If your search for a campsite at an Ontario Provincial Park has ended in disappointment these past two years, you aren’t alone. Due to high demand in 2021, Ontario Parks has now introduced several new features to make booking your campsite easier, including a new availability notification system.
Should your desired park and dates become available within the five-month booking window, you will receive an email alert that will allow you to book within this time slot. This feature is a simpler solution for campers to stay up-to-date with cancellations, and current availability.
“Cancellations are made up to the day before someone is set to arrive,” explained Zachary Tucker, management advisor with Ontario Parks. “If you’re looking for something in August, you could keep looking from now until August. You never know what’s going to come up.”
Popular destinations like Bon Echo, Sandbanks, Pinery, Killbear, and Algonquin Provincial Parks tend to fill up more quickly than others, but other parks, such as Inverhuron and Restoule, have also been flooded with a large amount of booking reservations.
“This year the volumes are still quite high. The reservations are going well and we’re still seeing some consistency with how things were going last year,” Tucker said. “Last year was actually our record year, so we’re just behind that by approximately 9 per cent this year.”
There are a few other features available to campers who are keeping an eye on campsite openings this year, such as the new similar experiences feature. This allows campers to find the best possible alternative to their park of choice.
Nothing brings spring cheer like the sight of tiger swallowtail butterfly flitting about and fluttering its wings as it drinks nectar from its favourite plants. The tiger swallowtail isn’t quite as recognizable as the monarch or the luna moth, but it’s certainly eye-catching with its black-and-yellow markings. There are actually several North American species of these tiger-striped insects; the eastern tiger swallowtail is the most widespread.
Do male and female butterflies look different from each other?
Everyone knows that the males and females of plenty of bird species have different plumage, and different body sizes, in some cases. Male and female butterflies have differences too. In some species, males have a thinner abdomen, for example, or differently-shaped forewings. But, in the southern reaches of their range, eastern tiger swallowtail females are, in many cases, nearly pitch black. Why? It’s likely an evolutionary adaptation. In areas of North America where the tiger swallowtail occupies the same habitat as the all-black pipevine swallowtail, this form of mimicry helps the lady tigers. Pipevine swallowtails taste nasty to bird predators, so a black outfit tricks birds into also avoiding any tiger swallowtails.
What does the tiger swallowtail eat?
Along with nectar—which the butterfly identifies and samples using taste buds on its feet—butterflies drink the water from mud puddles. (This is why you might notice groups of them hanging around wet roadsides in the spring.) Males are especially fond of the salt they can suck up from the muddy side of the road. They need sodium, along with amino acids that they get from animal droppings and carcasses, to build up nutrients in their sperm capsules in time for mating. (The tiger swallowtail only produces one generation of offspring per year, so it has to count.)
What does a tiger swallowtail caterpillar look like?
Tiger swallowtail babies aren’t pretty: they’re tiny and look like black-and-white bird droppings. As they get older, the caterpillars turn green, with yellow or orange black-dotted spots positioned behind their heads. This is another mimicry strategy. The spots look like eyes, which makes the caterpillar appear a little like a fat green snake. (At least to a predator.) But the caterpillars also have a defence strategy if an ant, spider, or parasitic wasp attacks. A tiny fork-shaped appendage springs out from behind the caterpillar’s head, and produces a gross smell to deter the potential predator. It must work—who would eat something attached to a stinky fork?
The arrival of spring means for many families, Easter is just around the corner. If you plan on spending the long weekend at the cottage, hop to it with these ten events for kids and adults that are happening in cottage country across Canada over the Easter weekend.
Easter Egg Hunt
When: April 15
Where: Bracebridge, Ont.
Hosted by the Bracebridge Agricultural Society, the third annual Easter egg hunt is back for Muskoka cottagers. Don’t forget to BYOB (bring your own basket). Click here for more details.
Nutty Chocolatier Egg Hunt
When: April 17
Where: Huntsville, Ont.
Another fun community event with free admission, Muskoka Heritage Place is where to be for this egg hunt, especially if you have kids 10 or younger. Thousands of eggs are up for grabs, including rare golden eggs which come with a prize courtesy of the Nutty Chocolatier.
