Wildlife And Habitat
105 postsArticle build 2026-01-12 12:05
Spring
29 posts
Tree frogs find funny places to hang out #treefrog
Little guy was hiding along a trail, very young just relying on camouflage #bunny
Out for a walk this morning. pepsi found some moose poo. and a shot of our soil here where the horses keep disturbing the grass, it's not exactly "sandy" soil, it's pure sand hah.
Larch are so cool when they leaf out. needle out? #larch
Sandbar willow, I went out and cut some bundles for a local landscaper yesterday, they need them for a restoration project. We cut this stand last spring and wow did it bounce back. Seems I have a willow coppice going. It's in a nice spot near our dugout, and an orchard in the works #willow
Shmaven guarding the nursery #guardcat
Path along our pond where we've been creating a food forest by slowly replacing aspen with other stuff. the aspen aren't getting removed, just pruned to let light in and to keep new ones from getting tall. using syntropic agroforestry principals to build soil
Site of our new orchard, an old hayfield I've been re-wilding for ten years. starting with fifty apples this spring, and I'll go from there. the limitation is mostly caging them for deer and rabbits, voles. rich heavy clay soil next to a wetland.
Canada mayflower along a forest trail. #canadamayflower #nativeplants
Rescued nannyberry tree, a friend who does tree service pulled some out for a customer and gave me one. trimmed back with some kind of root system, it lives in my compost pile for now, excited to see if it leafs out. so many fruit trees are removed for just growing in the wrong place, would be fun to try and salvage them.
Our soil here is aeolian sand, blown in from a nearby river and probably left over from ancient lake agassiz. over the centuries there has been areas of true sand dunes here in the middle of the prairies, and only recently overgrown with aspen, wild raspberry, chokecherry, saskatoon and hazel. it's rolling hills of sand, where I've excavated and drilled a well it's 99% pure sand to at least 20 ft. anywhere the thin 1" of topsoil is disturbed the sand persists, in the photo here is a place my horses like to roll around for a sand bath.
There's a greenhouse squirrel who might think I just put out a buffet of seeds, so added some squirrel defences #squirreldefences
Aspen getting fluffy
Found out about this interesting tourist attraction, some unusually contorted aspen trees.
Forest floor is so cool in the spring. We have a mix of Canada mayflower, wild sarsaparilla and hazel coming up along the trails. The sarsaparilla is a good snack when it's small, the little tripod stalks taste like celery
Rabbits eat tree bark over the winter, and they enjoy apple more than the native trees. this damage isn't so bad, the lower limbs should probably go anyway, and I can just bridge graft the rest. next winter the tree guards will be higher, happy that I put them on in the fall.
Willow trees with giant burlap in high park, Toronto #highpark
Some very large maple trees at woodbine beach in Toronto #woodbinebeach
#Walkingtrail
A beaver wandered into our yard this morning and he's chilling out behind the house. we put our dogs in the garage so he can have a rest. he must be on his way to the next stream some miles away #beaver
This lichen will probably outlive the aspen tree, it grows along my favourite walking trail.. i should take a photo next year and see if it's getting larger. #lichen
The tree holding our trailcam, and it was in the perfect spot.. luckily camera fine. our YouTube channel featuring this cam has one video that's run away with over 40k views, so I just put some fresh batteries in it and will see what's running around the forest this spring, and when we have a few weeks of clips will be adding more videos #trailcamera
Moose poop kinda looks like chocolates #moose
We have a forest moose #forestmoose #moose #moosepoo
Found a cool lichen #lichen #lichens
Wildlife pond at night #pond #wildlifepond
Forest donkey #donkey #forestdonkey
Found some ferns pushing up first fronds #fern #fernfronds #northerngardening
Think I got all the Japanese garden elements going on with this cherry flowering over the new pond. It's a work in progress. #japanesegarden #wildlifepond
Summer
51 posts
Nearby our orchard and the bee hives at our place, out walked a bear this morning. first time I've seen one in the area.
