Observations this summer - What did you see?

New birds added to the 

Timmins Checklist of the birds!

Summer is done and this fall I will work on updating the Observations Naturally page and the Timmins Checklist of the Birds.

SNAKES - turns out I am not the only one to notice lots of snakes this year on the roads. It seems there was hardly a week went by that I was not avoiding a snake crossing the road. Many never even moved until I got out of the truck and went back to make sure I missed. They must be loving the heat from the sun this summer.

I was sent an interesting picture of a ruffed grouse with a snake in it's mouth. Guess it was going to work on it as it's meal for the week.

TURTLES - I did not see one this year! I did get some notes on what you saw. Highlight being another sighting of the Blanding turtle at Gillies Lake. I have also had a report of a small snapping turtle at Gillies. I still have not seen photographic evidence of the sightings.

If you see a turtle in the area I would love to know where you saw it, and I would really really like to see the pictures you took of it!

TURKEY VULTURE - Lots of conversation about the turkey vulture. Groups of them seen at the boat launch, one seen on the ground at a moose carcass on Dalton rd. Eagle seen on the carcass another time. Love to see this bird, it is so distinctive in the air.

BALD EAGLE - I know the last 2 years the Bald eagle has stayed all year, at least one at the Deloro landfill. Last week it was reported that there were at least 4 hanging around at the dump. Christmas Bird Count here in Timmins had a pair of Bald eagles reported! I even have video of the pair. see it now

Let me know what you are seeing out there. Always interested in your sightings.

Oxygen Grows On Trees

Archie's Rock Pictures and Video

With Archie Chenier

 @ Archie's Rock

Great field trip!

I could tell you more, much more, but you can see pictures and read more from the Timmins Times here

Archie tells his story, at 88 he is going strong. You can see it on  youtube.

All the pictures I took that day you can see here.

We also found a geocache on the trail to the top of the rocks.

Learn more about geocaching, start at the page that describes the
Archie's Rock geocache. learn more

Mully's Musings with Mike Mulryan includes a note about the trip too. read more

This picture to the right, is just another example of the tenacity trees. This tree is growing on rocks 5 meters in the air.

Made a quick google map so you can see exactly where the rock is located and how to get there.

Join this page to keep up to date on Timmins Naturalists events, or send me an email so I can add you to the distribution list.

keep in touch

Fall Hiking Day

It is going to be 

another gorgeous sunny day!!

These hiking events are become very popular.

Lots of fun, great people who like to talk about the importance of the community, the trails and coming together in the fresh air of Timmins.

Join us on Facebook

We have had a few walks at Hersey the last couple of years. Come join us.

Feb 26, 2012

Oct 16, 2011

Oct, 2010

Sept 27, 2009

We are also planning a get together to look at Archie's Rock and Nickies Nature Trail. We will leave the Gillies lake parking lot at 11am Sunday October 21, so we can car pool. We will visit Archie's rock first then go to the trail head of Nickies Nature Trail.

Archies' Rock
Timmins Outdoors
flicker

Nickies Nature Trail
I am working on a better map for the trail. This is what I have done so far, see the map
There is a geocashe on the way into the rocks learn more
Government support for the trail read more

On The Rocks Today

Cedar, Snake, Rock!

This little cedar has been doing great the last couple of years, 

even though it is growing in almost no soil.

This little snake was enjoying the sunny warm day, until Roll'n and I disturbed it.

Just a little one soaking up the the warm fall day.

I think someone has been here before.

Looks like advanced exploration has come and cleaned the rock to get a good look at the gold.

I did not see any gold.

I don't know what to look for anyway. Rocks are not my thing, trees are.

This is where I took the pictures see the map

Timmins Honour Roll of Trees

The gofor group 

Oxygen Grows On Trees

Ferns and frogs eggs; bridge no more.

Ferns are starting to come up.

go now

Like a ribbon of seeds to be panted in the garden, these seeds produce amphibians.