Perfect for the artsy cottage-goer, this South Pender tradition is back for its 23rd year. The Easter Art walk is a great opportunity to check out South Pender’s talented artists and their work. Revel in the different art mediums including hand-crafted jewelry, and unique stained-glass pieces on your self-guided tour.
Kids aren’t the only ones who get to have some fun this Easter. If the traditional egg hunt isn’t your jam, head to Gibsons Tapworks for a side-splitting game of Quiplash. Tickets are $10 a person for the event or join in on the fun for free as an audience member. Click here for more details.
Lions Egg Hunt
When: April 17
Where: Sechelt, B.C.
Join in on the annual Easter egg hunt in Sechelt. There are around 2,000 eggs hidden in Porpoise Bay Provincial Park. All that eggs-ploring calls for some food and refreshments, which you can find at the concession stand on site. Click here for more details.
ECO-EGG Event
When: April 16
Where: Lindsay, Ont.
Cottaging in Kawartha Lakes? Gamiing Nature Centre is putting on a kid-friendly event with tons of activities. Spend the day enjoying the fresh air while your kids learn more about nature, the signs of spring, and, you guessed it, an egg scavenger hunt. Click here for more details.
Easter on the Farm
When: April 15
Where: Little Britain, Ont.
Calling all Paw Patrol fans, this is the event for you. This farm event gives kids the opportunity to take part in a Paw Patrol-themed scavenger hunt and a meet and greet with characters. There are plenty of other activities to do on the farm like going for a pony ride or indulging in some sweet treats from the bake sale. Click here for more details.
Easter at the Eddie
When: April 17
Where: Prince Edward County, Ont.
Enjoy a delicious Sunday brunch at the Eddie Hotel and Farm. The Eddie is an iconic venue situated in the heart of Prince Edward County. Reserve your spot now for an egg hunt with gorgeous scenery and a hearty meal afterwards. The Easter Egg Hunt gets underway at 10:30 a.m. Click here for more details.
Easter at the Mountain
When: April 15-18
Where: Eastern Townships, Que.
If you’re looking to stay active this Easter, there’s still time to hit the slopes before the seasons are over. One of Québec’s popular ski resorts, Mont SUTTON, is holding an Easter event perfect for sports lovers. Click here for more details.
Easter Movie Screening
When: April 16
Where: Annapolis Royal, N.S.
Last, but certainly not least, kick back and enjoy a movie that’s perfect for the whole family. King’s Theatre will be screening Zootopiawith free admission in the spirit of Easter. Zootopia is a critically acclaimed film that won an Academy Award in 2017 for Best Animated Feature. Mark the date now, movie-lovers. Click for more details.
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The double-crested cormorant gets a bad rap. But give this big, prehistoric-looking bird some props: the species’ numbers have exploded since the 1970s, after they suffered at the hands of DDT. Just like eagles, cormorants would eat fish contaminated by the pesticide (and produced eggs with too-thin shells as a result). In 1950, there were only 900 breeding pairs in the Great Lakes. By 2000, that number had jumped to 115,000.
What do cormorants eat?
Some anglers aren’t huge fans of this bird, which, fair enough: it does spend much of its time catching fish. Flocks of cormorants will fly dozens of kilometres from their home base to forage. They soar in tight formations then dive below the surface of the water to catch more than 250 species of fish, including small fare such as minnows and yellow perch, plus invasive species including round goby and rainbow smelt. For the record, anglers, most research shows that sport fish only make up a small percentage of a cormorant’s diet.
Cormorants are excellent swimmers—at least, they are when they’re going after food. This bird has a cool fishing technique: it chases after fish underwater, propelling itself with its webbed feet. (Other bird species that swim underwater, like the Cassin’s auklet, use their wings like fins to “fly” as they pursue prey.) Cormorants have hook-tipped beaks for a reason. They use the hook to snag their dinner. Sometimes they catch crayfish. When they do, they repeatedly bash the crustacean against the surface of the lake until its legs fall off, then flip it into the air to catch and swallow it head-first. Show off.
Why do cormorants ‘pose’?
When a cormorant isn’t fishing, it’s just hanging out. This bird spends at least half of its day resting (hey, sounds like a cottager!). Ever spot one standing on a bare, windy rock or branch—or on your dock—with its wings outstretched? It’s trying to dry out. Cormorants have less preen oil (the stuff that helps ducks shed water) than other birds, so their feathers are soaked after a morning of fishing. Experts believe this difference is what actually helps cormorants hunt underwater more effectively.