Ghost pipe .. following up on the plants I came across a couple weeks ago. the transition to brown on the leaf margins are interesting, the new ones are pure white
Planting apple trees, the hardware cloth keeps out deer, rabbits and voles. I've planted without it and rolled the dice, but eventuality wildlife is just drawn to them like candy. same with wild plum, in a forest of chokecherry a deer will find the one plum tree and eat all of the small growth. so I use these or tree tubes.
This time of year I'm collecting fruit and nuts before wildlife finds them. don't worry, the deer and squirrels will be fine, lots left for them. apples, ussurian pear, acorns.
Ghost pipe, just found this rare plant growing nearby in the shade by some oaks. not a mushroom, it's a plant - feeds on fungi in the soil instead of having chlorophyll. also from a nursery standpoint, you won't find these available anywhere, they're basically impossible to transplant or propagate, there's a very sensitive relationship with the fungi in the soil. #nativeplants #ghostpipe
We have quite a few of these guys around in the evenings, helping with the mosquitos
Hanging out on an fruit tree leaf. not eating it, just chilling. quick photo ID says it will be a cool looking moth, the white-marked tussock moth. a big idea in permaculture is that you're introducing, or maybe restoring habitat for wildlife, from insects to the birds that eat them, adding new plants to the landscape supports more biodiversity, it's a big web, etc. maybe these caterpillars are around anyway, but it's the first time I've noticed one in the nursery. will be keeping an eye on the milkweed we planted.
Tree frogs seem to like the greenhouse
Grapes in a forest context. tried for years without the cage, and the vines would always get trimmed back by wildlife. finally put up some stucco wire cages and now the vines are reasonably safe to grow
Work in progress some apple orchard rows in a field.. the trees are alive just trimmed by deer and competing with grass. following photos are siberian crabapple nearby planted in 2004. Project planned to cage the small trees, cut grass and mulch.
Foxfire, glowing fungi in a scoop of old wood chips from the pile. I've only found small ones like this, like nature's glow sticks. #foxfire. "Foxfire is a term referring to the natural bioluminescence, or glowing, produced by certain species of fungi, particularly those growing on decaying wood or bark. It's a phenomenon known since ancient times and is caused by a chemical reaction involving a luciferase enzyme and a luciferin"
Cottonwood, but a hybrid, based on leaf shape
We have these lots at a nearby lake I keep meaning to plant some trees on, about a quarter of it floods in the spring so it's marshy, cat tails and nettles mostly. I just need to get some cages sorted, deer hang out here so little fruit trees would be a snack. I keep thinking about doing some mounds near the low spot, on a very wet year this is full of water for a while
Amur maple, acer ginnala
Out for a hike in a jurassic park of ferns.. didn't see any velociraptors
Cool butterfly
Weird tree frog in the hazel, usually they're green
American hazel getting close, maybe next week. as soon as the nuts are mature and start to brown I'll go picking, miss it by a week and they'll all be gone between dropping and squirrels
Wild bergamot #wildbergamot
Getting lost in my front yard, walking around a patch of american hazel. there is trail I just need to bring a brush mower and a saw next time. looks like we have some nuts this year. these grow wild as a dense understory, the ones in the sun get more nuts.
Caging some canada wild plum along a forest path. these are actually a few years old, and wildlife seems to find and eat them down to the ground reliably, constantly setting them back - so finally added caging.
