Take a second look …
The yellow eyes of the Saw-whet Owl are so startling, their gaze so steady, that we tend to ignore everything else. It’s easy to miss the trace of blood just below the owl’s bill, a smear of something that changes the way we look at the bird, that deepens our understanding of it. What discoveries might we make if we took that second look more often, if we trained ourselves to see?
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Tennessee Coneflower: An Honored Guest in My Garden
I first read about Tennessee Coneflower (Echinacea tennesseensis) in the catalogue I get every year from Salt Spring Seeds on Vancouver Island. The notice described it as a rare and uncommonly attractive wildflower that was thought to be extinct until 1968, when researchers discovered a surviving pocket in a cedar glade in central Tennessee. Tennessee Coneflower then spent 32 years on the U.S. Endangered Species List. Thanks to conservation efforts led by the Nature Conservancy and the State of Tennessee, this wildflower was finally removed from the list in 2011 and is now available to home gardeners through a number … Read more
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Hawk Drama at High Park
On June 13, I went to High Park in Toronto’s west end for what I thought would be a day of butterflies and dragonflies. The park is vast (161 hectares, or 400 acres) and contains a variety of habitats, including wetlands and one of the last dry-oak savannahs in the Greater Toronto Area. More than 90 species of butterflies have been recorded in the park and more than 60 species of dragonflies and damselflies. It’s also a great place for birds, but by June 1st, spring migration is over, and I turn my attention to the bugs. I brought binoculars … Read more
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Early Blue Cohosh: Another Native Knockout
I like every element of the popular name: Early Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum giganteum). Early means the flowers appear when I most long for them—in April, when winter has just released its grip, and the soil, if not frozen, is still clammy and cold. Blue signifies a color I don’t see much of so early in the season, aside from the violets that grow in bunches just as this plant is raising its purple stalks in the air and starting to unfold its leaves with all the imperious authority of a flamenco dancer’s hands. And Cohosh, which comes from the Algonquian … Read more
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