is more nearly like Year! Tear! Year!” In whatever form it arrives, it rings out among all the bird sounds around me. I remember an experienced field ornithologist who once told me he had found that he saw
forty-five percent of all species he would encounter on a given day in spring during his first hour.”
Next Stops 4 & 5.

Seven Stops - stop Oner

2009-05-09T06:47:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #104 Earl Plato
For almost twenty years I wrote a weekly nature column for the Niagara Falls Review. Edwin Teale’s writings were often my inspiration. In a May 9th log he told of seven stops in Trail Wood. Some years back I wrote of seven steps in beautiful Marcy Woods one May day. Here is the first part of Ed Teale’s offering entitled “ The Walk of Seven Stops.”
Stop 1, I stoop to tie my shoelaces on a woodland trail and in consequence see something I otherwise would have missed. It is a small cushion of shaggy moss grow on decaying wood. The leaves all turned to one side suggest scythes or brushes. Children have fancied they resemble duck heads or soldiers with lances marching to war. The common name for the primitive plant is Broom moss. Its scientific name is Diorama solarium. “
Next - Steps 2 & 3

Love those Broad-wings

2009-05-07T14:27:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #103 Earl Plato

Edwin and Nellie Teale were fascinated with their resident broad-wings. We read on.
“ Some days ago our broad-wings came home, home to their old nesting area in a secluded part of Seven Springs Slope in the South Woods. Home from South America after a round trip of thousands of miles over land and water. Since then the woods have echoed with the “whee-ooou” of their mating call repeated in the air from perch to perch. Before long we will see at the high fork of some maple tree a stick nest growing in size. To it the birds will add at intervals twigs and small branches with he green foliage still attached. In the weeks that follow we will encounter the mated birds “frogging” along the brooks and hunting for chipmunks in the woods. We will see them searching for prey on the wing or perched motionless on a lower limb. They peer downward for some slight sign of movement below.”

Broad-winged our smallest Buteo - crow-sized

2009-05-07T10:48:00.000-07:00

The Broad-wings

2009-05-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

We will see them searching for prey on the wing or perched motionless on the lower limb of a tree peering downward for some slight sign of movement below.”

Nuptial flight

2009-05-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

Nuptial Flight at Trail Wood

2009-05-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #101 Earl Plato

It’s May - mating time in nature.
Naturalist described in his May 7th log an aerial , nuptial flight of broad-winged hawks.
“ In swift, tight circles the pair of broad-winged hawks mounts in the sky over Monument Pasture. We watch the soaring birds grow smaller as they climb. We hear the shrill feeding whistled piping of their calls. We see the pair pass and repass. We see them make dives and swerves that are parried by instantaneous tilts and veers. Unaware of passing time Nellie and I stand gazing up at this sky borne exhibition of he wild ecstasy of nuptial flight.”

Just One Snake

2009-05-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #100 Earl Plato
Okay I love nature but I have another side to my character. I like local history too. I had published by Van Well Publishing Company my first of three historical fiction novels. It is entitled, Terror at Snake Hill. The setting is 1866 the Fenian Invasion of Upper Canada and the Battle of Ridgeway. The word “terror” in the novel had more than one reason for the word. In the climax chapter of the novel the heroine is trapped in the old redoubt at historic Fort Erie. She and her young friend enter the old stone fortification. He two bar the door. She turns to face a wall writhing with snakes hence the use of the word “terror.”. As a teenager on bike we visited an old quarry pi one Saturday in spring. There on one wall of the pit were, hundreds of garter snakes. It was mating time. snakes were writhing on the various ledges. It was a sight I never forgot. Years later I used that serpent scenario in my little novel.
Not so many snakes at Teale’s Summerhouse Rock as I saw but here is his concluding report:
“ Why have they selected our Trail Wood pond for their rendezvous? How have they arrived at this one? My guess is that they have followed scent trails left behind by the female. For a good part of the day this mating tangle of sinuous bodies remains on the rock. During long periods all the water snakes are still. Then a general wriggling and changing of positions sets in. By evening the May encounter is at an end. The aquatic snakes begin to scatter. In the next dawn we will see only one, the resident that makes its home along Azalea Shore. I wonder where the others will go. How far did they came for this tangled assemblage? Beside the pond the female will give birth to the living young that will number anywhere between sixteen and forty-four. Life for these creatures is precarious and usually short.”

