by Lorraine Julien

It seemed that everywhere I turned this fall, there were mushrooms all over the place. There were loads of interesting mushrooms of all shapes and sizes just under the damp leaves. On a walk through the woods recently, I discovered numerous mushrooms climbing up the sides of old stumps and fallen logs doing their part to recycle the rotting wood.

One of the most common and easy to recognize wild mushrooms I’ve encountered is the “Shaggy Mane” (Coprinus Comatus), a member of the Inky Cap family of mushrooms (so named because they all age quickly into inky-like liquids). They are edible when eaten fresh – lots of people eat them though they have no appeal for me! Another name for these mushrooms is Lawyer’s Wig – I suppose this is from long ago times when lawyers wore long white wigs in court.

Though Shaggy Manes are found mostly in hard, gravelly areas, particularly along roadsides in very late summer or fall, they may also pop up in lawns and pastures. They can be found all over the world and are obviously not fussy about the type of soil they grow in. Like most mushrooms, they pop up like magic almost overnight, especially after a rainfall.

When they are young and fresh, Shaggy Manes are quite striking and pretty. The caps are 5-15 cm across, conical to bell-shaped and covered with brown or blackish recurved scales. At first they are an off-white but age quickly, turning to gray and black. If you do gather some for the table, choose only truly prime specimens, refrigerate them as quickly as possible and serve them that night or, at the latest, the next day; otherwise they will turn to ink. In fact, one mushroom book suggests that you should melt butter in the pan before you pick the Shaggy Manes. Joking, of course, but this shows just how fast you would need to cook them.

In the accompanying picture

, I came across this cluster of Shaggy Manes inside our carport this past Thanksgiving weekend. They nearly always appear in groups but after just a day or two, they deteriorate very quickly.

As they age, strange things happen to the Shaggy Mane. Its gills and cap deliquesce, which means that they self-digest and turn into a black inky fluid as does its relative, the Inky Cap mushroom. As the spore-containing liquid drips to the ground, the species renews itself. It’s said that the black fluid can be diluted with water and used as ink.

Although this is one of the safest wild mushrooms, the Shaggy Mane may, very rarely, cause a reaction like any Inky Cap mushroom does with those who consume these mushrooms while drinking alcoholic beverages. Your ears and nose may turn red with light-headedness, a rapid heartbeat, sometimes nausea and a strange metallic taste in your mouth. As some of you may know, these are the same symptoms of Antabuse or Disulfiram, the drug sometimes given to alcoholics to make consumption of booze an unpleasant experience. In fact, Inky Caps (Coprinus Atramentarius) are used in the making of Antabuse. Fortunately for alcoholics and mushroom lovers, recovery is normally quick and complete.

One other note of caution: Shaggy Manes often grow beside heavily travelled roads. You should think before picking these mushrooms as well-travelled roads are likely to have had all kinds of stuff (oil, antifreeze, transmission fluid to name a few) leaked onto the surface. When it rains, these pollutants get washed to the shoulders where it may sink into the soil and contaminate anything growing there. There’s also the possibility that the roadside may be sprayed with herbicides.

If you still feel like eating these mushrooms, they will not poison you when eaten fresh. Once they begin to turn black, they are not very appetizing to look at. I will stick to morels, possibly fresh puffballs and the mushrooms I can buy in a store!

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By Lorraine Julien

Did you know that raspberries, blackberries, dewberries and apples all come from a closely related species in the rose family? They all belong to the Rosaceae family. Some of them have flowers that resemble roses and the thorn-covered berry canes arch towards the ground much like wild or climbing roses. For many years I thought that what were really rose hips, in fact were actually wild red raspberries.

Rose hips - Rose hips are actually the small red bottle-shaped fruit that is left after the rose flower dies. This happens with both wild and domestic roses. The domestic Rugosa rose has some of the best and most prolific hips. Rose hips are a great source of Vitamin C and can be harvested and prepared as a natural way to boost intake of this important vitamin. Unfortunately, domestic rose hips are usually overlooked as gardeners trim the dead flowers before the rose hip can form.

All roses are edible but we are most familiar with the rose’s tasty cousins – fruits such as plums, apples, blackberries and raspberries – all of which have a rose-like flower before forming fruits. A rose hip is simply the fruit of the rose plant. Unlike their popular cousins, rose hips don’t have much flesh beneath their skins. Instead, they are filled with tiny seeds covered with silky hairs. The skin of the hip, which tastes somewhat like an apple, is where most of the food value and nutrition is stored.

