Connecting Lake Simcoe's Community

          By David Hawke -- On a crisp autumn day in 1941, George de Mestral was out for a walk with his dog, Milka.

By David Hawke -- Of the five basic questions that must be asked to truly understand anything, those being who, what, when, where and why, it’s the answer to that last one that can really make or break a conversation.

By David Hawke -- One of the things I’ve noticed about converting our former pasture field into a forest has been the shift in wildlife species using the area.

By David Hawke -- I know there are readers of this blog who are waiting impatiently for me to rip a strip off our provincial government in regards to their recent and ongoing desecration of our accepted environmental protections.

By David Hawke -- Deep within our local valleys and wet areas grow a variety of conifer trees: white cedar, balsam fir, eastern hemlock, black spruce and tamarack.

By David Hawke — If you have observed wildlife for any length of time, you may have realized that life for these critters can appear to be cruel and unfair; very few, if any, wild animals die of old age.

By David Hawke -- That last blast of snow no doubt encouraged you to get the bird feeders up and filled.

By David Hawke -- This month feels so much like a recently completed festival -- coloured leaves are gone, wildflowers have been killed by frost, Thanksgiving and Halloween are over, Indian summer has come and gone, and most of the birds, mammals and insects have either migrated or are hibernating. Nothing left but memories.

By David Hawke -- BOOM! BOOM! KA-POW!  Yep, autumn has arrived and with it comes the annual tradition -- and associated controversy -- of hunting.

          By David Hawke -- Nature’s annual autumn colour party was well done this year, with the local maple trees sporting posh crimsons and oranges, splashed against the more somber yellow cast.

          By David Hawke -- CLACK! Scitter-scitter. Silence. I open one eye and look at the bedside clock... 4:02am. Good, got another one, same time as yesterday's capture. The recent arrival of mice in the house has caused me to set out a trapline of defence.

By David Hawke -- Birdwatching is definitely a spring thing. That’s when the birds are in their colourful breeding plumage

By David Hawke -- Loons and canoes seem to go together in a proper order, like a hand in a glove type of feeling.

By David Hawke -- Looking back on last week's weather only confirms the suspicion that autumn is trying to descend upon us.

          By David Hawke -- As late-summer September drifts into early-autumn October there is a fair bit of excitement in the natural world. Birds are migrating, mammals are stocking up on their winter cache of food and fat, and many insects have found either a cozy place to hibernate or at least a protected spot to lay their eggs. But for many of us the thrill of autumn is found on the forest floor… it’s mushroom season!

          By David Hawke -- “If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” was the question introduced by George Berkeley in 1710. Surprisingly, this was in the context of perception, not forest management. Nowadays I suppose the question is, “If a tree falls on a power line, and no one has electricity, how do you call Hydro One?”

          By David Hawke -- White-tailed deer have always lived around our farm, occasionally seen grazing in far corners of the pastures or bouncing across a meadow as they move from one woodlot to another. Nice to see, and nice to know that they are comfortable enough with our presence to continue living here. However, events are building that may cause some friction between us.

By David Hawke -- Here’s a little word-association game that many parents are doing this year: September. School. Homeschooling. Fear.

By David Hawke -- As I drove along the not-as-quiet-as-it-once-was back country road, the ghostly shapes that lined the roadside gave me the creeps. Tall trees, once resplendent in their green foliage, now appeared like mummified corpses, as they were wrapped from trunk to crown in grey-white fabric. Wow, the fall webworms are thick this year!

By David Hawke -- I read somewhere, once upon a time, that "if a botanist is ever condemned to the severest punishment that the underworld can mete, the penalty will be to write a monograph accurately describing and identifying all the known goldenrods." This mythical threat is not too far off base, as more than 50 kinds of goldenrod are found in southern Ontario, and many hybridize with each other.