We’re in a time of transition. Across the moraine, trees are beginning to take on their autumn hues, and the soundscape has shifted from the buzzing of cicadas to the honking of Canada geese overhead. As many migratory birds head south to their warmer wintering grounds, you may notice other species filling the quiet they leave behind. Among the most vocal are the cawing crows and croaking ravens. American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) and Common Ravens (Corvus corax) are both

Sometime this month, a monarch butterfly will lift off from a meadow on the Oak Ridges Moraine and begin a journey that ranks among the longest in the insect world. It will fly up to 4,000 kilometers to a mountain forest in central Mexico that it has never seen. Every Monarch that hatches in your garden between June and August lives the same short life: two weeks as a caterpillar, two weeks as a chrysalis, then about four weeks as an adult spent almost entirely on mating and

When we think of prairies and meadows, a certain image often comes to mind: tall, golden grasses waving gently in the wind. Even if you don’t know them by name, you have probably seen a few grasses pop up again and again: the cylindrical heads of Timothy Grass, bunched seeds of Orchard Grass, and swaying stems of Smooth Brome. All of these grasses were introduced to Canada to provide forage for domestic livestock. Prairies across the Oak Ridges Moraine used to look a little