Wild chamomile, pineappleweed, Matricaria discoidea . growing in an unmowed driveway, one tough plant that likes compacted soil and neglect. smells like chamomile
Rosa woodsii or woods' rose is the most cold hardy rose I know of, it's native to our area and probably undervalued. if given a good location they can grow into a 5 ft bush
Red currant aphids or currant blister aphids make these galls, I removed the leaves as a precaution but otherwise the bush is quite healthy. I enjoyed this reference that encourages you not to spray insecticides for these relatively harmless guys because aphids are an important part of the food web and it's ok to have some in your garden. https://www.rhs.org.uk/biodiversity/currant-blister-aphid
Filled up the pond, it's been dry and windy and it was maybe six inches low. second time this year I added some water, the fish seemed happy #wildlifepond
Wild bergamot in a native prairie restoration garden at the Assiniboine Food Forest in Brandon MB. @assiniboinefoodforest #foodforest #wildflowers
Out for a walk, donkey always comes over to get pet. His name is donkey, had him and a couple of his friends for close to twenty years. #donkey
Our pot belly pig patty from years ago, we had her until she was twelve. she had free run of the yard and had a routine where she would sleep in the afternoon, when to eat etc. In the winter she would make a crazy pig nest in the barn in the straw and you could walk by and the staw pile would oink at you. For a year or two her best friend was a chicken. #potbellypig
#Monarchcaterpillar
The day your cat learns there's a cat bed inside the cupboards #cat #catlife #siamesecat #polydactylcat
Nursery tonight, floodlight is on to watch for deer
Left a gate open, one deer wandered in last night and ate two ft off every bush cherry.. maybe ten bushes spread around an acre along paths in their fourth year. man i almost want to replace them. i have them caged for rabbits, but seems they need a 4 ft cage.. deer can somehow walk around and find every single sour cherry bush amongst a forest of background trees
#Walkingtrail at #ridingmountainnationalpark in southern Manitoba
This spider is the same color as the wild rose it was hiding inside. #spider #nature
This guy chilling on the sarsaparilla leaves trail side #toad
Pond area starting to get overgrown, the goldfish seem happy in their 3rd summer #pond
Deer fence in progress. I went with 5 stands of high tensile wire in this open stretch, and 3 stands where it runs through dense undergrowth. Six years of gardening in this space without any deer pressure, but it just takes one to get too brave. Also my dog is getting older, doesn't jump up to bark so easily. A single deer over several nights ate down the tops of hundreds of small trees, usually just defoliating the top 2/3, but also the top half of currants, wild roses, garlic and one head of lettuce. It had a run at my grafted apples, a third of them have been topped - sure hope they will bounce back this season. Most will grow back, but it's enough to push me to fence the nursery and orchard, something I wasn't expecting to do. #deerfence #deerproof #deerproofgardening
A second layer of deer defence, these pvc hoops span 2 rows and are covered in bird netting. This worked well to quickly net all of our grafted apples and plums, which are the deer's favourite snacks.
Nearly have our deer fence finished. 700' x 5 strands of high tensile wire fences in about an acre. Our problem deer gets through the fence in areas it's not finished every day and we chase it out. if it was November this would be easier to solve..
Like a ninja a deer snuck in and nibble the tops off these potted cherry plums last night. finished a fence today, now we'll see if it's deer resistant.
Squirrel found the buffet.. as expected I did hide a pile of nuts from him. So they will pull up plants to eat the nuts after germination, good to know. It's about time build up the some walls for our beds with oak and hazel and get them more squirrel proof. #nuttrees #growingtrees
Our forest floor is coated in poplar fluff. #aspen #populustremuloides #nature #forest
My squirrel is back, might need to reinforce this while I still have some but trees left.
Out for a walk with Pepsi #forestdog
A new wildflower bloomed, we added some assorted perennial wildflowers are the orchard, not sure what this one is #wildflowers
Some wildflowers in the orchard #wildflowers
Cool stump covered in Cladonia chlorophaea lichens, little cup like guys #cladonia #lichen #lichens
Red osier dogwood flowering this week #dogwood
Ferns still waking up #fern #frond
Trailcam caught a young deer browsing nearby #trailcam #deer #whitetaildeer
Ants farming aphids .. or maybe they're pets? #ants #aphids #symbiosis
Fall
16 posts
Tree tubes can fill up with grass, helped out in this area today @assiniboinefoodforest to clear the grass, trim a bit and keep the tubed trees healthy for another growing season. tubing and caging in this field lets the trees grow up past the size that deer will browse.
