Elgin Stewardship Council

06/08/2026

I'm a white-tailed doe. The fawn you found curled in your flowerbed isn't lost. I left her there on purpose.

My newborn weighs four to ten pounds and can't outrun anything yet. So she does the opposite of running — she lies flat and goes still. She's born nearly scentless, with a spotted coat that breaks her shape in the grass.

The danger isn't her. It's me. I'm big and I carry scent, and a coyote that catches my trail can follow it straight to her. So I stay away. I feed at a distance and slip back only a few times a day to nurse.

I do it near you on purpose. Coyotes hunt the open field edges and the deep woods. They don't work your flowerbeds in daylight. So I tuck her against your deck, your shed, your fence line — and I shift my own day toward the hours when you're awake and the coyote is resting.

A lone fawn lying quiet is a fawn doing everything right.

🦌 If you find a fawn near your home:

- Leave her exactly where she is. I'm feeding nearby and I'll return to nurse.
- Don't touch her and keep dogs away. If I smell people at the spot, I'll wait longer to return.
- A fawn alone for a full day, crying, visibly thin, or injured is the only one that needs help — call your state wildlife agency.

I didn't pick your yard because I'm tame. I picked it because it's the one place the coyote won't look 🌿

06/08/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DDb9LrMoM/?mibextid=wwXIfr

You don't need a single leaf to name a tree. The bark tells you everything.

The shagbark hickory is the easiest — long plates curling away from the trunk at both ends. The shaggiest bark in the eastern forest. You can't confuse it with anything.

The sycamore gives herself away by shedding — the outer bark peels off to reveal smooth white patches underneath. That mottled look is unique.

🌿 The ones most people walk past:

Black cherry changes with age. Young trees have smooth reddish bark with horizontal lines. Old ones develop dark, rough plates that look like burnt potato chips. Same species, two completely different textures.

The American beech stays smooth and pale gray her entire life. She's the only common tree in the forest that never gets rough. People carve initials into her because there's nothing else that clean.

And sassafras — scratch the bark. She smells like root beer. That's the one detail nobody forgets.

Twelve trees. Twelve textures. Once you see the patterns, every walk changes 🌿

05/23/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Em95dLBBj/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Today is World Turtle Day. The turtle crossing your road this month may be older than you are.

Eastern box turtles can live past a hundred. Snapping turtles reach seventy or more. Painted turtles live forty to fifty years. They survive because adults live long enough to reproduce many times over decades.

🌿 That math breaks when an adult female is killed on a road. She crosses to nest because sunny road shoulders are often the best-drained, warmest nesting habitat available. She's choosing the best option for her eggs.

Most nests are destroyed by raccoons within days. Most hatchlings don't survive the first year. The population holds steady only because each female nests for decades.

🐾 If you see one crossing:

- Move her in the direction she was heading — she knows where she's going
- Pick up by the sides of the shell, not the tail
- Snapping turtles: slide a flat board or car mat underneath and drag gently
- If she's already across, leave her

The turtle on the road this morning has been navigating that route longer than the road has been there 🌿

05/16/2026

Little TGP/Pollinator habitat planting today.. thanks Canadian Wildlife Federation, and Ontario Nativescapes

04/25/2026

I swallow my prey whole. The fur, the bones, the skull, the teeth — everything goes down in one piece. Then my body sorts it.

I'm a barn owl. My stomach has two chambers. The first one — the glandular stomach — dissolves the soft tissue with acid. Muscle, organs, fat. Nutrients extracted. The second chamber — the gizzard — compacts everything the acid can't dissolve into a tight package. Fur wraps around bones. Teeth settle into the matrix. The whole mass compresses into a pellet the size and shape of a large thumb.

Then I cough it up.

I produce one to two pellets per day. Each one is a perfect record of what I ate. If you pull a pellet apart, you'll find complete skulls — tiny, fragile, unmistakable. Rodent jawbones with teeth still in place. Rib cages. Shoulder blades. The skeleton inside the pellet is often intact enough to identify the species, the age, and sometimes the size of the prey.

Researchers dissect barn owl pellets to survey small mammal populations. The owls do the fieldwork. The pellets are the data.

🔎 How to find one:

- Look beneath any structure where a barn owl might roost — old barns, church steeples, abandoned buildings, large nest boxes. The pellets accumulate on the ground below the roost.
- A fresh pellet is dark, moist, and slightly shiny. An old pellet is dry and gray.
- Pull it apart with tweezers. You'll find two to three complete skulls per pellet on average.
- Barn owl pellet dissection kits are sold for classrooms. You can buy sterilized pellets online for a few dollars each.

I ate a mouse last night. I kept the calories. I returned the skeleton, wrapped in fur, in a package the size of my thumb.

Nothing wasted. Everything documented 🦉

04/25/2026

I'm a white-tailed deer. A hundred years ago, my species had nearly vanished from the eastern United States. Now I'm in your yard at dusk eating your hostas.

That reversal wasn't an accident.

Market hunting and habitat loss reduced my population dramatically by the early 1900s. Then came restocking programs, hunting regulations, and the slow return of forest on abandoned farmland. I didn't just recover. I came back in numbers that may be higher now than before European settlement.

I thrive in exactly the landscape suburbs created — fragmented woodlots next to lawns, gardens, and crop fields. Forest edge is my preferred habitat, and most residential areas are almost entirely edge. Few large predators remain across most of my range. The conditions that brought me back are the same ones that keep my numbers climbing.

