The Bio Observer

In the basement of the Kamm family cottage there hang about 20 fishing poles. The only time many of them get a glimpse of the water is when the pipes are sweating in the heat of summer. But those that do get used, occasionally need to be fixed and maintained, so that a couple of weekends a year, someone can attempt to make their fishing license worth the cost. Cue my dad, fixer of all things broken. This time it was the reel on one of those poles that needed attention, something wasn’t quite right with it. The line was not keeping itself in neat order upon reeling in, instead it balled up, creating a nightmarish spiderweb within the reel housing. I’m not going to say that I’m inept or that the skills of my father have skipped a generation, but I will say that at that age I lacked the patience or understanding to fix something like that, along with many other things. It was late afternoon when the reel was put back together, ready to be put to the test. The vacant lot next to the cott...

With weather warming up and snakes beginning to move about, I thought I would take the time to write what will be my first book review. The book is Secrets of Snakes: The science beyond the myths  by David Steen. This is Steen’s debut book, but not even close to his first publication. Since 2004, Steen has had his name attached to 63 peer reviewed Journal Articles , 35 peer reviewed notes and reviews, and contributed to three book chapters. These academic papers should not intimidate anyone into thinking his book will be dry. Steen has had an active role in science communication through blogging and social media, especially via his twitter account where he has been identifying snakes for people, so he is no stranger to dispensing information in an easy to digest way. Because of all the reasons above,  Secrets of Snakes is exactly what science communication should look like. Secrets of Snakes by David A. Steen From the start, Steen’s dedication to the people want...

At 7:30 a.m. a few Saturdays ago, Murphy headed out the door. “Let me know if you see anything cool!” “You too!” “Let me know when you see a loon!” She was headed down to Ohio, to the Route 2 area along Lake Erie, to be specific. Despite what people, myself included, may say about Ohio this area is a birding hotspot. The marshes and flooded wood lots along the lake provide a major stopping point for a significant number of migrating birds. Fortunately, the value of this land has been seen by local, state, and federal agencies resulting in a string of nature preserves. Magee Marsh , the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge , and the recently established Howard Marsh are just a few of the places to check out along the shore of Lake Erie. Migrating waterfowl have been moving through there for a few weeks now and in early May the Warblers come in; normally attracting major crowds at the Biggest Week . Kenn Kaufman details the importance of these areas in his book, A Season on ...

So far, I would say that Sunday, March 29th 2020 was probably the best herping day of my life. The forecast for the day was going to be 61 and partly sunny, a little nicer than it had been the past few days. Even though we had been having such poor luck looking for salamanders, we had a spot in mind that we at least knew salamanders existed at. Last time I was there was ten months ago and I saw my first Red-backed Salamanders . That morning I woke up and I honestly felt like it was going to be a good day of herping. I probably say this every time I plan to go herping, but it only sticks when it actually happens. Arriving at the site feels a little bit like trespassing since the trail entrance is at the end of a road right next to someone’s driveway. Because of the hidden nature of this site, I think only people who have been brought here even know it exists. We walked to a T in the trail and took a right and started eyeing logs that were large enough to have things hiding under the...

It seems that since we are all socially limited at this time, people have discovered that they can go outside, which has its pros and cons. Pros being people get to be outside and I am truly happy for that, cons being we are supposed to be avoiding one another and when you’re on a boardwalk with other people, there isn’t really anywhere to go... So last week when it had poured all the night before and was overcast all day, it was a good sign that there would be few people out on the trails. Flooding of trails fortunately left many people at home Sure enough, there were few people in the parking lot when we arrived and we saw a couple walk down a trail and almost immediately turn around as they were not equipped to be walking through flooded out trails. Trails were pretty much ours that day! We began looking in one of the wetlands for the ever elusive chorus frog. Despite the fact that this season I had been to several sites and several wetlands and heard what had to be hundr...