Rose hips look like tiny crab apples and have a sweet tartness. Look for them in late summer or early fall – just about now. Harvesting rose hips is quite simple – they should be removed from the stem of the rose plant after the first frost when they are the sweetest. When harvested, hips should be firm with a little “give” in texture, and bright red or orange in colour. If any of the hips are shrivelled, do not collect them. Birds and animals can still enjoy them.

Once harvested, the hips should be prepared as soon as possible. They need to be cut open (use scissors to cut them in half and remove the seeds) and then rinse. Drain them thoroughly and let them air dry to remove any additional moisture. To dry, lay them out evenly with some space between them. Place them in a dark, dry, warm location until they shrivel up, much like raisins. Once dry, the hips can be dried or frozen.

Although rose hips can be eaten raw (if you avoid the tiny hairs inside), they can be dried, ground and used in tea, and/or cooked to make jam, jelly, syrup, marmalade, wine, and also as a healthy treat for pets. There are a lot of recipes on the internet. Dried, powdered rose hips are sometimes fed to horses to improve coat condition and new hoof growth.

Compared to oranges, rose hips contain 25% more iron, 20 to 40% more Vitamin C (depending on the variety), 25 times the Vitamin A and 28% more calcium. In addition, they are rich in bioflavonoids, pectin, Vitamin E, selenium, manganese and the B-complex vitamins. You can see that they are a real store house of nutrition.

Rose hips can be found in dried form in most health food stores, and even some grocery stores, but why not gather your own?

Acorns – We’ve had a bumper crop of acorns this year. Our home has been bombarded with loads of these things; even the eaves troughs were full of them. It’s been especially noisy in the screened porch where the roof isn’t insulated! Perhaps the abundance of acorns is a result of the long, rainy spring or, heaven forbid, the forerunner of a cold snowy winter; but in any case, deer, squirrels, chipmunks, turkeys and other wild creatures are in for a good supply of food this year. Even the beech nut tree was loaded with nuts and the ground underneath is covered in empty shells where the birds and squirrels have been feasting.

I came across an ad on the internet where someone was selling acorns this year for $1.50 a pound plus shipping. Acorns can be fed to animals but are also used in arts and crafts. Humans can also eat them if they are prepared properly and the tannins are removed (the tannins have a bitter taste). There are certainly many preparation methods available on the internet. Somehow acorns do not appeal to me as a food! One fellow said on the internet that he’d sooner the deer eat the acorns and then he would eat the deer!

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By Steve Blight

It’s early August and the first signs of late summer have started to emerge. The dawn chorus of birdsong is fainter, the goldenrod is starting to flower, and it may be my imagination but the chirping of the crickets seems to be a little more insistent. While it’s true that as summer progresses the woods and fields seem a little quieter, there are some things getting ready for their big show. Some mushrooms appear in the spring, like morels, but late summer and fall is the big show for mushrooms.

A couple of weeks ago I was reading that with all the rain this year, mushrooms had begun to pop up in good numbers. In particular I read that chanterelles were putting on a good show. As many people may know, chanterelles (usually known as Golden Chanterelles) are a choice edible mushroom that is widespread across North America, including in our area. So I did a little research to figure out what they look like and off I went one morning into the woods to see what I could find.

In all honesty, my expectations were low. Over time I have acquired reasonable skills at identifying things in nature, but I felt like this was a hunt for the proverbial needle in the haystack. If nothing else, it gave me a good excuse to go for a long, leisurely walk in the woods with the dog. But imagine my surprise that within 10 to 15 minutes, I spotted something that could be chanterelles. Egg-yolk yellow, trumpet shaped, growing singly out of the ground and not on rotting wood, a couple of inches tall, and with gill-like wrinkles on the underside. All the preliminary field checks were there. So I harvested about a half dozen and took them home for some serious research.