Looked into this big puddle and my first thought was : that is a huge worm!

Give your head a shake. Reminds me of my first week in Timmins. On our way to the airport, we pass some big houses, big yards too. Around the corner and at first glance I think "someone  has lost a horse". I am glad I realize a moose before I said anything. The northerns in the truck would still be laughing at me.

This is not a huge dead worm in the puddle. No lifting them gently reveals a black ovals inside a gel like tube. I suspect toad eggs. Guess I will go see if I can identify them on some site.

Can you help?

 go now






ex-Bridge
Cultural Heritage or Garbage?

Artifact?

This is on crown land. No one or everyone in Ontario is the owner.

One day it will rust enough to fall into the water. One day it will ave rusted so much there will nothing left.

Until that day, all the metals and chemicals will continue to enter the surface water.

Artifact or garbage, have your say.

Trees and Water near Timmins today.

Tree Top

Water Rocks

Beaver Snacks

Today at work, which may look like play, but I am beat at the of the day!

Today marking boundary line and checking reserves.

A poplar top is very compact.

Looks great against the blue ski.

Water on rocks, with a map of where.

Looking up stream, the cedar are thick.

The beaver are hungry, they're eating birch.

Spring has the birch water over-flowing

nice day

oh turkey vulture flew overhead

and so did a red tailed hawk

Earth Day Timmins

2012 EARTHDAY TIMMINS

Karl Habla organized an Earth Day walk at Gillies lake this year.
It was a wonderful day and the great ball of fire in the sky provided heat!

While the walk was not well attended it is the thougsht that counts. My kids laying in their beds said they were thinking of me.

more info from the Daily Press

Half of my Earth Day was spent at the 65th annual Sportsman Show. Again more info.

I really love to chat with the people that come to the Wintergreen display to talk about sightings and trails and being outdoors.

Plenty of people bought the Bird poster, only a townie!

For the first 2 hours my wonderful daughter joined me. She really only came for the candy floss.

I enjoy talking to people about the trails, the Timmins Honour Roll of Trees, Observations Naturally and interesting sightings around the area.

Nice!

White Birch Bonsai - Update

Healthy and Happy

Spring has come to the greenhouse.

I had not been in the greenhouse for some time. I missed the birth of the first buds bursting on the branches.

I missed all the leaves growing big and strong. Hey wait, you are suppose to be a bonsai.

Next for the tree is to have at least 50% of the leaves removed and trim the branches back to keep the shape. I started to do it but I did not have a shape enough knife or my good secateurs.

This tree went into this pot May 2009, it was 2 or 3 years old at the time. So now the tree is 6 years old. I wonder when it will get the white bark of a White birch. That is really what I am waiting for. I want to see the paper birch that makes this tree famous!

Hopefully this year.

In the bush it looks like trees get the white bark before they are 5 years old, but they are not stunted. I will leave the tree in this pot for one more year and remove it in the fall. It will go back in the same pot, but 1/3 of the roots will be removed.

 The photo history of the tree can be seen here

Past blog entries :  Jan 23, 2010      Nov 01, 2009     May 10, 2009

Timmins Temperature Records

7 days in a row :)

7 days of HOT weather :)

7 days of summer!

Then back to norms :(

I have not heard of any bears out looking around, but the birds are very early this year.

Normally Robin does not appear until April ~14th. This year the first Robin appears March 18th.  This is the first year that we have confirmed sightings of Bald eagle all winter. We had a pair during the Christmas Bird Count, and a single one spent the season at the dump. Another one was spotted along the Mattagami River all winter.

It was so warm on March 18th that the young ones washed the truck.

The Timmins Naturalists has a page called Observations Naturally that record sightings and observations. You see we had 7 days of record setting temperatures. The biggest record breaker was 27.9C breaks the 1979 11.2C record. We broke a record by over 16.5C.

Edmund Fitzgerald

 Thanks http://janesjewels.blogspot.com

This Day In History

Greetings!

