This is my personal account of hiking the Maitland Trail as part of the El Camino Event. About 200 hikers took part,of which about 70% were female and most of the ones I talked to came from London, Stratford and Kitchener Waterloo.                 On May 31st 2008 I hiked themore…

When you read this the big hiking event of the year- the Maitland Trail Association El Camino will be over.   There were 195 hikers registered for the event. Not everyone planned on hiking the whole 50.6 km in the two days (Saturday 16th, Sunday 17th). Fortunately the weather looks goodmore…

This late summer has seen a bumper crop of fungi, including the ever popular giant puffballs.  There was an interesting one near the Lobb trail that was complete with a protein supplement for those who like to eat slugs. Four Western dusky slugs were eating it. On a hike atmore…

I had a busy weekend on August 26th-27th.  I joined 9 other cyclists at MacGregor Provincial Park for a 16 km ride lead by Don Andrews. We had a very pleasant day for the ride, and most riders stopped at the park store for an ice cream afterwards.  Four ofmore…

There is now increasing concern about alien invasive species.  Locally there have been great efforts to remove phragmites in our area.  There have been some efforts to tackle Common Buckthorn. These efforts include MVCA removal of  Common Buckthorn in the Wawanosh Nature Centre area and the Maitland Trail Association reductionmore…

Now is the time of year when many people suffer with allergies to pollen. In my young days it was known as Hay fever.   Sometimes the golden rod is blamed for the condition but ragweed is far more likely to be the culprit.  There are at least six different variesmore…

We had a perfect day for our beach walk at Port Albert on Thursday. I noticed a plant I was unfamiliar with, and as usual by using iNaturalist I found out it was American searocket. On that part of the beach, South of Port Albert, there was not much garbage,more…

On our hike at Bannockburn Conservation area the amount of water in the Bannockburn river made it seem more like a creek. In one backwater there were many water striders on top of the water.  It is difficult to image how once in spring the water was so high itmore…

Further to my mention of fireflies, I found that the best time to see them is at dusk there when I recently  counted 70 flashes in two minutes. There was an interesting study in Zambia on the effect of human odor on attracting mosquitoes. A fan blew the body odormore…