Gaggles and Gaggles of Canada's

While driving to work heading north on Highway 416 towards Ottawa this morning I saw many many gaggles or “V”s of Canada Geese flying north. I estimated that there were several tens of thousands of geese.

Rough Legged Hawk

Were visited by a Rough legged hawk as we were sitting in our living room enjoying our view on this day off. It perched on the large manitoba maple that is off beyond the clearing before our house.

Attended the Kemptville Focus Session - Landowner Incentive Workshop (Future Afforestation Program)

Attended the subject workshop and focus session. The material in interesting and provided me with considerable insight into the Kyoto Accord and the issues with carbon sequestration. The landowner incentive concepts that were being sought however did not seem too practical to me. In a nutshell the concept presented was about setting up partnerships between carbon consumers such as forest harvesting companies and oil companies with woodlot owners or potential “carbon storers”. The carbon consumer would contribute afforestation where a land is not reforested but rather converted from a non-forest ie farm or vacant land into forest, and in return the consumer would acquire “carbon credits” as a form of currency. I found it a difficult concept to adopt let alone comprehend. Why not just convert the “carbon credits” to dollars, which we all understand? This could be achieved through tax credits or penalties.

What complicates this idea is that not just forests lock-in carbon. According to a Ducks Unlimited Magazine article, swamps and marshes are also notable contributors to carbon and greenhouse gas sequestration.

Attended Forestry Fair 2003

Attended the Forestry Fair in Kemptville Ontario. Arrived a little late bu was on time to buy to silver maple saplings and to watch the end of the wood auction. Met a colleague canoe builder who was buying a large 2 feet (60 cm) diameter log of cherry wood for his business.

Another visit from the young Fox

Another visit from the young fox

The probably same fox appeared near our house on the pile of bolders looking for prey. It was quite a surprise for all of us, so close within 70 feet (20 metres) to the house, and especially for our guests, my cousin and his family from the Netherlands.

A Young Fox

At mid day a young fox was sighted sleeping curled up on a pile of branches under the spooky old tree at the end of the clearing in front of our dwelling.

Bacon said

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

Sir Francis Bacon

Met the Forester

Met with the forester from Kemptville about setting up a forest management plan on our property.

Snow-shoed

February, 16, 2003

Snow-shoed around.

Walked around the perimeter of the lot. Found many snowshoe hare tracks, coyote tracks, white tailed deer tracks, and fisher tracks. The fisher seems to repeatedly take the same path.

Turkey visits

Every morning around 10:00 a.m. eight wild turkeys would stride over to our front yard for a treat of cracked corn that was spread on the snow. These visits were usually daily but sometimes twice a day and sometimes not until the next day. They all look like young females.

Meeting Turkeys

Today we met up with eight wild turkeys on our drive home. At first they looked like just huge birds standing on the road.

The Mystery of the Bird Band

After some internet browsing and phone calls it turns out that the bird band belonged to a racing pigeon. The pigeon was released in Northern Ontario several thousand kilometres away which I was told the pigeons can fly in about 24 hours. The bird was less than an hour away from its destination when it was likely caught by a hawk.

Leave a comment for more details on the pigeon racing websites.

Had a good walk in the woods. Found a bird band with bones still attached. Found a nice sized burl in a cedar tree. Cleared a trail that was made impassable due to broken trees from the 1998 Great Ice Storm. I can now walk to the clearing among the cedars. Found a bush with some very bright red and orange berries that will probably look nice in a Christmas wreath.

Bird band: It is an aluminum ring with a blue turquoise plastic outer sleeve and bones inside, probably the remains of scats of a predator which could be a hawk most likely, or a fox or coyote. The inscription on the band reads as follows CU GTR 2002 2279.

Burn Scars in Tree Rings

Cut a white ash tree [Fraxinus americana L.] to make the posts for the upstairs railing of our house. Noticed a burn scar in the tree rings. By counting the rings I conclude that there was a fire on the south side of the tree in the spring of 1968. This confirms the fact that the barn that is in the 1946 aerial photograph burned down. This was already evident in the door hardware that was found strewn on the ground and the concert foundation of a building. The door hardware still had the nuts with the bolts fastened to it which belies a fire. The hardware was interesting in that you can not find these sorts of door latches today. There are rotting wooden remains plus iron wheels and parts - of a very old log-hauling wagon about 50 feet or 20 yards west of the barn foundation. It did not burn which is odd, as it is probably over 100 years old.

No Buffy or Harley

We have just come back from one week of holidays to find that two of our three cats have vanished. We live 130 metres away from the nearest neighbour among forests and we let our cats out during the day. Our neighbour took care of our cats but on the last day two did not come home. The Fisher Cat, a large member of the weasel family is known to be a very aggressive predator of cats and there is ample evidence of fishers in these woods. We fear that both have been lost to the fisher or possibly the coyote that also roams these woods.

Aerial Photograph

August 13, 2002

Bought an aerial photograph (#9964566) of the property from the National Air Photo Library at 615 Booth Street, Ottawa. It dates back to the mid 1940's and shows all the farms that were in this area then. Virtually all the farms are now gone. This property was itself a farm and where our house now stands is very close an old barn yard and buildings. All the buildings here have disappeared due to a fire in the late 60’s. I counted rings of a live ash tree that I cut near the barns on the aerial photograph and there were burn scars in the rings dating to the spring of 1968 as I could best discern. The burn scares were only on that side of the tree facing the largest barn thus I suspect that the tree was scorched on that side only and obviously did not perish. The first ring of the tree, or when it was germinated, I estimated to be in 1958.

Joined the Ontario Woodlot Association

My membership with the OWA was accepted today.

More on "Poison" Parsnip

Around the house area and in spots around the property there is a high density verging on monoculture of Wild Parsnip [Pastinaca Sativa]. As a youth I remember this as poison parsnip which was abundant in the fallow fields around our houses in the suburbs of Montreal where I lived in the 60’s. If you touched the leaves it could leave you with a very itchy rash. After much Internet research, I found that the juice of the plant is only irritating to the skin when exposed to UV (Sun) light. Indeed if I cut the weed in the evening just before dark and get the sap on my skin I would not contract a rash. The worst time is early in the morning on a sunny day. What makes this reaction difficult to diagnose is that the rash will occur about 4 days after contact, so you would have to remember what you did differently. Also the sap potency would only last a few minutes and become benign when it dries up even on the disturbed leaf. This is unlike poison ivy that lasts much longer.

Fisher Finding

Today I was walking the rear of the property and on the other side of the swampy river bed with my daughter's dog Max. There is a small earthen dam or dike to the north where one can walk across to the other side. At one point I could hear a bizarre grunting sound. At first I thought it was a duck quacking in the pond, then maybe it was a frog croaking and then I thought it sounded more like a squirrel chattering. In fact it was a combination of all three and it did not come from the marsh but from up high in a solitary tree. There I saw a fisher [Martes pennanti] who was probably scared up the tree by the dog and not able to escape.

It clung to the tree from behind and stuck its head out in a fork in the tree. It is really a cute teddy-bear like animal. There was a muskrat [Ondatra zibethica] swimming in a large open water course nearby and I suspect the fisher was stalking it when rudely interrupted.

Old Foundations

Cut trails to a site in the bush about 200 metres from our new house where there is a hole in the ground that looks like it might have been a cellar of an old building. There are very old and woody lilac [Syringa oblata] bushes to the east of it, planted next to and up wind of the prevailing winds to their house possibly by pioneers for the spring fragrance. The hole has been used as a dump. Found a 1950 licence plant among the rubble.