Before I continue, I need to provide some very important words of caution – should readers find themselves interested in harvesting wild mushrooms to eat, please be very careful! Many choice edible mushrooms have look-alikes that can give a nasty bout of stomach illness or worse. Some are downright dangerous – a number of species in the Amanita genus really are deadly poisonous. Be absolutely certain before eating wild mushrooms – there is a very wise adage in the mushrooming business – “if in doubt, throw it out”. With respect to chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius), there are at least two species of mushrooms that could be confused with chanterelles – the false chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca), and the Jack O’Lantern mushroom (Omphalotus illudens). Both of these mushrooms have true gills and a bunch of other differences, but superficially resemble chanterelles. From my reading, both can have bad effects on people, but it appears that the Jack O’Lanterns are the nastier of the look-alikes

Back home, I examined my finds very carefully, checking outside colour, inside colour, smell, cap shape, cap edge characteristics, stem shape. Of particular importance was a close examination of the “false” gils. It turns out that chanterelles do not have true spore-producing gills – rather they have thicker wrinkle-like structures that superficially resemble gills but are different. After convincing myself that these were indeed chanterelles, I cut one small one up and sautéed it in olive oil, and after adding a little salt and pepper, I gingerly tasted one piece. It was delicious. I shared one piece with my wife Anna who accepted it with markedly little enthusiasm. Then I ate the rest of the cooked mushroom, and we waited to see if anything bad would happen. Nothing. The next day, I cleaned up the rest of the chanterelles, cooked them with scrambled eggs and chives and my wife and I had a delicious breakfast, partially harvested from the wild on our own property. My daughter Elizabeth wanted absolutely nothing to do with this activity. In her mind, hunting for and consuming wild mushrooms meant that I had crossed over the invisible line from being slightly odd to becoming a total geek. A week later I went back to the patches I had found and harvested a few more chanterelles that had popped up during the week. Equally delicious, I am happy to report.

There are other edible mushrooms growing in the forests of our area. Over time, I’d like to add to the repertoire of mushrooms that I can confidently harvest from the wild, but I intend to approach each new species with caution and build my list very slowly and carefully. Collecting wild mushrooms brings new and important meaning to the saying “better safe than sorry”!

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By Steve Blight

A couple of weeks ago Wendy Hinch, a reader living in the Sydenham area, e-mailed me a picture of a bird and was wondering if it could be a Brown Thrasher. The picture clearly showed a slim, robin-sized bird with a rich, chestnut-coloured back and tail, dark streaking on the whitish underparts, long sturdy legs and a long slightly down-curved bill. Indeed, the bird was a Brown Thrasher.
Brown Thrashers are not rare birds in eastern Ontario, but neither are they particularly common. Most years I see a small number of thrashers, usually in the early spring shortly after they have returned from their extended winter vacations in the southern US and before the leaves are out on the trees. Arriving in our area in April, they can survive on the previous year’s berries until the weather warms up to the point where their invertebrate prey becomes active. The animal portion of their diet includes a number of creatures that some humans are not very fond of – beetles, grubs, wire-worms, army worms, cutworms, tent caterpillars, gypsy-moth caterpillars, leafhoppers, grasshoppers, crickets, wasps and sowbugs. One gets the feeling that if it’s small enough and crawls or flies, this bird will try to eat it! The fruit portion of their diet includes blueberries, elderberries, Virginia creeper and sumac berries, raspberries, currants and grapes.
There is only one thrasher species east of Texas. In parts of the southwestern US there can be up to eight different thrashers, making identification quite a challenge. Our job is much easier – here only the Wood Thrush is likely to cause any confusion. However the Wood Thrush is a plumper bird, and does not have the thrasher’s characteristic long bill and tail.
Thrashers are good singers – like catbirds and mockingbirds, they are able to crudely mimic other bird songs and have extremely varied repertoires. The male sings a loud, long series of doubled phrases with no definite beginning or end, described by some people as “plant a seed, plant a seed, bury it, bury it, cover it up, cover it up, let it grow, let it grow, pull it up, pull it up, eat it, eat it.” While mockingbirds tend to repeat phrases three or more times and catbirds only once, Brown Thrashers typically sing phrases twice before moving on.
Thrashers are birds of shrubby areas, hedgerows and young second growth forest edges. As such they benefited greatly from the opening up of eastern forests by European settlers for farms and homesteads. However, in recent decades their shrubby habitat has been disappearing across southern Ontario and elsewhere – old farmlands are regrowing into forests, being cleared to grow cash crops and being gobbled up for housing and industrial developments. It has been estimated that the population of Brown Thrashers in some parts of southern Ontario has dropped by over 60% since 1968.
Here are a few more interesting thrasher facts to end with. Both males and females help incubate the eggs and feed the young. Nestlings sometimes leave the nest fully feathered within nine days of hatching. Brown Thrashers are the largest common host of parasitic Brown-headed Cowbirds – but thrashers put up some resistance, often rejecting cowbird eggs that are laid in their nests. And finally the oldest Brown Thrasher on record was at least 11 years, 11 months old. It was recaptured and then re-released at a Florida banding station. Long live Brown Thrashers!