One Northern water snake in Teale's Pond May5th

2009-05-05T13:29:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #99 Earl Plato
Time for water snakes? My memory goes back to a time of youth circa ten or eleven. We, three of us, were on an old raft poling ourselves across Plato pond. On the far northwest edge of the water a large, black scaly snake entered the water. Weaving its way it headed for us. I can still recall cousin Sam calling out/ “It’s a water moccasin!” Some how Sam walked on water as he headed for shore. Amazing. The snake was a big, black Northern water snake. Non-poisonous we found out. Scared , yes. We informed Sam that water moccasins were not indigenous to Niagara.
I have stood at the large Teale pond. Ed Teale gives us a good glimpse of Northern water snakes.
“ Up until yesterday we have one resident water snake in our pond, a rather pretty dark banded reptile, easily alarmed and always disappearing at my approach. In the morning yesterday I saw it had been joined by a stranger. By noon a second newcomer had made its appearance. By evening a thitd had arrived.
Now as Nellie and I examine the pond edges in the morning light we discover the number had risen to five. While we watch we catch sight of one water snake after another swimming steadily toward Summerhouse Rock. There they haul themselves out and lie on its flat surface. Soon e are looking through its field glasses at a mass of wriggling. Intertwining serpents. This May our pond is a rendezvous. A mating place, that has drawn water snakes from the surronding area. One, I believe, is thick bodied, older and almost black in color.
… Numerous males are trying to mate with one female. But they do it without any evidence of fighting among themselves.”

female water snake eating a fish

2009-05-05T12:02:00.000-07:00

male northern water snake

2009-05-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

Blackburnian warbler

2009-05-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

Yellowthroat warbler

2009-05-04T08:47:00.000-07:00

Warbler Time in Trail Wood

2009-05-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #98 Earl Plato

Early May at Trail Wood in central Connecticut with the Teales. “Sitting on this old log beside the twisting course of Hampton Brook, I have been watching the treetops, observing a small band of warblers darting about, endlessly in motion as they feed among the filmy clouds of newly expanding leaves. Spring sunshine illuminates the woods. The air is warm, filled with the primeval smells of earth in May.
And all the while overhead among the upper twigs and branches, I glimpse the bright little bodies of the warblers, the blue-winged, the chestnut-sided, the black-and-white, the yellowthroat, and he prairie. They start and stop, dart and flutter. Their colors catch the eye. Their clear, carrying, emphatic little voices fill the woods. They are active life in its most visible form on this sunny morning in early May”
Note : In Marcy Woods the trilliums are in bloom. A yellowthroat, a black-and-white warblers are back. The melodious call of a wood thrush calls from the wetlands. A great time.

male Baltimore oriole

2009-05-04T06:29:00.000-07:00

Baltimore oriole's neat nest

2009-05-04T06:24:00.000-07:00

The orioles are back

2009-05-04T06:08:00.001-07:00

Trail Wood #97 Earl Plato
The first day of May goes on. Teale wrote:
“Noon: the oriole is back in the hickory tree. Among the the upper branches, still unclothed in leaves, I catch he male’s black and white and orange plumage flashing in starts and stops, the contrasts brilliant in midday sunshine. I hear the clear, flutelike whistle, the same rich tones that have been part of each year since we cane to Trail Wood. Two or three days before the usual time of its arrival, the bird has returned from its long flight to the south, and then, in season, to the north again. It has come home to the identical nesting tree where a year ago its mate wove a deep pendent pocket nest anchored near the tip of one pf the highest limbs.”

Red- shouldered hawk

2009-05-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #96 Earl Plato

Teale continued with his May 1st log entry. “ And what do I see-morning, noon, and night - walking through this initial day of this favorite month of spring?
Morning. A Red-shouldered hawk drops down from a tree to a rock at the edge of Azalea Shore on the southern side of the pond. It wades out into the shallows and for several minutes I see it through my glasses splashing and shaking itself as it takes a bath.”.”

