Five people joined together on an absolutely beautiful Friday morning to paddle the Coldwater River and Matchedash Bay area. Species: Two racoons in the middle of the marsh Mink Midland Painted Turtle (~35) Sandhill Cranes Great Blue Heron Osprey Canada Geese Leopard Frog Northern Shoveller Muskrat Red-winged BlackBirds Blue-winged Teal Turkey Vultures Double-crested Cormorants Black-capped…
Activities
Sights and Sounds of Springs April 12 2023
Muskrat Our First Signs of Spring WalkOn Wednesday April 12, 2023, a group of eight naturalists enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather (23°C) on the rail trail near Line 15As Barb led the group, we were met with the sound of spring peepers and red wing blackbirds. Later, we heard the distinctive call of the chorus…
April Meeting with Guest Walter Muma
Many thanks to everyone who came out! We had 13 join on Zoom and 30 in person at the Orillia Museum of Art & History. Our apologies to the folks on Zoom for the technical issues. We welcomed Walter Muma, President of Wildwood Canada to the Club and his talk on Ontario Wildflowers was very…
March Meeting with Guest Speaker Lynn Holden
We had over 30 people join our March meeting (between in person and Zoom) to hear from Lynn Holden on World Heritage sites. Lynn took us on a journey across our landscapes to learn about a few of the sites. A World Heritage site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international…
Outing: Wilson's Falls
The group at Wilson’s Falls in Bracebridge, Ontario. Almost 10 people ventured north to explore the trail that leads to Wilson’s Falls in Bracebridge. The group enjoyed the trail and heard a Raven and Chickadees. A quiet day, but nice to get out none the less. The trail was hard packed, and entered through the…
Outing: Ramara Trail
Despite damp cold and flat light, five of us had an enjoyable walk today out the Ramara Trail. We had permission to go into Hammock Harbour, and today we counted about 14 Swans – the near ones we could see were Trumpeters (see picture). We also saw about 20 Scaup (don’t know for sure which…
Christmas Bird Count 2022
Another Christmas Bird Count is in the books, with a number of new records! From the data file, we have records back to 2007. The most impressive of the records was the number of inidividual birds counted – over 11,000 (previous high of 9711). Plus 62 species counted this year, another record! (previous high of…
Copeland Forest Fall Outing
A small, congenial group of naturalists met in P2 of Copeland Forest at 10 am for a Fall walk. Included in the group were 5 members of the Orillia Naturalists and 2 guests. As with most of our outings, we proceeded at a slow pace, casting our eyes around looking for what we could identify…
2022 Eastern Bluebird Update
Leanore Wiancko provides this update for the 2022 season on the 29 Bluebird boxes that she maintains and monitors along the 12th Concession in Oro Medonte and Bass Lake Sideroad. Without doubt, this was the worst year for bluebirds at 16 fledged. The cold nights prior to May 24 left four dead and very little…
May Meeting
May 3, 2022 we met in person for our first in person meeting in 2 years. It was a blended meeting with 13 people in person and 17 people attending via Zoom, including our speaker, Megan Bonenfant of the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Megan gave an enthusiastic talk about the Nature Conservancy and about her…
April Meeting
Jennifer Doubt from the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa joined us via Zoom on April 6 at 7:00 pm. Her subject was: Some ecological roles of mosses, and some wonders of peatBeing very small, to the human eye, bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts) sometimes don’t get the credit they deserve for the many essential…
NATURE BOOK OF THE MONTH
The March Nature book of the Month is Nature’s Best Hope, a new approach to conservation that begins in your yard, by Douglas W Tallamy. It is reviewed by Sharon Hancock, long time member of the ONC, and famous for her dinners, (with the help of Ron). The April Nature Book of the Month is Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom and Knowledge…