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

by Lorraine Julien

Birds are among the world’s most skilful nest builders. Few other creatures exhibit such a variety of architecture or materials. Many birds place their nests inside shelters (My brother is wishing he’d covered a section of aluminum soffit on his cottage now that a Robin has built a nest there. It’s great for the Robin but kind of messy on the deck and steps!)

Usually the male selects a good location and then the female does most of the actual nest building. Each different species has its own unique nest-building technique and constructs the structures without ever getting confused. Kingfishers, for example, burrow in riverbanks, Woodpeckers drill cavities in trees; other birds use natural tree hollows or birdhouses. When small family farms were prevalent with lots of old barns, Barn swallows seemed to be everywhere. Now, partly because of this lack of habitat, their numbers are dwindling like so many other insectivores. Most birds, however, construct nests in the open – on the ground or among the branches of trees and bushes.

The simplest type of nest is none at all! Some birds do not build nests but are choosy about the nest site. Some just “scrape” the ground then lay eggs directly on the ground or on trampled vegetation such as the Short-eared owl. Nightjars do not even make a scrape. Two eggs are laid directly on the ground. If you’re walking near a farmer’s field you may startle a pair of Bobolinks. Unfortunately, they make nests directly on the ground, quite often in a cornfield that is soon ready to be plowed or a hay field that will soon be cut. Obviously the nests are very susceptible to destruction by farm equipment. Bobolinks are now classified as “threatened” under Ontario’s Endangered Species Act, 2007. Since the eggs are laid in late May and early July, it forces farmers to avoid growing and rotating certain crops.

The Hummingbird nest can be a tiny, exquisite bowl fashioned from lichens and plant down fastened with spider silk about 10 to 30 feet above the forest floor. Hummingbirds lay the smallest eggs – usually two pea-sized eggs are laid in the nest cup. Cliff swallows make neat bottle-shaped homes of mud plastered against walls. Some birds of prey such as Osprey, Eagles and Herons, construct stick nests eight or ten feet wide and deep with a depression in the middle.

When the parent birds leave the nest in a search for food, their offspring are completely defenceless. Their nests are concealed with great skill in treetops, holes in trees and cliffs, or even in tall grass, and provide a safe, hidden shelter for the chicklets. We’ve all seen Crows being chased by little birds, probably after the Crows had eaten their young.

Nests also provide protection from the cold. Since birds are hatched featherless, and since their muscles do not get any exercise within the egg, they are relatively immobile and need warm, cozy nests to insulate them from the cold. Scientists believe that all birds once laid white eggs, as their reptilian ancestors did. Colour and markings gradually evolved as protective camouflage.

Robins build their nests from dried grass fibres and small twigs. After a soaking rain, they take a beak full of mud back and forth to the nest site a few hundred times. The grasses are woven together, cementing them to each other and to the supporting branch or windowsill with mud. The mud acts as an adhesive but also prevents cracks from developing. Next, the nest is shaped into a perfect baby cradle lined with the softest grasses and hairs they can find. When mud is used in nest building, the birds usually select a location under an overhanging cliff or man-made structure to prevent rain from softening and destroying the nest.

The Goldfinch nest is an open cup of small root and plant fibres lined with plant down, often woven so tightly it can hold water. The nest is lashed to supporting branches using spider silk. It takes on average about six days of non-stop work before the nest is finished. It’s often built high in a shrub where two or three vertical branches join, usually shaded by overhanging leaves or needles. Goldfinches wait until June or July to build their nests once milkweed, thistle and dandelions have produced the seeds they need to feed their young.

Most birds are hard at work building their nests but an exception is the Brown-headed Cowbird. It’s so lazy that it lays its eggs in the nests of other birds leaving the eggs to be hatched and raised by another species of bird. This sometimes works but, in the case of the Goldfinch, the Cowbird babies only live for two or three days as they can’t survive on the all-seed diet of the Goldfinch.