A sure sign of spring is a Western meadowlark perched on a post and singing its lungs out. Well, not really, because bird lungs are small, rigid, and very different than mammal lungs. But you get it. As soon as the snow melts, male meadowlarks return to their spring and summer homes in the prairies and B.C. after having spent the winter in the southern U.S. and parts of Mexico.
When do the female birds return north?
Female meadowlarks don’t show up on the breeding scene for at least another two weeks. They have the same unmistakable plumage as their male counterparts: a bright yellow breast and throat with a black V-shaped marking—a little like a cravat—around the neck. But a male meadowlark starts singing as soon as he gets home. He needs time to establish a breeding territory before the ladies arrive.
What does the meadowlark sound like?
Each male bird has a playbook of up to 12 slightly different flute-like melodies. Sometimes, two males will try to out-sing each other by matching their tunes. Their voices are audible from about 400 metres away (not bad for a bird the same size as a robin). A female will pick the best singer, and the two hook up within minutes, then mate multiple times over the next couple of weeks as she builds a nest. When you know, you know, right?
Meadowlarks usually nest twice in one season—one male pairs with two females. Even though it’s the lady bird that builds the nursery, a simple, grass-lined bowl, sometimes covered by a waterproof “dome,” Dad helps with childcare. Once the brood of five or six hatches, he’ll periodically bring food and stick around to chase away intruders. Careful, though, if you intrude on a meadowlark nest. Back away! The birds aren’t bold enough to attempt to scare away a human interloper, and they might abandon the babies.
This summer, a fox had been coming unusually close to our cottage (and we had been shooing him away). We leave our flip-flops on our deck. One morning, we found many of the flip-flops gone. They were scattered all around the property, and some went missing entirely. Is it possible that the fox was the perpetrator?—Andy Cloutier, McKay Lake, Ont.
Yes. And actually, Occam’s Razor says “probably.” Sure, one of your neighbours could have been messing with you, but “foxes have a reputation for stealing shoes,” says wildlife expert Kim Cabrera of the International Society of Professional Trackers. (Last summer, a fox in Berlin was found with more than 100 shoes in its den. Mostly Crocs. Since foxes can neither apply for credit cards nor shop online, we assume the entire stash was stolen.)
Why snatch footwear? There are theories. “They seem to take items with an odour,” says Fiona Reid, the author of the Peterson Field Guide to Mammals of North America, who’s witnessed a fox scampering away with a stinky pillowcase.
They could also like playing with shoes—that would explain why your flip-flops were scattered around the property. And shoes make for good teaching tools; adult foxes may take them back to their dens for their offspring. Look, Fox Junior! This is how you kill a bunny rabbit! “I’d expect that more with leather shoes than Crocs, but I guess anything that can be tossed in the air and chewed could work,” says Reid.
Since you never caught the thief in the act, we can’t be certain that your loitering fox was to blame. Still. Don’t leave any Air Jordans on the deck next summer.
This article was originally published in the Winter 2021 issue of Cottage Life magazine.
Got a question for Cottage Q&A? Send it to answers@cottagelife.com.
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Have you heard of the woodcock? What about the timberdoodle? It’s the same bird. The same, strange-looking bird. Spring is a key time for the plump, stubby-necked avian. With its bizarre preportions—look at that long beak—it’s hard to imagine that the woodcock would be a strong flier. But it is. And beginning in March, males take to the skies to woo their future lady loves with astonishing courtship flights.
What does the woodcock sound like?
About 20 minutes after sundown in early spring, male woodcocks start to call to the ladies: peent, peent, peent. It’s nasal and buzzy, and audible from more than 200 metres away. A male will repeat the sound every few seconds for a couple of minutes, then launch into the air, spiralling through the sky 100 metres up. Then he abruptly hurtles back to earth, flying in a zigzag pattern. He repeats this aerial dance about a dozen times, and does the same thing again at dawn, for two months. That’s dedication.
What do woodcocks eat?
