Nature Stories

I looked forward all day to tonight's meeting of the Toronto Ornithological Society, my local birder's club. I've been a birder for 20 years. For me birds are the entry to seeing and understanding nature. The more I learn, the more I see.

The talk was about a bird called the "Yellow Bellied Sapsucker", an amazing bird (well they all are, really) that lives in the forests of Eastern North America and drills holes in trees to drink the sap. That sap supports a whole community of other birds, insects and mammals that can't get at the sap in any other way.

Although I work in the middle of a large city, I remembered that I noticed some sapsucker holes in a tree the next block over and here they are!

These must have been made by sapsuckers migrating north in the spring. They are healed over now, but you can tell they are sapsucker holes because of the regular pattern and the size of the holes.

But then I looked closer! There's a seed caught on the trunk waiting to be blown free, maybe to find a nice fertile piece of ground to take root in the spring.

And I looked some more and there's some lichen growing! Lichen needs clean air so I'm always happy to see it in the city.

And if you look at the bark below the holes you can see that birds or squirrels or insects have been nibbling at it! Maybe to eat the bark, maybe to eat tiny insect hiding in the bark. Or maybe to gather sawdust for their nest.

And then if you could see into the tree and down to the roots and into the soil you would find the tendrils of fungi and bacteria that convert minerals in the soil and nitrogen in the air to nutrients that allow every plant on this earth to grow. And these plants support all of the other creatures that live on this earth. Including us.

Isn't this tiny few inches of bark just amazing?

Maybe if I lived in the country I would take if for granted, but I have to hunt for my nature fix!

I'm behind on getting back to everyone who has commented on my blips. Your comments mean a lot to me and I'm so enjoying getting to know you and learn from you. I'll get back, soon!