to know the land – Details, episodes & analysis

Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) is a very common, very attractive and conspicuous species on the landscape. We see them often and are probably pretty familiar with the flowers, fruit and form. I see them down by the river, in the understory of thick forests, and sometimes on the edge of wet meadows. I have also been hanging out with them recently in areas which can be called “post-industrial wastelands”; lands where industry has so polluted and harmed that there are still pollutants and chemicals wrapped up in the soil. But still the Jewelweed thrives.

For this episode, like most episodes, I wanted to explore a little bit more about the Jewelweed I so commonly see. I wanted to ask some questions about the flower development, the explosive seed pods, and about a non-native cousin who seems to be showing up in places more commonly these days. I also dig in on the concept of “post-industrial wastelands” a little as these lands are probably very common across the Great Lakes Bioregion where I live.

Hope you enjoy the show!

To learn more :
Wild Urban Plants of the NorthEast by Peter Del Tredici. Cornell University Press, 2020.
The Book of Swamp and Bog by John Eastman. Stackpole Books, 1995.
Summer Wildflowers of the North East by Carol Gracie. Princeton University Press, 2020.

As an aspiring wildlife tracker I want to know about the signs that animals leave behind. Due to my annoyingly excitable curiosity this includes all animals, and all types of sign. This includes the regurgitated masses of undigested food that makes up a bird pellet.

When it comes to pellets, I have found a couple before. Some full of hair, assorted skulls and other bones, feather parts and even a couple full of seed husks from plants. But when it comes to sorting out who left these pellets behind, there is an extraordinary lack of resources to help folks figure it out.

I got excited to interview Ed Drewitt again. His new book Bird Pellets, out now on Pelagic Publishing, has tons of photos, lots of detailed info and some great hints on how to identify the makers of the pellets we find. While the book was written with a British and Irish context in mind, there are many overlaps with Turtle Island/North American species which I find quite helpful.

As for Ed? He is a professional naturalist, wildlife detective, and broadcaster for the BBC. He has been studying urban Peregrines for over 15 years, and looking into the contents of bird pellets for even longer. He has been on the show before and has been a great help in answering some of my ornithological mysteries pertaining to Peregrine Falcons in the past. It was nice to reconnect over his great new book.

To learn more :
Ed Drewitt’s website
Bird Pellets book website
Ep. 142 : Raptor Prey Remains with Ed Drewitt
Blog post on predated Herring Gull which I consulted with Ed on to determine the predator.

When I look into the authors who wrote most of the naturalist, ecology, natural history books on my shelves, I mostly see white people, especially the older books. When I do interviews with folks in the field, I still find a majority of those who I am talking with are white folks. I wholly recognize that is on me in a lot of ways, but I also recognize that historically, access to these fields has been gatekept by and for white folks, mostly men.

When I come across initiatives that challenge that dynamic, I get stoked. When I find out they are taking students out to some of the places I have and continue to go to to learn about the natural world, I get really stoked, so much so, that I reached out to see about an interview.

Alannah Grant and Jonathan Chu are graduate students in Integrative Biology at Guelph. They are also the University of Guelph liaisons for FREED where they lead the organization and fund-raising (amongst other things) for UoG students to participate in FREED excursions. I wanted to ask them about recent movements to bring awareness to and correct the lack of representation of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour in environmental sciences, how they organize themselves, what is working and what they do on these excursions?

I am always excited when the things I love are made more accessible, so more folks can appreciate, participate, teach and learn. We all live on this wild planet and we should all be able to take part in the profound experiences of exploring, examining and connecting with the land, on the land. This is what FREED helps folks do.

To learn more :
FREED website
FREED instagram

About 30 km from Lake Huron, there is a proposal to dig a 500m mine (“deep geological repository” or DGR) on 1500 acres along the Teeswater River. Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) wants to fill the mine with radioactive waste with a halflife of up to 1,000,000 years. They intend to monitor the dumpsite for a few years and then seal it and forget about it.

Thankfully there are folks resisting the proposed nuclear waste dump. Today’s show I talk to Michelle Stein and Bill Noll from “Protect Our Waterways - No Nuclear Waste” to find out what the proposed project is all about, and how they are working with their neighbours, both near and far, indigenous and settlers, from both sides of Lake Huron, to challenge the NMWO and the proposed DGR.

Sure, this show mostly covers natural history, wildlife, book reviews and such, but there are other things happening out on the land which must highlighted and explored, and resistance to huge industrial radioactive mining projects with possible catastrophic consequences which could still be playing out a million years from now are also worth taking a deeper look at.

Eastern Loggerhead Shrikes (Lanius ludovicianus migrans) have been listed on the COSEWIC as an endangered species since 1991, and more recent population analysis indicates that there may be only 50 breeding pairs remaining in Ontario. With uncertainty around what has been and is continually causing the decline in populations, along ongoing habitat fragmentation, growing impacts of climate change, the future of the Loggerhead Shrike in Ontario is unknown.

But there is work being done to help populations recover. Hazel Wheeler, lead biologist on the Eastern Loggerhead Shrike Recovery Program with Wildlife Preservation Canada has been helping to coordinate captive breeding programs to support the rearing, and release of thousands of Loggerhead Shrikes since 2003.

Hazel joins the show to talk about some of the natural history of the Eastern Loggerhead, along with detailing the recovery project and how they are working hard understand what impacts are affecting the populations, and what they are doing in the breeding programs to assist these amazing and endangered birds.

Want to learn more?

