The 5th annual Sail Mazinaw was held Saturday August 10.  This year's event included the Sandpiper 565 Rendezvous and drew 18 boats.  One came from Michigan, and another from Sault Ste. Marie.  Saturday was gusty with intermittent sprinkles of rain:  perfect sailing conditions.  Crews dressed as pirates for breakfast at Mazinaw Lakeside Resort, and again for a potluck dinner.  This year's Mazinaw Cup was presented to the Sandpiper fleet for their enthusiasm and for fending off an attack by a ghost pirate ship.  Sunday, the RCAF flew a C-130 Hercules over the fleet while they were cruising The Lower Mazinaw.  Nobody has more fun than sailors. For more photos, check out Sail Mazinaw on Facebook.   Next year's Sail Mazinaw will be August 8.

This past winter and spring has seen a rash of ATV and Snowmobile fatalities in Ontario, including an ATV death in North Frontenac whereby the causation was deemed alcohol related.

That day, the OPP laid numerous charges for failure to wear a helmet etc. We saw a spike in Snowmobile drownings across the province this past year. At my property (Marble Lake Lodge), I regularly observe ATVers with kids under 10 years old, riding without helmets, intoxicated, and without plates or insurance. Same for sledders, even while the OFSC's Snowmobile trails were closed due to unsafe trail and ice conditions, we observed numerous trail riders breaking the law and trespassing on closed trails. Last summer, with a Tornado Earning issued by Environment Canada one afternoon, we observed boaters out on the lake, and with open bottles of Coors Lite.

At the Toronto Sportsmans Show (had the OPP SAR Unit Seargent co-present with us), and at the ATV Power sports Show, my company (WSC SURVIVAL SCHOOL INC.) presents seminars on survival safety‎. Some valuable tips that could save your life, for ATVing/Snowmobiling/Boating, include the following:

- don't consume alcohol or drugs!
- have excellent communications equipment on your personal, eg tracking device (SPOT, IN-REACH), Cell Phone Amplifier-Booster etc)
- obtain up to date weather reports from Environment Canada, Weather Network, AccuWeather, Lighningstrikes.org)
- ATVers should wear proper safety gear, including a certified helmet, long pants, proper footwear, and abide by posted speed limits.
- Sledders should know your ice safety, ice thickness eg there's no such thing as safe ice, I like a minimum of 10+ inches for sledding‎, and wear flotation + ice picks and rescue rope, and abide by posted trail speed limits.
- wear Transport Canada approved flotation at all times when boating, and have at minimum, a baler, 50 feet of buoyant rope (throw bags are the best), and have a hypothermia kit handy (wool blankets, woolen clothing, camp stove/pot, high energy trail snacks etc)

For any outdoor activity, you should carry a Survival and Safety Kit, that is based on the rule of 3's: you can survive for 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 hours if you're hypothermic, 3 days without water, 3 week without food.

Survival gear should include something for shelter, fire, water, food, first aid and navigation, plus communications.

Many accidents and fatalities are caused by failure to be prepared, and failure to obey the law. Search and rescue costs the taxpayers, and risks the lives of the searchers and first responders. Regarding that recent FYI ATV fatality, I would not have wanted to be the attending police officers and paramedics, nor the individual that had to knock on the door of the next of kin to advise them that a loved one was deceased, and they needed to plan for a funeral.

To the majority of folks who go out and safely enjoy the great outdoors, keep doing that. To the others, smarten up! Before it's to late. Remember, you are biodegradable.

David Arama's new book published this past fall: "501 Survival Skills that could save your life".

The proper name for a Muskrat is Ondatra Zibethicus (Ondatra is the Iroquois name for Muskrat and Zibethicus is Latin for “musky-odoured”).  Muskrats, like the beaver, range over most of the North American continent, except for the Arctic tundra.   Muskrats look like very small beavers although they are not at all closely related.  They have a similar dark, glossy brown coat but are considerably smaller with the head, body and tail measuring a maximum length of 16” to 28” (40 – 70 cm) whereas a beaver could be as large as 43” (109 cm) or more.  A Muskrat may weigh a total of 1.5 kg whereas a beaver can weigh 27 kg. – big difference!  The tail is not beaver-like but is long and scaly, more like a rat’s tail but flatter.  It has webbed feet, small ears and eyes.  A musky odour is emitted from the male during breeding season thus warning other males of his presence and advertising to females that he is available.  Females also secrete musk.

The Muskrat is mainly nocturnal but I know from experience they can sometimes be spotted during the day.  Late one winter, several years ago, we noticed a group of Muskrats gathered around an opening in the ice.  We soon discovered they were diving for clams.  They seemed oblivious to us as we crept closer for photographs.  They dove into the water, then sat on the ice shucking the shells from the clams.  They may remain active in the cold winter months, so that even when the ice freezes over, they can take advantage of air trapped under the ice as they swim.  

Muskrats also gnaw holes through the ice and then push up mounds of vegetation to keep the open spots from freezing.  The ice is easily chipped by their extremely sharp front teeth which, like those of all rodents, keep growing as long as they live.Muskrats can remain submerged for at least 15 minutes when swimming and diving.  Whereas beaver lodges are made of sticks and mud, Muskrat lodges are much smaller and are made of grasses, cattails and reeds.  The advantage of this type of building material is that they can start eating the inside walls of the lodge when food becomes scarce!  They have also been known to inhabit abandoned beaver lodges.  

During winter, the inside of the Muskrat house is very warm, often having more than 10 occupants contributing to the toasty atmosphere.  In summer, they can sometimes be seen sunning themselves on their houses, or on logs.  In addition to constructing houses, Muskrats sometimes excavate dens in the banks of streams or lakes and build feeding platforms and shelters which provide protection from the cold while they eat.  

