Senior Time in Ontario

When Nature Calls Seniors Earl Plato
Seniors, take a trip in Ontario this fall. We had come back from a 1,000 km three day trip in Central-Eastern Ontario. I collect several brochures from our Ontario travel bureaus along with a free Ontario road map. I sit down and plan a trip. Three days - three sites, that was the plan. I recommend all three locations - Bon Echo Provincial Park, Bonnechere Caves near the Ottawa River and my favourite - Algonquin Park. I was known by my growing children as the dad who used to say, “But, it’s worth a side trip”. I still do it. On our way to Peterborough and an overnight stay I had always wanted to visit Emily Provincial Park just west of the city. Why? It had a marsh boardwalk and a sighting tower. This is osprey country and there are nesting sites of this large fish hawk. “We’re doing good time. Let’s take a look.” Located outside of Omemee just at the south end of Pigeon Lake, the park was very busy with most sites filled. We drove in free of charge - map in hand. Only one major problem - signs were missing or non-existent. We drove around and around trying to make sense of the map. “Stop and ask.” came the pleas from our wives. We did. No close parking to the boardwalk at Emily. Of course you need to walk a distance. Still healing from my tendonitis I said, “Let’s try it another time.” We will. I love ospreys and the Kawartha’s Nature booklet says,” here (at Emily) you can watch the ospreys feeding their young or making spectacular dives into the water to catch fish.” We were told hat there were two nesting sites. 2003 I will return in late spring, the Lord willing.
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A well fed cat won’t hunt. Gina Spadafori of the Buffalo News wrote as follows: “The ability to hunt is hardwired into all cats, but the level of desire varies by each cat’s genetics and early experiences, not by the rumbling in his belly.”
Whitey, my childhood cat was an excellent mouser and birder. She taught her offspring well. Sadly back in those days of the thirties there were plentiful open fields and meadows Whitey would catch a meadowlark at times and bring it home for her young. The beautiful songbird didn’t have a chance. Even a bob-o-link was a catch. However, as a farm cat she kept our barn free of mice.
We watched Whitey with her young. “ The play of the kittens - pouncing and leaping on anything that moves - is really hunting behaviour. Observers of feline behaviour believe that if the mother is an eager hunter, the kittens will probably be too.”
Whitey trained her kittens well. I recall Blacky, one of her offspring, as a consistent hunter who often brought his prey back still alive. He would play with his victims for several minutes. Spadafori writes, “... the cat’s much-observed tendency to play with its prey is really a matter of the animal’s not being hungry enough to eat but still being instinctively driven to hunt.”