Wildlife Preservation Canada

images credits, clockwise from top :  S Matheson, G Pitman, A Samuelson,

For this interview I get to talk with Jeremy Pustilnik and Paul Curtis about a recently published paper from the journal “Urban Ecosystems” on the interactions of Eastern Cottontail Rabbits (Syvilagus floridanus) and Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes) around the use of Groundhog (Marmota monax) burrows and if the scent of Red Fox urine would dissuade the Cottontails from using the burrows. Not only does the paper cover this issue, but also invites some more complexity by looking at other animals, including specific reference to the Striped Skunk (Mephitis mephitis), and how and when those Skunks use the Groundhog burrows themselves.

The paper offers a lot of depth and detail around the broad intersectional ecology of the Groundhog burrow, who uses this burrow and why, and if by use of olfactory inputs from a local predator, would this act as deterrent to those species who use the burrows.

It was a lot of fun to get to dig in with these two biologists on their research, their experience and their passion for the work.

To read the paper :

“The effects of red fox scent on winter activity patterns of suburban wildlife: evaluating predator-prey interactions and the importance of groundhog burrows in promoting biodiversity” by authors Jeremy D. Pustilnik, Jeremy B. Searle, and Paul D. Curtis

image of Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) taken from study, provided by Jeremy Pustilnik.

The first show of 2021 is a great one. My guest is Sophie Mazowita, naturalist, educator, wildlife guide, tracker and much more. We talk about her journey as a naturalist and a tracker, how she gets off the trail and gets into the wilder world around her.

When I talk to folks about creating cultures of connection with the land, putting in the time, effort and passion into the work of learning ourselves and teaching others, Sophie is right on that. She has been working hard, as evidenced all over the internet with her videos, her career as a naturalist and educator, and her ongoing work getting folks on board with paying attention to the wilder world around them.

On top of her own personal endeavours, she shares her work with the Burlington Mammal Tracking Project where she led groups of trackers to map large mammal occurrence throughout the region. She shares more Conservation Northwest's Community Wildlife Monitoring Project where she is doing similar work, “organizing citizen-scientist volunteers to monitor and document wildlife using remote cameras where state and federal agencies don’t have the resources to go.” We also get to talk about a recent project of hers where she has been making space for folks to come together over video conferencing online to share their own tracking stories. What a great idea!

For more information about the work she is up to now, check out trackingconnection.com.

This is an older interview with cybersquirrel1.com creator SpaceRogue on why we need not worry about the threats of nationalistic warlike cyber attacks on the power grid on the continent, but instead we must be more concerned about THE SQUIRRELS!!! (sort of..)

Squirrels, Birds, Snakes, Raccoons have caused 2,123 power outages around the world since 1987, and possibly more. SpaceRogue has been collecting, documenting, and sharing details of these mischievous  animal attacks against the power grids. Tune in to hear about how the power infrastructure works in North America and how the wilderfauna are fighting back against “the grid”!

"I don't think paralysis [of the electrical grid] is more likely by cyberattack than by natural disaster. And frankly the number-one threat experienced to date by the US electrical grid is squirrels." - John C. Inglis, Former Deputy Director, National Security Agency 2015.07.09

Originally aired April 17, 2017.

Cycles of the year are very important to me. Spring Equinox is always quickening as you smell the winter dripping away. Summer solstice for dancing with friends throughout the shortest nights. Autumn Equinox is a celebration of the bounty the summer has brought, and a reminder of the coming winter.

But none really carry the weight for me as much as the Winter Solstice. The returning of the Sun fills me with hope and relieves the anxious dark which settles deeper into my bones. It used to be a time of depression and despair, when I only saw death and bad, but as I have learned more about the land, the Winter Solstice has become a quiet promise that this dark, too, will pass.

Many cultures throughout history have marked the Winter Solstice with story and fire, communal celebrations which tie in tradition and custom from years back. Sadly this year we can't gather like we might like, and many of our  traditions are going to have to change dramatically or be skipped altogether. Luckily, playing “Solstice” is a Winter Solstice tradition that I do not have to skip.

“Solstice” is a guided journey led by a Shaman character, walking through our modern world of Christmas consumption and traditions revealing how they are overlayed on top of ancient earth based practices.  Along the way we meet a witch, a hunter, a Raven, and a Wolf who help guide us back to the origins of Yule.

This the third year that I get to play this radio play by Alison Mcleay originally broadcast on BBC Scotland  December 21st, 1985. With the voices of Michael Elder, Diana Olsson and Paul Young with producer Patrick Rayner, this is an archival piece of radio which deserves so much more air time. I will continue to rebroadcast this radio play each year that I have a show.

**Alison Mcleay’s (Martin was her married name) obituary

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The work of Forest schools is becoming a bustling landscape of small organizations and business' trying their best to teach and share alongside the land in the best ways they can. But how do we transplant a European sourced model onto colonized indigenous lands without repeating the same racist patterns of harm? How do we not only stop harm, but work towards healing, reparations, and good relationships with all the communities we serve through the context of learning and teaching on the land?

Heather Wilson is the new (as of Nov. 18, 2020) Executive Director of Child and Nature Alliance of Canada and has been working towards some very specific goals:

• Building an inclusive organization that welcomes all people, especially Black, Indigenous and People of Colour
• Empowering staff to carry out their work to the best of their ability
• Embracing and activating healthy experimentation and innovation
• Decolonizing CNAC’s work
• Creating an organization that can scale

With these commitments in mind, I wanted to ask how CNAC is moving forward, building decolonial futures in the world of Forest Schools/Nature Connection, and how do we do this work in pandemic times and beyond? 

With humility and grace, Heather shares some of the work she and the CNAC are doing to push Forest Schools towards a more inclusive, safe, meaningful, and culturally relevant option for all stakeholders.

*Illustration by Jeff Kulak