Tree tubes are cool, they create a micro climate while protecting from deer rabbits mice. these are all siberian crabapple, to be grafted above the browse line, in an area with frequent deer and rabbits. If I didn't tube or cage them, the trees would be heavily browsed, apple twigs and bark are like candy for wildlife
Prairie re-wilding, 10th year since we moved our horses and anything has grazed this field. It's about ten acres of grass with an acre of marsh. wild licorice, goldenrod, milkweed, and many other flowers and plants have been appearing that I'll eventually identify. collected some seeds, checked on the apple trees I planted this spring. around this field I find green ash, narrow leaf cat tail, wild licorice, silver buffaloberry and boxelder, enough seeds to grow in our nursery and stock our seed shop.
Pagoda dogwood I think, Cornus alternifolia native to manitoba. Related to the more common redosier dogwood, and also bunchberry dogwood (both in the cornus genus even though bunchberry is 6" tall). this one is weird because the leaves look like bunchberry, the fruit grows like virginia creeper, and it's 10-15 ft tall shrub #pagodadogwood
Sandbar willow are a small species that spreads and grow in clumps. this patch is at least 30 years old and the largest trees are 12-15 ft, it's also spreading out. It's great because everything I coppice will regrow. several truckloads of cuttings are going to a planting site to stabilize soil. #willow
Sandbar willow hardwood cuttings for a local riparian project with a landscaper, 48" poles. we have a large patch of these and it's cool to coppice part of it, a completely renewable resource.
Time to run an extension cord out to the pond heater. 3rd winter for the goldfish. #wildlifepond
Found this in the woods nearby, any wildlife experts know? someone said bear but i've never seen one around here. we do have racoons and porcupines
Tree tubing and caging as an ongoing project protect volunteer seedlings from deer and help the trees reestablish along the assiniboine river @assiniboinefoodforest thanks to everyone who volunteered this weekend
The assiniboine river is super low this fall
Wildlife pond going into fall. you can see how I feed the goldfish, some assorted treats in these containers just stay outside pondside year round #wildlifepond
Milkweed seed pods, leaves are the food source for monarch caterpillars.
Someone was sleeping in this cozy spot #deer #whitetail
Half inch of ice on the pond this morning, we hit -14c last night.. Time to plug in the heater. there's about 18 goldfish in there going into their second winter. #pond #wildlifepond
Our miniature donkey's name is Donkey. Had him nearly twenty years, and every time I walk by he comes over. More friendly than most horses. #donkey
First snow today. the wildlife pond I made this spring is home to about 16 gold fish, going to try and keep it heated through the winter. about a week ago we hit -15c and there was an inch of ice on the pond, might be interesting to see how it does by Jan. volume is around 200-250 gallons, 30-36" max in the deep end, depending on the water level, fluctuates a couple inches/wk from evaporation.. hah or birds and squirrels drinking it #wildlifepond #pond
Winter
9 posts
This is Pepsi, he's cold hardy to usda zone 3
Canada mayflower (small with 2 leaves) and wild sarsaparilla along a walking trail in late spring
Small fish ponds need a top up in the winter, they evaporate so a good strategy is to push snow in and let the heater melt it over a day or two, repeat. this also can make a partiL crust of ice to insulate the water. #wildlifepond
Does anyone know the ID on this plant? I found a patch of them while out collecting some wild licorice seeds. Growing in zone 3 southern Manitoba, branches 2-3 ft tall with these clusters of late hanging fruit. Somehow I've overlooked them.
#Whitetaildeer
Snow's getting deep, we usually don't see deer in our front yard. There's a patch of grass we let go to seed this fall, has them interested. #whitetail #deer
Vole and rabbit protection, pretty easy from a roll of hardware cloth cut into squares.
Snow dog
So far our pond is keeping thawed with its 16 goldfish all surviving. Finding I need to shovel snow into it to counteract evaporation #wildlifepond