The woodcock isn’t nearly as fancy-footed on the ground, but it does move in an unusual way. While foraging—for beetle grubs, maggots, and millipedes—the robin-sized bird camouflages with its surroundings thanks to its buff, brown, and black feathers. It bobs back and forth, shifting its weight from foot to foot as it uses its upper bill to probe the leaf litter. The upper bill has a flexible, serrated tip that’s full of blood vessels. The woodcock uses it to detect the vibrations of critters in the soil—mostly earthworms, a staple food. Experts think the bird’s back-and-forth movement is intentional, to encourage worms to burrow deeper, and therefore, make noise that the woodcock can “hear”. Sneaky trick!
Flowers are one of the most striking examples of diversity in nature, displaying myriad combinations of colours, patterns, shapes and scents. They range from colourful tulips and daisies, to fragrant frangipani and giant, putrid-smelling corpse flowers. The variety and diversity is astounding—consider the duck-shaped orchid.
But as much as we can appreciate the beauty and diversity of flowers, it is quite literally not meant for our eyes.
The purpose of flowers is to attract pollinators, and it is to their senses that flowers cater. A clear example of this are ultraviolet (UV) patterns. Many flowers accumulate UV pigments in their petals, forming patterns that are invisible to us, but that most pollinators can see.
The disconnect between what we see and what pollinators see is particularly striking in sunflowers. Despite their iconic status in popular culture (as testified by the arguably dubious honour of being one of the only five flower species with a dedicated emoji), they hardly seem the best example of flower diversity.
However, when looked at in the UV spectrum (that is, beyond the type of light that our eyes can see), things are quite different. Sunflowers accumulate UV-absorbing pigments at the base of the ligules. Across the whole inflorescence, this results in a UV bullseye pattern.
In a recent study, we compared almost 2,000 wild sunflowers. We found that the size of these UV bullseyes varies extensively, both between and within species.
The sunflower species with the most extreme diversity in the size of UV bullseyes is Helianthus annuus, the common sunflower. H. annuus is the closest wild relative to cultivated sunflower, and is the most broadly distributed of wild sunflowers, growing almost everywhere between southern Canada and northern Mexico. While some populations of H. annuus have very small UV bullseyes, in others, the ultraviolet-absorbing region covers the whole inflorescence.
When we compared sunflowers with different UV bullseyes, we found that pollinators were able to discriminate between them and preferred plants with intermediate-sized UV bullseyes.
Sunflowers with different UV bullseye patterns as we see them (top) and as a bee might see them (bottom). (Marco Todesco), Author provided
Still, this doesn’t explain all the diversity in UV patterns that we observed in different populations of wild sunflowers: if intermediate UV bullseyes attract more pollinators (which is clearly anadvantage), why do plants with small or large UV bullseyes exist?
Other factors
While pollinator attraction is clearly the main function of floral traits, there is increasing evidence that non-pollinator factors like temperature or herbivores can affect the evolution of characteristics like flower colour and shape.
We found a first clue that this could also be the case for UV patterns in sunflowers when we looked at how their variation is regulated at the genetic level. A single gene, HaMYB111, is responsible for most of the diversity in UV patterns that we see in H. annuus. This gene controls the production of a family of chemicals called flavonol glycosides, which we found in high concentrations in the UV-absorbing part of ligules. Flavonol glycosides are not only UV-absorbing pigments, but play also an important role in helping plants cope with different environmental stresses.
A second clue came from the discovery that the same gene is responsible for UV pigmentation in the petals of the thale cress, Arabidopsis thaliana. Thale cress is the most commonly used model system in plant genetics and molecular biology. These plants are able to pollinate themselves, and therefore generally do without pollinators.
Thale cress can pollinate itself without the help of pollinators. (Shutterstock)
Since they don’t need to attract pollinators, they have small, unassuming white flowers. Still, their petals are full of UV-absorbing flavonols. This suggests that there are reasons not related to pollination for these pigments to be present in the flowers of the thale cress.
Finally, we noticed that sunflower populations from drier climates had consistently larger UV bullseyes. One of the known functions of flavonol glycosides is to regulate transpiration. Indeed, we found that ligules with large UV patterns (which contain large amounts of flavonol glycosides) lost water at a much slower rate than ligules with small UV patterns.
This suggests that, at least in sunflowers, patterns of floral UV pigmentation have two functions: improving the attractiveness of flowers to pollinators, and helping sunflowers survive in drier environments by preserving water.