I couldn’t finish this column without mentioning a human example of a bird nest design. Remember the 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing, China? The Beijing National Stadium was known as the Bird Nest Stadium because of the design of its steel beams and the bird nest shape.

I’ve barely scratched the surface here on the various types of bird nests and their construction by the spectacular birds that build them. 

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

by Steve Blight

Every year as soon as the ice is off our pond, I get another opportunity to become reacquainted with North America’s smallest duck, the Bufflehead. With the advent of warmer weather and open water, a couple of males and a small number of females show up every year to glide about, bobbing their heads, chasing each other and occasionally diving below the surface in search of some tasty morsel. I’ve always thought of it as dating, Bufflehead style. But their time with us doesn’t last long, because within a week or so they are gone, off to the boreal forest of the north or the aspen parklands of western Canada to breed and raise their young.

Like many ducks, males and female Buffleheads are very different in appearance. Males are striking black and white from a distance. A closer look at the head shows glossy green and purple setting off the prominent white patch. Females are a subdued gray-brown with a neat white patch on the cheek. Size wise, at around 13 inches (34 cm) Buffleheads are about half the size of mallards, and aren’t much bigger than a small crow.

Buffleheads nest in old woodpecker holes, particularly those made by Northern Flickers. There are a few other ducks that nest in tree holes, including Wood Ducks, Common Goldeneyes and Hooded Mergansers. Some people may find the fact that certain ducks nest in tree holes surprising – we tend to think of ducks nesting in large open nests on the ground. Because Buffleheads are so small, they benefit by using old flicker nests that the larger goldeneyes and mergansers cannot fit into. The female does all the work once incubation of the clutch of eggs begins, with the male leaving to molt. However, Bufflehead pairs often reunite with each other in subsequent years – one of the few species of ducks where this happens.

On freshwater, Buffleheads dive for insects and other aquatic invertebrates like dragonfly and mayfly larvae, water boatmen and snails and clams. They eat some plant material in fall, mainly seeds of pondweeds and bulrushes. In winter they occur mainly on the ocean near the coast where they feed on small marine creatures like shrimp, crabs, snails, mussels, and small fishes and their eggs.

Here are a few more interesting facts about Buffleheads:

In the early twentieth century Bufflehead had become scarce from over-hunting. However populations have recovered somewhat under the protection of the Migratory Birds Convention between the United States and Canada.

An estimate from a few years ago put numbers of Bufflehead at about 1.5 million birds. One estimate suggested there may be as few as one 13,000 nesting pairs in Ontario.

Bufflehead normally live only in North America, but in winter they occasionally show up elsewhere, including far eastern Russia, Japan, Greenland, Iceland, the British Isles, and other parts of Europe. In some of these cases, the birds may have escaped from captivity.

The oldest Bufflehead on record was at least 18 years, 8 months old. It was caught and re-released by a bird bander in New York in 1975.

Buffleheads will nest in appropriately placed nest boxes with small (2.5-inch diameter) openings.

Now that May has arrived, “our” Buffleheads are gone. We’re looking forward until next year to renew our relationship with this diminutive diving duck.

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

by Lorraine Julien

Butternuts (Juglans cinerea) occur in eastern North America, ranging from the southern states, west to Iowa and Missouri, north to southern Ontario and Quebec and east to the New England states. In Ontario it is found throughout southwestern Ontario north to the Bruce Peninsula and the edges of the Precambrian shield. Butternuts grow quickly to about 75 feet high but are short-lived for a tree, seldom living more than 75 years.

There are a number of these pretty trees along the road that I live but you can see that many of them have already died. Butternuts (or White Walnuts) are members of the Walnut family, which includes Black Walnut - the other native walnut in Ontario. Both produce edible nuts in the fall and both have roots that secrete something called juglone, a chemical that can kill other plants growing nearby. I’ve seen firsthand how almost nothing else will grow near this tree.

Both types of walnuts have similar compound leaves. The Butternut has 11-17 lance-shaped, sharp-pointed leaflets borne in pairs on a sturdy, hairy stem. Leaflets are 2-4” long with fine teeth along the edge. The bark is ash grey and very furrowed with broad, intersecting ridges.

Butternuts are found in low density scattered in and around forested areas. Originally their numbers declined as forests were cleared many years ago. Now, disease threatens to decimate them entirely. It’s a real shame that another of our native trees is in such rapid decline.

