Huntsville Nature Club

06/01/2026

Happy June 1st! Planning to be out and about around the province this month? Maybe you can fit a couple of these events in your travel schedule!

05/29/2026

Amazing footage of a bird that is frequently heard in our woods, but almost never seen: the skulky Ovenbird! As the video shows, its nest is unique in the bird world, and named for the oven it resembles.

05/26/2026

The hummingbird at your feeder this May — the one that hovered for a second to check you out before drinking — is almost certainly the same bird that was at your feeder last May. Banding studies have tracked ruby-throats returning to the exact same yard nine years in a row.

She remembers the feeder. She remembers the porch. She knows which window she can fly past safely. And she just spent eighteen hours flying nonstop across five hundred miles of open Gulf of Mexico to get back here 🐦

That's why the same blur shows up at the same spot every May. It's not coincidence. It's her.

🌿 The three details that matter most this month:
- Never add red dye to her nectar — plain water and plain white sugar, four to one, nothing else. The red on the feeder is enough to attract her. Audubon has been warning against dye for years
- Scrub the feeder every few days — sugar water grows mold and yeast fast in warm weather, and a moldy feeder can kill her. Hot water and a bottle brush, no soap residue
- Don't take the feeder down in September — late migrants and stragglers need fuel. Feeders don't delay migration; daylight does. Leave it up at least two weeks after you see your last hummingbird

05/24/2026

Fascinating statistics!

The mammals in your yard right now range from one year old to forty. The one that lives the longest isn't the one you'd guess.

🐭 Deer mouse — one to two years. She compensates with four litters a season.

🐰 Eastern cottontail — one to three years. Breeds from February through September. Speed over longevity.

🦝 Virginia opossum — one to two years. The shortest-lived mammal of her size in North America.

🦊 Red fox — three to five years in the wild. The fox under the shed has likely been raising kits there for two or three seasons.

🐿️ Eastern gray squirrel — six to twelve years. She's cached tens of thousands of acorns over her lifetime. The ones she forgot are now saplings.

🦌 White-tailed deer — six to fourteen years. The doe eating the tulips remembers every fence gap and garden on the block.

🦇 Little brown bat — twenty to forty years. She weighs a fraction of an ounce and may outlive the family dog, the family cat, and the family car. The longest-lived mammal per unit of body weight on the planet.

Same yard. Seven different clocks 🌿

05/22/2026

An amazing area, and wonderful that its within daytrip distance from Huntsville.

05/20/2026

All are welcome to attend our upcoming meeting, our last one before the summer break!

05/14/2026

05/12/2026

The weather hasn't been very welcoming, but they are heeeeere! Who has seen Ontario's only Hummingbird, the Ruby-throated Hummingbird?

Get your feeders out. 1 part white sugar to 4 parts water (no dye please!)

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CpNANjAro/

The migration season is in full effect across Ontario, with a significant increase in sightings reported over the past week. The current data indicates a high volume of activity concentrated in Southern and Eastern Ontario, with the majority of sightings occurring between April 26 and May 2.

Citizen science provides essential data for tracking the arrival of these birds and understanding their migration patterns from a scientific perspective. If you have spotted a hummingbird, please contribute your observation to the provincial record at hummingbirdscanada.ca.

When reporting, ensure you include:
• The exact date of the sighting.
• Your specific location within the province.
• Any notable observations regarding their behaviour.

Your contributions help honour the collective effort to monitor and protect these species.

https://hummingbirdscanada.ca