They are fiercely territorial and will fight if threatened.  Their small size is deceptive; under the soft fur, their heavily muscled jaw and sharp incisors, make formidable weapons that can be used against predators such as fishers, foxes and mink.  Other predators include raccoons, snapping turtles, otters and bobcats.  Hawks will attack them during the day, while owls may hunt them at night.The Muskrat’s versatile diet is an asset; although it feeds mainly on aquatic plants, it also eats snails, clams, crayfish, and frogs and may travel hundreds of feet from water to harvest land plants.

Although its lifespan is not very long at an average four years, it reproduces rapidly: several litters a year, each with up to 11 young.

It’s common knowledge that Muskrat fur has been used for coats, capes and other clothing items for many years but you may not know that the fur is also used to decorate Scottish sporrans which are the decorative pouches worn at the front of a bagpiper’s kilt. RCMP winter hats were traditionally made from Muskrat fur but they may now be made with synthetic fur.  The musk, like that of the musk deer, has been used in the manufacture of musk perfume although I am not sure if this has now been replaced by chemicals.

These animals are not only entertaining to watch (if you’re lucky enough to see them), but they also help to maintain open areas in marshes which helps to provide habitat for aquatic birds.

It’s four years since this column first appeared in the newspaper but, after receiving an inquiry from a reader, I thought it would be interesting to provide this information again.
 
A small white face pushes up through the snow, its small black eyes gleaming. The long slender body comes next. It is probably one of the three main species of weasels that inhabit our area. They are: the Short-tailed weasel (Mustela erminea), the Long-tailed weasel (Mustela frenata) and the less common Least weasel (Mustela nivalis). These little fellows are very similar, except for their size, but the most striking thing they have in common is the fact that their fur coats change color twice a year; once the shorter days of autumn approach, the chocolate brown fur on their upper bodies changes to snow white over the course of just a few weeks. As the days grow shorter, less light enters the weasel’s body through its eyes, stimulating moult by means of its pituitary gland. Temperature also plays a role in this change. A second moult as the days grow longer, reverses the colour change. Mother Nature is amazing!

The winter-white version of the Long-tailed weasel has recently been spotted in our area. Perhaps there is a greater abundance of mice this year since we haven’t noticed them before (mice are their favorite meal – in fact they are probably the world’s most efficient mousers). You may spot a weasel investigating holes, logs or bushes in its quest for food. Every now and then it will lift its head, stand upright to check out the surroundings, then tear off again zigging and zagging at top speed to deter predators. The long thin body humps in the middle much like a caterpillar’s. Small birds, moles, voles, eggs, snakes, fish, worms, insects and even some young bats are also fair game. With such a varied diet, I doubt these aggressive carnivores would ever be on an endangered species list.
You’d think that hard-working chipmunks would spend the winter snug and cozy in their little tunnels. This is not always the case: if weasels can squeeze their heads into a burrow or hole, then they can enter and kill the residents. Rabbits, rats and squirrels larger than themselves are killed by weasels pouncing on their prey with clawed forelegs and then finishing the victim by biting the back of the neck.

The ferocious Short-tailed weasel (sometimes called Ermine in winter) is very quick and agile. It can weigh up to 3.7 oz. (105 g) and can be up to 13” (34 cm) in length (a third of which is its tail). With a slender, almost serpentine body, it can easily move through small burrows in nocturnal pursuits of rodents. It is also a good climber and chases squirrels and chipmunks into trees. The Ermine in North America ranges from the northern U.S. to above the Arctic Circle. This weasel survives by killing what it can, when it can, then storing surplus in a side tunnel of its den (usually dead mice). Ermine in northern countries, including Canada, were once trapped for their luxurious, snowy white fur though demand for these pelts is much lower now and hence fewer animals are trapped.

The Long-tailed weasel is similar to the Short-tail but larger and more powerful. It can weigh up to 9.4 oz. (267 g) and be up to 22” (55 cm) long including a tail up to 6” (15 cm) long.

The little Least Weasel (Mustela nivalis) also goes through the color change. It is the world’s smallest carnivore weighing between one and two oz. (up to 57 g) and hardly longer than 9.5” (25 cm) including its tail (not much bigger than the mice on which it preys). Its speed and ability to crawl into tight spaces helps it to avoid predators. Unlike the other two weasels, its tail does not have a black tip.

All weasels are lightning quick hunters but, if they feel trapped, as a last resort, they can emit an odor said to be as pungent as that of the striped skunk – the only difference (and consolation!) is that it cannot spray the musk as skunks do.

Weasel predators include coyotes, foxes, hawks, owls and sometimes humans. Farmers who raise chickens and rabbits probably do not want to have these aggressive carnivores around – for the rest of us though, they certainly reduce the rodent population.
 
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

Now that the short dark days of December are here and we look forward to Christmas, I took a few minutes and looked longingly at pictures taken this past summer. Some photos are of summer scenery around the cottage but most of the wildlife pictures were taken through our cottage windows as that was the only way I could take pictures without spooking them. Some of these creatures visit on a regular basis but it’s still thrilling to see them.

The sharp-shinned hawk stayed on our deck for probably 30 minutes so I was able to get lots of shots of her or him. The fox looks a bit mangy but it was very early spring and she had obviously survived another winter. The barred owl lives in the area with his family as we regularly hear his “who cooks for you” call. The painted turtle had just finished laying her eggs and was in the process of covering them. The little toad rested for a while on the “turtle nest” sign. Even choke cherries look pretty at this time of the year!

Steve and I would like to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks especially to everyone who contacted us with their comments and questions, and sent in their photos and observations. 

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

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.