The Butternut is mostly valued for its fruit or nuts rather than its lumber. Nuts are in the shape and size of small lemons whereas Black Walnut fruit is perfectly round but similar in size. The nuts are eaten by humans and by many animals. Now before you go searching for white or black walnuts this fall, keep in mind that these are “tough nuts to crack”! To extract the tasty kernel, the outer husk must be crushed (some people suggest driving over them with a car!) Then the nut must be peeled which is difficult to do without staining your hands. The rock-like inner shell yields only to repeated hammer blows. Walnuts that are available in stores are hybrids from the English walnut and are much easier to crack since their thick husks are removed before the nuts are shipped.

Many years ago, Butternut fruit was used in baking and making maple-butternut candies – I don’t know if that is true today. Native Americans used to boil the nuts to release the oil in them. They’d scoop it off the top of the water and use it as we use butter – hence the name “butternut”. Butternut wood is light in weight, extremely rot resistant but much softer than Black Walnut wood. It is often used to make furniture and is a favourite of woodcarvers.

Butternut bark has some medicinal uses: it has mild cathartic or healing properties. Hundreds of years ago, an extract was made from the inner bark of the Butternut in an attempt to prevent smallpox and to treat dysentery and other stomach and intestinal problems.

Butternut bark and nut rinds were once often used to dye cloth to colours between light yellow and dark brown. To produce the darker colours, the bark is boiled to concentrate the colour. These natural dyes were never used commercially but were used to dye homespun cloth.

I’ve heard a lot recently about Butternut trees and how their numbers are dwindling mainly due to a fungal disease called Butternut Canker. The disease was first discovered in 1991 in Ontario and has been spreading rapidly ever since. It’s thought that the disease was spread accidentally when infected plants were imported from overseas. Once the fungus starts, it can kill a tree within just a few years. The fungus enters the bark through cracks or wounds and multiplies rapidly making sunken cankers that expand and girdle the branch or trunk, killing everything above the canker. Fungus spores can be transported in wet weather for miles, quickly spreading the disease. In the U.S. southern states such as Tennessee, the disease has already killed about 90% of the Butternuts. Surveys in eastern Ontario show that most trees are now infected, and perhaps one-third have died.

Today, protection is provided to the Butternut under Ontario’s Endangered Species Act, 2007 which prohibits anyone from doing harm to these trees. Though some grow in provincial and national parks where they are protected from cutting, most grow on private lands. There is no known cure for the canker disease or any effective technique to slow or prevent the spread of the disease. Some work is being done to produce hybrids that may be resistant to the Butternut Canker and also to gather seeds from strong, healthy trees.

The Rideau Valley Conservation Authority is working with the Forest Gene Conservation Association and the Ontario Butternut Recovery Team to build a strong Butternut recovery program across Ontario. Many conservation authorities and stewardship councils as well as local landowners have joined in the fight to save this tree from complete decimation. The Ottawa Stewardship Council is assisting RVCA in looking for properties with mature Butternut trees to assess and/or for properties for planting young Butternut seedlings germinated from selected stock. If you are interested in participating in this program as a landowner, you can check out the website for information at www.ottawastewardship.org or by email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

by Steve Blight

As the first blush of green spreads across the land, among the earliest flowers seen on the landscape belong to serviceberry shrubs and trees. Found on rocky ridges, forest edges and hedgerows throughout our area, the serviceberries’ abundant two-centimeter flowers add a splash of white to the patina of emerging green in the background. The five-petaled flowers themselves are white, but the new leaves that begin to emerge at the same time have a reddish-green tone that gives an overall pinkish-white look to the flowering tree when seen from a distance.

Serviceberries have several other common names – juneberry, shadbush, shadblow and Indian pear, amongst others. Generally serviceberries are either small trees or shrubs. I don’t think I have ever seen one with a trunk diameter much larger than about 10 centimetres, but no doubt they are out there! There are about 10 different serviceberry species found as native plants across Canada. Some authors distinguish as many as six species in our area, but I have a confession to make – alas, I have a great deal of difficulty distinguishing one species of serviceberry from another. Apparently serviceberries hybridize frequently, so specimens exhibiting characteristics of more than one species are common. But rest assured that while distinguishing between species of serviceberries is hard, identifying a specimen as a serviceberry is straightforward.