🌿 What that means for your yard:

- Dawn and dusk are peak movement — be watchful on roads during those hours, especially in fall when activity increases
- Standard garden fencing rarely stops a determined deer — they're strong jumpers and will test any barrier under about eight feet
- Scent-based repellents tend to lose effectiveness over time as deer get used to them. Rotating between types helps
- Plants labeled "deer resistant" are more accurately "deer reluctant." Under heavy browsing pressure, most plants are on the menu
- The most effective long-term approach is planting what deer genuinely avoid — the aromatic herbs and toxic-compound species from earlier in the season

I was almost gone. Now I'm the most visible large mammal in suburban America.

The yard you built is the habitat I was looking for 🌿

03/18/2026

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Before you mow your lawn for the first time this spring:

Walk it first.

Cottontail rabbits build their nests in OPEN LAWNS.

Not in bushes. Not in hedges.
In the middle of your grass.

Why? Because predators (foxes, hawks, cats) patrol edges and cover.
The wide-open lawn is actually the safest spot for babies.

The nest looks like a small patch of dead grass.
A shallow depression, maybe 4 inches across.
Lined with the mother's own fur for insulation.

Inside: 4-6 babies the size of your thumb.
Eyes closed. Ears flat. Completely helpless.

The mother visits only at dawn and dusk.
For about 5 minutes.
She does NOT stay at the nest because her presence would attract predators.

Every spring, hundreds of thousands of rabbit nests are destroyed by the first mow.

The tic-tac-toe test:
→ Place thin twigs or string in a tic-tac-toe pattern over the nest
→ Check in 12 hours
→ If the pattern is disturbed — mom was there. The nest is active.
→ If undisturbed after 24 hours — THEN contact a wildlife rehabilitator

If you find a nest:
→ Mark it with a small flag or garden stake
→ Mow AROUND it (3-foot radius)
→ Keep pets away
→ Baby rabbits leave the nest in just 2-3 WEEKS
→ That's it. 2-3 weeks of adjusting your mow pattern.

Rabbits eat clover, dandelions, and other "weeds" you don't want anyway.
They fertilize your lawn for free.
They're prey for hawks, foxes, and owls you WANT in your yard.

Walk your lawn before you mow.
Every time.
All spring.

It takes 30 seconds.
It saves lives.

03/17/2026

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Found a nest in your yard and don't know whose it is? Location plus material plus egg color tells you the species.

🐦 In a dense hedge or shrub, two to eight feet up:

- Twigs and grass cup, eggs pale greenish with brown speckles — cardinal
- Twigs and grass cup, eggs pale blue with brown spots — mockingbird
- Grass and bark cup, eggs blue-green with brown spots — catbird

🐦 In a tree fork, five to fifteen feet up:

- Mud and grass cup with fine grass lining, eggs bright blue with no spots — robin
- Bulky twig platform visible from below, two white eggs — mourning dove

🐦 Hanging from a branch tip, fifteen to thirty feet up:

- Woven pouch of plant fibers, string, and bark, eggs pale gray with dark streaks — Baltimore oriole

🐦 In a nest box or cavity:

- Fine grass cup, four to five pale blue eggs — eastern bluebird
- Moss, fur, and plant fiber, six to eight white eggs with reddish dots — chickadee
- Feathers and grass, four to five white eggs — tree swallow

🐦 On a human structure — grill, mailbox, wreath, light fixture:

- Bulky dome of sticks and leaves with a side entrance — Carolina wren
- Compact grass cup, four to five blue-white eggs with specks — house finch
- Messy cup of grass and debris, four to five greenish-white eggs with brown spots — house sparrow

🐦 On the ground:

- Shallow depression in gravel or dirt, four speckled tan eggs nearly invisible — killdeer
- Fur-lined bowl in lawn covered with a grass plug — eastern cottontail
- Grass cup in tall vegetation, three to five eggs with brown streaks — song sparrow

🐦 On a platform or ledge:

- Mud shelf against a wall under an overhang — eastern phoebe
- Mud half-cup on a beam or rafter — barn swallow

🌿 Quick rules:

- Bright blue eggs with no markings — robin. The most recognizable egg in any eastern yard
- Eggs visible through the nest from below — mourning dove. The flimsiest construction you'll find
- Enclosed dome with a side entrance in a strange location — Carolina wren
- Any nest with mud in the structure — robin, phoebe, or barn swallow
- White eggs in a dark cavity — chickadee, bluebird, or tree swallow

Between now and August, this covers most of what you'll find 🌿

03/14/2026

We are live at Catfish Creek Conservation Authority’s Maple Syrup Festival

03/11/2026

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Somewhere under a shed or a woodpile near your house — a red fox is giving birth right now.

Four to six kits. Each one weighs a few ounces. Eyes sealed shut. Dark brown, not orange. You wouldn't recognize them as foxes.

She won't leave the den for two weeks. The male brings food to the entrance every night. He doesn't go in.

Right now there's nothing to see. But the fox trotting through your yard with food in his mouth and an urgent pace — that's the tell. He's delivering.

🦊 If you think there's a den nearby:

- Stay back and use binoculars — approaching pushes the mother to relocate
- Don't place food near the entrance — the male is providing
- If it's under your deck or shed, leave it alone until summer. The family disperses by July
- Don't call animal control — a den near your house is normal and temporary