A new feature at Jane's Jewels will be the occasional 'This Day In History'. Today's story takes place on Lake Superior, that huge, treacherous, yet oh so beautiful Great Lake. I lived in Thunder Bay for six years during my late teens/early twenties, and what I remember most about my time there was the wind, which never seemed to stop blowing.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that made headlines after sinking in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975, with the loss of the entire crew. When launched on June 8, 1958, she was the largest boat on the Great Lakes, and remains the largest boat to have sunk there. Nicknamed the "Mighty Fitz", "Fitz", or "Big Fitz", the ship suffered a series of mishaps during her launch: it took three attempts to break the champagne bottle used to christen her and she collided with a pier when she entered the water. (Wiki)

Gordon Lightfoot immortalized this tragedy in his haunting 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'. This song quite often comes to mind when I hear or see the word November; in fact that's how I ended up profiling this story. 

Feel like summer in the swamp.

What another great summer day in the forest! Yes I know it is fall, but it has been so wonderful the last couple of weeks.

I had the opportunity to walk up to a little pond this afternoon. I think I saw the biggest Northern Pitcher-plant I have ever seen.

One plant I looked into had a dead fly floating in the water inside the pitcher. You can see the fly in one of the pictures.

Is is actually fall, the tamarack is already turning yellow.

Northern Ontario Plant Database

eNature

Tree Atlas

Ontario Trees and Shrubs

Garden Growth and Spotted Tussock Moth

Oxygen is growing in my garden big time this year. Last year I did not have any peas, but this year the garden is able to keep up to the grabbing hands of my guys and the little ones next door. The carrots are great and the goldfinches are already plucking at the sunflowers. The kids are learning what the finches sound like when they are flying overhead. They now know 2 birds by their sound, robin and goldfinch.

Last year, no corn. This year I am sure we will get 10 cobs of corns!

Morning Glory's are taking over everything. They are up the corn and sunflowers, tangled in the peas and wrapped around the carrots. The pretty flowers they produce will attract the humming birds soon. The garden is a little too crowded this year, but I just can not bring myself to remove anything, after last years poor showing.

Timmins is starting a community garden program, I think it will be up and running next spring. Stay tuned in - when I know, you will know

I guess the Earth Machine composter in the middle of all this growing is using some of the O2, but is also producing some great soil for next year.

You can not see the pair of goldfinches on the sunflowers, I did not know they were there until after I took the picture.

While walking back into the house a little Spotted Tussock Moth (Lophocampa maculata) was walking across the grass. I brought it into the house and put it on my young lads bare back. He is very use to his Dad doing things like this. He did not jump, he barely looked up from his computer. "Ya dad what is it"?

He played with it as I looked it up online. Ya just got to love how easy it is to identify anything with a few key strokes. To see what the adult will look like or for more information check out the links below.

Ontario Natural Heritage Information

Royal Alberta Museum

Bug Guy

Oxygen grows in the garden too

So far I have nothing growing, but the snow is gone.

I finished turning the small garden in the back yard. I am behind on starting seeds and did not get it done this weekend again. next weekend is the long weekend so I will have time to play - I hope.

Since oxygen also grows in the garden, soon it will be producing.  I can plant carrots and peas next weekend in the garden the flowers and other vegetables will have to wait until June.

Ducks Water and Ice

Yesterday was the first outdoor soccer practice for the kid.  The field is a little wet on the edges, but other then that it is pretty good.

Finally getting a start to summer. The boys of summer kick'n a ball.

While the kid was ran, jumped and kicked the dog and I went for a walk.  There is a great trail south of Northern College along the lake. One part we had to turn around since it was underwater.

A beaver has been very busy along the side of the lake as many downed trees litter the trail. 

A pair of ducks, male and female mallards, flew from the shore into the lake. Along the lake edge is water, out in the lake only gaps in the ice have water. The ducks are at home between the sheets of ice.