In western Canada there is a very common species of serviceberry known as the saskatoon. They are found along streams and in sheltered ravines called coulees across the prairies. Like all serviceberries, saskatoons produce a 6-10 mm in diameter purplish-red, berry-like fruit. These fruits are technically known as “pomes” – apples, pears and mountain ash berries are all examples of pomes. Saskatoons are widely harvested, making excellent preserves, pies and sauces. I have two stories about saskatoon pies I’d like to share from my time in western Canada. The first is the very best saskatoon pie I have ever eaten. Many years ago there was a small family-run restaurant in Waterton, the small town nestled in the middle of Waterton Lakes National Park in southern Alberta. This restaurant was known far and wide for its saskatoon pies – big slices, bursting with sweet, juicy saskatoons safely tucked in a flakey golden crust. Our frequent trips to Waterton were always capped off with a slice of this wonderful desert.

By contrast, I once found myself hungry and looking for dinner in a mostly forgotten corner of Saskatchewan about half way between Regina and Saskatoon (the city, not the berry…). I stumbled across a diner that had clearly seen better days. The sandwich board sign set up on the sidewalk outside promised good home cooking, so in I went. After a highly forgettable main course, I felt confident that at least the saskatoon pie on the menu would be good – after all, we were right in the middle of prime saskatoon habitat (the berry, not the city…). So the order was placed, and the pie arrived. It was not a good choice. The crust was white, tough and soggy, and when I peeled back the top crust, the filling consisted of four forlorn saskatoon berries sitting in a bed of whitish goo. I picked disappointedly at the four berries, paid and left. Thus defines the two ends of the spectrum of my personal experience with saskatoon pie.

Birds and other animals like serviceberries as well. A serviceberry in full fruit in June or early July is bound to attract American Robins and Cedar Waxwings, and maybe the odd squirrel as well. Serviceberries are easy to find at nurseries and generally grow well in our area as long as they receive at least a couple of hours of direct sunshine a day. They add colour and four-season interest to town or country landscapes, with their pleasing form and structure adding appeal to winter gardens. Plant a few serviceberries and perhaps there will be enough fruit to create your own pie experience – if the birds don’t get them all first!

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By Lorraine Julien

Have you seen the recent CBC Nature of Things documentary on coywolves, a hybrid breed of wolf and coyote? Needless to say, it was extremely interesting. The term coywolf is the unofficial name for a breed of Eastern coyote that has bred with wolves. The hybrid coyote/wolf has longer legs, bigger paws, larger jaws and a more wolf-like tail, with wolf-like traits like pack-hunting and shows more aggression than the original coyotes.

It’s thought that the hybrid animals first appeared around 1919 in Algonquin Park. It was probably happening earlier than that but it was about this time that sightings were reported. Some scientists still doubt that the coywolf is a new species but evidence compiled for the past 100 years suggests the much smaller western coyote migrated from the Midwestern United States to eastern forests and farms where the wolf population was being killed off by humans. The coyote followed a path that took it through the Windsor area and the southwestern Ontario corridor, then north to Algonquin Park.

According to the documentary, Algonquin’s vast expanse of protected forest offered the animal a safe haven and a bountiful food source. It was there that wolves began to breed with coyotes, probably because available mates within the wolf population were in decline. Perhaps one third of the animals in Algonquin Park are now hybrids.

Coywolves have rapidly evolved and appear to have adapted to city life in a similar way that raccoons have taken to big cities like Toronto. It used to be that only campers could hear the eerie howling and yipping of coyotes. Now, since the numbers of coywolves have increased, you’re just as apt to hear them in and around cities. Their high intelligence has enabled them to survive, whether in natural surroundings or urban centres. They are so elusive that they seem to blend into parks, ravines and other green spaces in cities unnoticed for the most part. They can roam for miles at night, catching small animals such as squirrels, rabbits, woodchucks and cats or anything else that would make a quick meal. They also aren’t averse to routing through garbage.

There have been many sightings of coyotes in Toronto recently and people have been warned to keep their pets inside, especially at night. Last month, Toronto police did shoot what is believed to be a coywolf. The police had no way of knowing that the coywolf they’d shot was a new father protecting his young. The animal and his mate had recently become parents, which is likely why they appeared to be more aggressive.

While it may be unnerving to encounter a coyote in a park at night, there have actually been only two reports of fatal coyote attacks in North America in the past 500 years. The CBC documentary was filmed partly in the Cape Breton highlands where a fatal attack on a young Toronto woman took place a few years ago.

