nature

Look Around, Eh Earl Plato

Become a nature watcher, eh? Some of us watch late model cars, some even watch young models, and some of us watch anything that moves. Most of us watch something. That’s natural to humankind. We are observers.
“Everything we know about wildlife was discovered by watching.” - Jim Arnosky, 1991. Albert Einstein was quoted, “Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.” I believe in a personal Creator and a Created world. Look around and you will see what I mean. There is much to learn from your own observations.
Keep a wildlife notebook and record what you see. Wherever you go there is wildlife to watch. Even in the largest cities, squirrels are sharing trees with birds and bats. There are pigeons nesting on ledges. Spiders design intricate webs in windows and mice crisscross floors. I spent a year as a teenager in an old boarding house in Hamilton and I observed the above.
Enjoy nature by observing “It”, wherever it is. You should enjoy life more.
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Wide open spaces on the way to Welland. Old as I am, I continue to reminisce about the fences and hedgerows that once existed in the farmers’ fields. They have almost all gone. Wide open fields now. Almost as if you are out on the prairies, eh? I know, farming is more a science now. Hedgerows and fences take up valuable farm lands. However, with their removal we lose protective areas for birds and mammals. Pheasants and other game birds found refuge in hedgerows. When is the last time you saw a fox emerging from a fence line? That’s my lead in! I want to talk about foxes, red foxes.
Point Abino and Marcy Woods is or was the home of red foxes. Yes, I admit that I once hunted foxes with my British born father-in-law, Sid Kew, of Longmeadow farm. We went to the Baird property of Point Abino with permission. Could I shoot a fox? I didn’t. Sid did. That was the year that a rabid fox came into Crystal Beach and another onto Longmeadow farm property. Both were killed and the then Dept. of Agriculture determined that they were rabid. Not a nice scenario.
I have seen active, healthy red foxes in the area. One was on Michener Road running along a hedgerow. A beautiful sight. My favourite viewing was at Marcy Woods. On the Upper trail as you walked eastwards we came upon a vixen and four kits in the vale below. She had probably taken over a groundhog hole for her den, I believe. What a lovely sight! Rusty red in colour with white underbellies and white tips on their tails and lower legs and feet black they frolicked unaware that we two were observing from high above. No camera! I returned again three more times. No foxes. Had she moved them or were they dead? Coyotes, bush wolves, coy-dogs, wild dogs all will willingly wipe out a fox family. Foxes and coyotes can’t seem to exist together. That’s the natural cycle.
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I am basically a dog lover. However, I was also raised with farm cats. I had as a pet, a pure white cat named “Snow White.” I called her “Whitey” and she lived with us eight years until one day she disappeared. My mother had pointed out to me “Whitey’s” approach to crossing Garrison Road. Even then No.3 highway was relatively busy. My cat would go south across the road to hunt mice in Nate Goulding’s fields. It would stop at the road’s edge and look to the right and then to the left. My mother would say, “Look again at her.” Whitey would repeat the safety procedure as she crossed the road. I don’t believe that our cat was killed on the highway. Look right, then left. As a pedestrian or as a driver take time to look one more time, both ways! Thank you “Whitey” for that life-long lesson.