Red-shoulgered hawk

2009-05-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

Magnificent Great White

2009-04-29T18:17:00.000-07:00

Egrets

2009-04-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

Great White - 8 of them no kidding

2009-04-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

vGreat Egret Earl Plato

Three or four at the mouth of the creek in other years. Not so this May 1st, 2009. Eight Great White egrets at the mouth of Frenchman’s Creek just north of he town of Fort Erie. I see it as one of the most magnificent of our heron species. Audubon says that like its cousin the Great Blue heron “… it feeds alone.” We saw eight of them stalking fish, frogs and probably crayfish. Explanation anyone?

May in Trail Wood

2009-04-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #96 Earl Plato

Years past I inherited Teale’s great effort - A Walk Through the Year. Over the years in my circa 20 year weekly nature writeups I often referred to Teale’s works. April has ended and May is here.
On May 1st Edwin Teale wrote as follows:
“ April is a promise/ May is fulfillment.
May is the time when everything seems happening, when life rises to a peak.”
Writer’s note: We in Ridgeway (Fort Erie) Ontario are on the same latitude as Trail Wood, Connecticut. Four seasons here - four seasons there.
“ May is the birdsong month. May is the time when we rebel most of all against routine, when we want the largest margins to our lives, when we desire to wander through the woods and over the fields completely free - as John Muir and Henry Thoreau were free - of all entangling engagements. Perhaps the walks of this month should be headed: Sauntering Through May. May in Spring and October in Fall - these for the average person are the two best loved among the twelve chapters that make up The Book of the Year.”

Trail Wood map

2009-04-27T05:52:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood

2009-04-27T05:50:00.001-07:00

Trail Wood #95 Earl Plato

The Connecticut Audubon Society maintains Trail Wood Sanctuary. It is a beautiful 168 acre setting. This is where Edwin Way Teale and his wife Nellie lived so many years. It is the subject of many of this Pulitzer Prize winning author’s writings on nature. Teale named various natural settings as you can see on the accompanying map. The woodlands, fields, wetlands and pond habitats abound with wildlife/ There are well developed trails that we have walked.
93 Kenyon Road, Hampton, CT 06247

2009-04-27T05:24:00.000-07:00

An explanation - male agressiveness

2009-04-27T05:15:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #94 Earl Plato

Edwin Teale shared his observations.
“ In recent days we have caught a low-pitched, reverberating sound, accelerating in tempo, rising to a muffled drumfire at the end-the sound of a cock ruffed grouse on some log in the woods drumming with its wings to attract a mate. It is a sound that can be heard a half a mile away. For the ruffed grouse … it sends forth the invitation … in this mating season of spring.
At this time of the year the male grouse is especially belligerent. … It is this combativeness in this season of the year that appears to provide the most probable explanation for the puzzling confrontation we have observed.”
Grouse versus crow.

Strange Confontration

2009-04-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #93 Earl Plato

Grouse versus Crow at Trail Wood.
“This continues minute after minute. At last we see the grouse gradually begin drifting back out of the field toward the woods. Its ruff lowers and it slips quietly among the trees. The crow wait’s a few minutes longer then flaps heavily into the air. We change our position and discuss what we have seen. How had the crow and the grouse come face to face? What produced heir unusual confrontation? “
Stay tuned, eh. Teale answers the questions next.

The Meadow

2009-04-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

Ruffed Grouse

2009-04-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

Ruffed Grouse a meeting

2009-04-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #92 Earl Plato

It’s April 24th in Edwin Teale’s daily log at Trail Wood. I can picture the setting. Teale wrote:
“ As though in the balcony of a theater, we look down the slope of Firefly Meadow this morning, watching a small drama being enacted at its foot. It is a mystery play and we are mystified by what we see.
Spectators unobserved, we remain motionless largely hidden leaning on the stone wall under the hickory trees. Below where the slope of the meadow emerges with the lowland woods, a male ruffed grouse has emerged among the trees. With its ruff raised its body lifted to its full height. It stands facing an alighted crow. The crow changes position. It walks about. It turns away. It swings back toward the grouse again. That woodland bird remains rigid, tense, vigilant.”
Next: What happened that April 24th day?

Muskrat in the Pond

2009-04-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

Walking at night Trail Wood

2009-04-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #91 Earl Plato
Edwin Teale and wife, Nellie, were naturalists for all seasons and for all day - even night time. I haven’t meandered around a camp site at night for years. Apparently the Teales did their nocturnal walks on a regular basis. hey are still at the pond when we read:
“ Across the pond when we switch off beams, we see starlight reflected in the black mirror of the water. A fish leaps sending a circle of ripple rings hurrying over the surface, setting the images of stars and constellations tumbling and gyrating where they pass. Once we hear a low splash and then make out a long V expanding in the wake of a swimming muskrat.”