A hundred years ago, the odds were stacked against eastern wolves, with deforestation and control programs, not to mention increasing urban development. Coyotes, however, were able to increase their numbers. This is when the two animals began to interbreed. Depending on their habitat and the availability of food, coyotes can adjust the number of young born. Young coywolves strike out on their own much sooner than wolves or coyotes, leaving the den by the time they are two.

For more information on wolves and coyotes, in general, you can check out Steve Blight’s in-depth two-part article in the December 2008 online version of the Frontenac News.

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By Lorraine Julien

Anyone who has walked through the woods couldn’t help but notice bracket fungi. Tinder Conks belong to this large family of fungi that grow on trees. Some look like little shelves while others grow into a shape like a horse’s hoof. Although one of their favourite host trees is the birch, Tinder Conks are common on several types of dead and dying hardwoods, especially large oak and maple logs and stumps. The fungus may even live inside live trees, sometimes for many years. I had never heard of Tinder Conks until I recently read an article on them and their many uses.

Fomes fomentarius is the scientific name for Tinder Conks. Depending on the source, Fomentarius can mean either “used for tinder” or “dressing for wounds”! These fungi emerge as white foamy masses that harden and expand from a thin top down to a broad, flat shelf or a “horse’s hoof” (another name they are known by). Tinder Conks are perennials that can continue to grow for 30 years or more, or as long as the tree can feed them. Each summer and fall a new bottom layer is added to the bottom of the hoof shape.

During a damp period, just a few degrees above freezing, one Tinder Conk can spew up to 240 million spores per hour (every day, under ideal conditions – I wonder who did the counting!). This can happen even during the winter when the spores, having less competition, can spread more easily through the leafless forest. These polypores can break down wood cells that other decomposers have a hard time cracking. By the time this rotting process is well underway, other mushrooms, moulds and micro organisms join in, take and release nutrients for reuse in the forest – recycling by Mother Nature!

Common in northern forests around the world, Tinder Conk has been used in many ways for thousands of years:

As a fire source: Do you remember hearing about the Iceman, whose well-preserved, 5000-year-old body was discovered in 1991 in a glacier near the border of Austria and Italy? Beside his brass axe, bow and arrow and clothing, he carried with him a small leather pouch. Inside the pouch were the ground-up fibers of Tinder Conk, apparently ready for anything from starting an everyday fire to emergency medical treatment. Also in the pouch were several small, sharpened flint stones. The fungus must have been very important to the Iceman for him to carry it in a special pouch for such a long distance.

This discovery confirmed the fact that Tinder Conk has been used for thousands of years to start fires. Ancient peoples ignited conks by placing a tiny ember from a fire on the underside of the mushroom and gently blowing on it to stimulate ignition. The fibers from the conk would smolder for hours and could be carried from campsite to campsite by wrapping the embers in a dampened leather pouch (not so tightly as to suffocate it). The pouch was carried by straps.

If Tinder Conks are soaked and then pounded, the fibers separate – once dried, the resulting ‘wool’ makes excellent tinder.

Medicinal uses: These include a cauterization substance for wounds and to stop bleeding (described by Hippocrates in the fifth century BC). They were used in Europe as a remedy against bladder disorders and hemorrhoids; in parts of Asia as a diuretic, laxative and nerve tonic; and in China to treat cancers of the esophagus, stomach and uterus. Certain Aboriginal tribes used the heat retention properties of Tinder Conk to treat arthritis. In France, dentists still keep a supply of what they call “amadou” on hand for packing in the socket of a freshly pulled tooth. Amadou consists of Tinder Conk fungus pounded into fibers, dipped into a solution of saltpeter and allowed to dry.

Using modern methods, the tinder polypore has been shown to contain iodine, fomentariol and other substances that really are active against bacteria and against tumours. The tannic acids present in the woody fibers provide an antiseptic action and have the absorbent qualities of a sponge.

Other uses for the versatile Tinder Conk included: making clothing such as caps and chest protectors (after the fibers are pounded); using them as pincushions to prevent pins and needles from rusting; use by entomologists to mount insects; and in Siberia as snuff or mixed with tobacco. The list goes on.

Next time you’re walking in the woods, look for this unbelievable fungus. They’re most common on dead or dying birch, tree stumps and rotting logs.

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.