All Archived Reports

Last week, when the weather brought sunshine and temperatures into the teens, we made time every afternoon to walk in a different local park. The Coves in November was very quiet. We heard few birds and saw none until we visited the bird feeders on a property adjacent to the trail. Here we found a […]

Early November still holds patches of life and colour. November 6th November 10th and 12th A few wildflowers were still in bloom and had some insect visitors. Most plants had gone to seed: Virgin’s-Bower, New England Aster, Common Milkweed, goldenrod with flea beetle. Apart from Mallards and Canada Geese, there are many fewer birds present […]

Sifton Bog Environmentally Significant Area (ESA) is a floating acid peat bog surrounded by deciduous swamp and upland forest. A boardwalk leads through the woods to Redmond’s Pond. This pond in the midst of the bog is slowly decreasing in size as it fills with sediment and peat formed by the Sphagnum moss that carpets […]

The canopy in vivid colour, October 25th. Rain and cold temperatures on October 30th took down many of the leaves. The canopy has lost much of its colour and will soon have the monochrome palette of November. You can also see in the photo below, taken October 31, that the city is in the process […]

We’ve continued to have overcast skies and rain much of the time. The skies were clear on the morning of October 23rd. The air was chilly from the first overnight frost we’ve had this fall. With the promise of sun, we couldn’t resist a trip to check out the migrating waterfowl at the Strathroy settlement […]

We got a notice that the Ecology Department at the City of London was conducting a BioBlitz between October 16 to 22 at four of the environmentally significant areas (ESAs) in the city. A bioblitz is defined on the iNaturalist website as “a communal citizen-science effort to record as many species within a designated location […]

September 1st was a fine sunny day to visit Hawk Cliff. Hawk Cliff Woods is one of the nature reserves stewarded by the Thames Talbot Land Trust. It is a 230-acre property overlooking Lake Erie near Port Stanley. The reserve comprises a significant area of Carolinian forest, a wildflower meadow, and the Auzins Community Wildflower […]

We’ve had exceptionally warm, humid fall weather, more than 10C above the expected temperature of 16C. As the air cools overnight, mist forms as the moisture in the air condenses. The colour of the leaves is now changing rapidly as the hours of daylight wane. Greenway Park borders the Thames River. As we got out […]

We were delighted to spend a day birding with a friend from California who was in Toronto for only one day. It was sunny and mild, the perfect fall weather for walking the trails at Colonel Samual Smith and Humber Bay East. A Red-tailed Hawk greeted us at Colonel Sam, landing high in a tree […]

Medway Gravel Pit Pond The pond is on the property of an active quarry, but the area surrounding the pond is no longer being excavated. The pond and surrounding field attract a few migrating birds and create habitat for various plants and insects. Despite our attempts to approach the pond quietly and cautiously, we managed […]