Thrifty evolution
So what does this teach us? For one, that evolution is thrifty, and if possible will use the same trait to achieve more than one adaptive goal. It also offers a potential approach for improving cultivated sunflower, by simultaneously boosting pollination rates and making plants more resilient to drought.
Finally, our work, and other studies looking at plant diversity, can help in predicting how and to which extent plants will be able to cope with climate change, which is already altering the environments they are adapted to.
The greater yellowlegs has—wait for it—yellow legs. Good call, whoever gave this shorebird its common name. In March, the migratory bird begins to come home from winter U.S. digs in brackish wetlands, mudflats, flooded fields, and, ugh, sewage ponds, headed to Canada’s boreal wetlands and damp meadows. Greater yellowlegs parents seem to prefer shallow water and shrubby ponds where they can safely raise their kids. Who wouldn’t? During breeding season, the birds will sometimes fly up to and then perch on trees to watch for predators.
The greater yellowlegs vs the lesser yellowlegs
The greater yellowlegs walks with a high-stepping gait, its limbs flashing. Its cousin species, the lesser yellowlegs looks (no surprise) almost identical. But the greater bird is literally greater—that is, larger—with a longer, thicker bill. Side-by-side, most folks could see the difference, but when each bird is solo, it can be hard for anyone but an experienced birder to ID each yellowlegs.
What does this bird sound like?
The greater yellowlegs’ screechy alarm call is one reason why birdwatchers don’t love this guy. It tends to scare away other shorebirds, so its nicknames are “tattler” and “yelper.” The most common call is a chirpy, ringing cry: tew tew tew. (It sounds, at least to some people, that the bird is saying its name: “yel-low-legs”). If you want to hear the bird in real life, be prepared to spend some time in boggy areas. When it’s dry, head to muddy reservoirs or lakes; when it’s wet, you can spot them in flooded fields. Adult birds also tend to wade into deeper water compared to other sandpipers—one reason that birders call the greater yellowlegs a “marshpiper.”
Cottages are seen as a ‘home away from home’, a place to relax, recharge, and rejuvenate. But they can also provide a home for wildlife. The chimney swift, a small grey cigar-shaped bird that preys on mosquitoes and other flying insects, has adapted to roost and nest in human-made structures—preferring, as the name suggests, chimneys. However, chimney swifts in Canada are in major trouble; over 90% of the population has declined since 1970.
To help conserve the species, Birds Canada, with financial support from Environment and Climate Change Canada, has launched the Chimney Swift Chimney Restoration Fund. Owners of structures in need of repair and used by chimney swifts for nesting and roosting can apply for financial support from the fund. The fund may provide up to 50% of the total cost of the restoration project, while ensuring that the repairs continue to allow chimney swifts to use the structure for nesting and roosting.
Chimney swifts tend to occupy buildings that were built before 1960, says Véronique Connolly, coordinator for the Chimney Swift Fund. As aging chimneys fall apart or are capped or demolished, the chimney swifts lose out on valuable habitat.
“Often chimney owners don’t have the financial resources to repair a chimney. Sometimes it’s easier just to demolish it,” says Connolly.
Chimney swifts seek out chimneys built with rough materials like brick, stone, or concrete. “Chimney swifts can’t perch like birds that you would see on telephone wires,” says Natasha Barlow, a projects biologist for Birds Canada. Their back toes can swivel forward though, helping the birds cling to rough surfaces, she says.
Those rough building materials also provide a nice attachment area for swifts to construct their nests. Chimney swifts use saliva to glue small twigs together and then adhere the nests onto interior chimney walls, says Andrew Coughlan, the Quebec director for Birds Canada.
Coughlan maintains that chimney swifts make good tenants. “They’re not particularly noisy, and they don’t make huge nests,” he says. ”Nests are very small—about four inches wide—so it’s not going to block the chimney or cause a fire hazard.”
Sharing your cottage or home with chimney swifts doesn’t mean ceding your chimney entirely to the birds, adds Barlow. Chimney swifts migrate south for the fall and winter, so homeowners are perfectly safe to use their fireplaces and chimneys as intended while the birds are away.
The application deadline for the fund is April 21, 2022. Applicants can visit the Chimney Swift Chimney Restoration Fund’s website for the full eligibility criteria and application process.