"Bubble-gum" tree frog

2009-04-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

Close up

2009-04-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #91 Earl Plato

Ed Teale and wife Nellie, flashlights in hand walk the northern edge of their pond. The calls of the gray tree frog greets them in this April 23rd log.
“I run three beam of my light up the mottled trunk. It reveals-like two thicker fragments of bark a foot apart-the almost perfectly camouflaged bodies of two singers clinging with padded feet to the tree. A plane drones overhead in the night. All the spring peepers and all the gray tree frogs redouble their efforts. Even in midday we notice how the sound of a plane moving across the sky above them sets these frogs to calling.
Watching in the light of our double beams we are fascinated as always by the throat sac of the gray tree frog. It-as does the throat sac of the peeper-expands like a shining balloon. Then when the call is reached it collapses and disappears suddenly as though the tree frog has swallowed it. “Bubble-gum frogs” is the name a friend of ours once applied to these batrachians. Again and again we observe how the creature’s sides draw in as the sac swells distending farther and farther vibrating with the intensity of the fluttering call, then disappearing in its sudden contraction.”

Teale Pond Trail Wood

2009-04-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

Gray tree frog - looks green eh?

2009-04-23T13:22:00.000-07:00

Gray tree frog at Trail Wood pond

2009-04-23T12:52:00.000-07:00

Trail Wood #90 Earl Plato

We did not walk all the trails of Trail Wood that July day. I wish we had taken the time. E were headed for Mystic Seaport. Ed Teale cites some of the following places he walked so many times.
“ Along Azalea Shore, down Stepping Stone Brook, at the edge of Whippoorwill Cove, spring peepers- the “peep frogs” of country folks - lift their clear little voices in a chimming chant. Endlessly, tirelessly, on and on into the night, their chorus repeats the same refrain: “Spring! Spring!” At intervals, lifting above this batrachian chorus comes another sound of the season. It is the musical, fluttering call of the peeper’s larger relative, the gray tree frog, Hyla versicolor. The calling grows louder as we near the leaning wild apple tree that is rooted close to the water’s edge on he northern side of the pond.”

Indian Cucumber Planr Lake of Bays

2009-04-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

Lake of Bays Earl Plato

On the way to the giant Beaver Dams naturalist Ernie Giles paused at a new plant to me. Ernie could live off the land. He knew his plants both edible and inedible, The root of the Indian cucumber has an edible root. I had my sketch book with me and made a simple drawing. The beaver dams stretched across an entire inlet. Longest I have ever seen. Yes, two beavers were cutting down trees across the way.

Indian Cucumber Root Lake of Bays

2009-04-23T06:21:00.000-07:00

2 sketches

2009-04-22T11:21:00.000-07:00

Lake of Bays Earl Plato
I was recovering from an operation and stayed for a week at a friend’s beautiful home on the Lake of Bays in central Ontario. I like to sketch and was helped by ny bird and animal friends posing for me. Two sketches.
1. Red-breasted nuthatch
2. Red squirrel

Red-breasted nuthatch

2009-04-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

Red-breasted nuthatch

2009-04-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

Red squirrel pose

2009-04-22T10:58:00.000-07:00

A Dawn at Trail Wood

2009-04-21T14:18:00.001-07:00

Trail Wood #88 Earl Plato

We parked our car in the ample parking lot below the white cottage of the Teales.
It was mid-morning on Canada Day, July 1st, 3007. We walked the path to he house to meet our guide, Vern Pursley.
The setting for this in Teale’s log is April 20th one early morning at Trail Wood.
“ In the light drawn across the landscape the rays of the rising sun grow stronger. They cross the valley of Little River, probe among he bare treetops above Hampton Brook, run along the ridgepole of our white cottage under the sheltering hickory trees and speed on to highlight the flank of he steep ridge to the west. I suppose like other dawns coming to other clear April skies but to me it has a special quality of its own, a special beginning-of-the-world freshness and beauty.”
Enjoy spring mornings this year of 2009. Get up really early some day and watch dawn unfold..