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Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

I grew up in Ontario and Nunavut, and went to university in New Brunswick. For two years I lived in Ottawa, on the green belt. While I was there I wrote about nature. Then I moved to Montreal and I wrote nothing for a year. We've got nature here too, so I'm going to write about it.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Spring


I rather like spring. it's a season that's filled with promise. Late spring is particularly pleasent, as the lilacs are currently in full bloom, perfuming the air.


It being particularly lovely today, I decided on a walk. The promise of spring was more than fulfilled. The air was filled with birdsong, and with sunblock and a particularly favourite wide-brimmed fedora perched on my head, I was able to avoid sunburn.


There is a particular part of the trail, near where I have, on occasion seen porcupines that tends to become flooded if there is a light dew or somebody looks at them the wrong way. I came upon it, flooded, towards the end of my walk. On the logic that it was a particularly nice day, and that life is for the living, I waded on in, and I am happy that I did. in doing so I startled any number of leopard frogs Lithobates pipiens, all presumably under the impression that I was a new and particularly terrifying variety of heron. These were, previously, becoming a trifle scarce in these parts, and I am always happy to see them, and their relatives. A world without frogs might well not be a world in which I care to exist.

Shortly therafter I happened upon a particularly deceased example of the white tailed deer. The reader should herein offer up humble thanks to whichever deity they so choose that I didn't bring my camera with me. If I HAD, i probably would have taken pictures for further study. As is, I haven't got any, and going back out with my camera seems a trifle morbid. however, it WAS a particularly interesting carcass, as it had quite clearly been caused to become so, rather than dropping to the earth due to age or infirmity. there are, to my knowledge, no wolves in these woods, and I have never heard of any dogs that are allowed to run free. There is, as such, a fairly good chance of it having been coyotes which brought the beast to it's rather abrupt end. this does, on occasion, happen, particularly when there are no larger predators in the vicinity. They have, indeed, been known to hunt cooperatively on occasion. Given my fondness for coyotes, and my profound dislike of people who allow their dogs to terrorize the local wildlife, I suppose I might be a bit biased in my assumptions, but it IS clear that coyotes were at the kill, as there's only about 1/2 of the deer or less left, and many of it's ribs were bitten through. All in all, a very interesting sight.

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