This picture was taken with my camera-binoculars. A 3mp digital camera attached to a pair of binoculars. What you see in the binoculars is what you get a picture of. A light-weight answer to having to lug around a camera and a pair of binoculars.

I still have the pocket digital camera with me, it comes with me everywhere. I have had the digital bino-camera for a couple of years now and I find it pretty good. 

i will put up more pictures from it this summer.

Spring in the bush

I got to go to the bush this week. !!!!!

That makes me happy. I was out to look at the roads and harvest area. Lots of water. All the snow is gone in the cut over area, but there are still pockets of snow under the trees.

A pair of sandhill cranes flies up as I come over a hill walking on the road. I had my camera and my camera-binoculars, but I was not fast enough to get a picture of them flying away. 

Starlings were super loud. There was a big flock of them moving across the cut over, jumping from standing water puddle to the next. Mixed in with the group were chickadees and sparrows.

A couple of ratty looking butterflies came lofting along the muddy road. They would land, I would chase, they would not let me get very close. I think they are Mourning Cloak

It is good to be out walking in the sunshine again.

The dog is covered in mud up to his belly and my boots are covered in mud. the side of the road is soft at the puddles and my boots sink 25cm, not deep enough to go over the top.

My Favorite Bird - Pileated Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus.

Today was a very bright very cold day. All the snow on the ground and in the trees reflecting everywhere.

Then, there swooping across the road, a familiar bird. It is the unmistakable flight path of the Pileated woodpecker. I call to another machine operator to look at the bird, just as it glides across the road again. He tells me it looks like a bird to him.

I have been trying to get a good picture of the bird for many years, so many years that it was back in the film days when I finally got close. I was armed with a 200mm lens on my 35mm camera traveling almost silent on a trail with cross-country skies.

A pileated woodpecker swooped in just in front of me. I was able to ski very close. Closest I have ever been able to get. The bird "worked with me" turning the head and showing off the bright red colours in the sunshine.

I smile and only take a couple of pictures, which is unusual since shooting off a roll of film during a ski was easy to do.

I smile and talk to the bird asking how he knew. "How do you know?" "What little birdie told you?"

"HOW DO YOU KNOW I HAVE BLACK AND WHITE FILM IN THE CAMERA TODAY!!!?"

I did put the picture in the forestry yearbook I did at Sault College. Ever couple of years when I flip the pages and see the picture it still mkaes me smile.

eNature

All About Birds

Ancient Forest Research Report No. 15

Summary of Forest Management
Guidelines for the Provision of Pileated
Woodpecker Habitat

Muddys' Emporium

What kind of trees are these?

Yesterday I went for a nice long walk with Roll'n. We are in Richard's Landing for the holidays. We got on the snow machine trail and walked for a couple of hours. Made a round trip out of it, the GPS tells me we walked more then 9 km.



A very different forest here then what I see around me in Timmins. Shagbark hickory and Sugar maple are not found in the Timmins area. Other trees I know what they are but there are some that I have to collect the buds to take home to confirm what I am looking at. The forest here is mostly hardwoods, I am rusty at hardwood identification.

One other common thing seen today on my walk was the long clear rubber tubing connecting the Sugar maple. It is these lines that in the spring will carry the sap to a central location to be boiled down to maple syrup.

I have made maple syrup in the past but have used buckets to collect the sap. Don't do the boiling down in the house, it gets sticky everywhere!

Hope everyone is having a great holiday.




Picture is looking south from 16-0726484-5129082 Map It

Winter WonderLand

Snow has arrived in the Great White North.

The white pine, which is the arboreal emblem of Ontario, look good with a dusting of snow.

In the background is McKeown Lake. Today Roll'n and I walked about 5 kilometers in the snow. The snow is not deep enough for snowshoes yet, but sometimes the snow is up to my knees. Roll'n needs to jump sometimes making him look like a running deer.

I do have my snowshoes in the truck with me now, just in case I need them.

Black-capped chickadees and a single woodpecker traveling together worked their way past me while they searched for food in the trees.