to know the land byron

In the midst of a lowland forest at the edge of town, out for a slow walk with a pal, we heard the calls of Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) and started looking for them. We saw them first in an Eastern White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis) tree, as they were quickly making their way towards the South. Then when we turned a corner we got to witness some courting behaviours which somehow reached deep and woke me from a slow low mood I was in.

Sometimes Cedar Waxwings are regarded as a “just a..” bird. “It’s just a Cedar Waxwing”, you might hear from another birder who is looking for some elusive flycatcher or late migrant. But if we take the time to pay attention to the mundane, we sometimes see some magic in elusive or even commonplace behaviours.

Finding the magic in the everyday is one of the beautiful parts of paying attention to our wild neighbours. The small moves sometimes mean the most. These small moves are what inspired this week’s show.

Image of Waxwings : Alan Rice, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

To learn more :


Birds of Ontario by Andy Bezener. Lone Pine, 2000.Bird Song : Identification Made Easy by Ernie Jardine. Natural Heritage, 1996.Stokes Guide to Bird Behavior Vol. 2 by Donald and Lillian Stokes. Little Brown and Company, 1983.Peterson Field Guide to North American Bird Nests by Casey McFarland, Matthew Monjello and David Moskowitz. Houghton Mifflin Harcout, 2021.American Wildlife & Plants : A Guide to Wildlife Food Habits by Alexander C Martin, Herbert S Zim, Arnold L. Nelson. Dover, 1951.Life Histories of North American Wagtails, Shrikes, Vireos, and Their Allies by Arthur Cleveland Bent. Dover, 1965.Birds of Forest, Yard & Thicket by John Eastman. Stackpole Books, 1997.

For the past few years I have been going out at night in May to record the calls of American Toads (Anaxyrus americanus) and Leopard Frogs (Lithobates pipiens) by the Eramosa River. I used to live much closer to the river and I could hear the songs from my window at night. When I heard those songs, I knew it was time to go record, and that the radio show that week was going to be the calls of the Anurans.

The problem was that lately, it has been pretty quiet on the home front. Maybe it was a bit too chilly for the Anurans to sing, or the rain has prevented me from bringing my recorders out, lest they get destroyed. But there have also been some really good nights, quite suitable for toad and frog song, but still it was quiet but for the Canada Geese (Branta canadensis). What was going on?

Turns out that the frogs just aren’t in the river where they usually are, probably due to an oil spill last April in the spot where I usually go record. I ended up going to a small wetland with a friend and there we recorded a different species, the Northern Green Frogs (Lithobates clamitans melanota) calling in a small Cattail (Typha sp.) swamp.

There’s a profound beauty in allowing the non-human world to articulate themselves, and to give language voice, sharing their expression on platforms often dominated by our human-centric narratives. Collaborating with other life forms for my show allows me to fill in some details here and there from my books, but really, the other life has other language to carry the show and I don’t need to interfere.

It really is a gift to listen in on these non-human conversations, and I think we should practice that listening as much as possible. I recognize that traipsing about the river at night is not a sport everyone can enjoy; it may not be safe or may not be fun, but getting the chance to tune into the voices and songs of other animals is definitely a chance to learn. By offering our platforms to amplify the voices of other beings, we can not only expand our awareness of the world, but I believe it helps to promote their selfhood and agency, and remind us all of the inherent worth and value of all the others who take up space, and make place on the lands, and in the waters, we share. And when it comes to us humans, by practicing the art of listening, we are also working to kick at the bounds which isolate us from the rest of the world.

Listen in and hear what the Green Frogs have to say.



To learn more : Herpetology (3rd ed.) by Laurie J. Vitt and Janalee P. Caldwell. Elsevier, 2009.

The Eramosa River Valley is the place where I live, play and work. Having spent roughly the last 20 years along the banks of the river, sitting, running, riding, and learning about the lives lived along the shores and walls, there are many days where I just sit back and realize how much I love this place.

When I heard about a group of folks who were working to conserve the land as a national urban park, I admit I got a little wary. Who were they? Do they care about this place as much as I do? What is their motive? How will this change my relationship with this place? Will it change the landscape of the valley? How will the river be affected?

I ended up doing some research into the campaign and decided the best thing to do would be to just reach out and ask about an interview… and nearly right away, Brian Skerrett, spokesperson for National Urban Park Guelph got back to me, and we made the plan.

Brian enthusiastically answered my questions and helped me understand the hope and scope of the proposed park and taught me a lot about the land I love. I realized that he too really appreciates this place and wants to see the valley cared for and protected. The National Urban Park Guelph folks are really focused on building community awareness and community participation in developing this park idea, and doing so in a good way.

I asked a lot of questions throughout our interview, including some I had never thought about before.. How do you build a national park located in the middle of the growing city? How can a park be a tool for healing and reconciliation? How can an old prison become a tool for social change and the protection of a beloved of a river valley?

Hopefully this episode helps build the possibility of a healing place to visit, sit and learn to fall deeper in love with the river I long to know more.

To learn more : UrbanParkGuelph.comUrban Park Guelph on InstagramUrban Park Guelph on Facebook

This past weekend I got to participate in my second track and sign evaluation with Tracker Certification North America and one of the most interesting things I learned was some new Earthworm sign which triggered the thought… I really don’t know much about Earthworms (class Oligochaeta), but I want to start digging in.

I ended up crawling through all of my books to see what I had on the topic, but there wasn’t much. A couple paragraphs here, a photo or two there, but there was enough to tickle my curiosity. They are a slippery group of species to distinguish but there are at least some common characteristics across them.

Really this is a good reminder that we often take some of the more common species for granted, ignoring the usual, rather than deepening that already accessible and immediately present relationship.

Listen to the show if you want to learn more, too. These worms have a lot of interesting things going for them.

Some resources I used include:Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Forests by John C. Kricher and Gordon Morrison. Houghton Mifflin, 1988.Nature’s Year by Drew Monkman. Dundurn 2012.Tracks and Sign of Insect and Other Invertebrates by Charley Eiseman and Noah Charney. Stackpole Books, 2010. A Guide to Common Freshwater Invertebrates of North America by J. Reese Vashell, Jr.

I have been thinking a lot about the diversity of sexuality and gender in nature. Wondering about how different animals, plants, and fungi present sexually. How do different species mate? What characteristics are considered belonging to one sex, but in reality, may be shared by many sexes? Many sexes? How many are there? Why do some species have thousands of sexes, and some species only have one?

Maxwell Matchim (they/them) has been asking some similar questions but through a different lens, thinking “about the ways in which Trans people exist between worlds, much like amphibians. The way in which Trans people change their bodies over time as means of survival.” And with these questions, they have been making a documentary. When my pal Miki told me about this, my first thought was “this is a conversation I am looking for”. When I reached out, Maxwell was game and we set up the interview.

We talked about Maxwell’s experience so far in producing the documentary, unisexual Ambystoma salamanders, gynandromorphism (having characteristics of two sexes) in birds, classification of species which might not actually make sense, and so many other queer natural histories and how we might relate to them in the context of the present social political world.

This is a conversation I would love to be having all of the time, looking at the parts of life which just don’t abide by the dominant narratives. If you’re into that, you’ll like the show.



To learn more:Understanding Myself as an Amphibian gofundmeMaxwell Matchim’s instagramQueer Forest Club instagramFeminist Bird Club instagramBiological Exuberance by Bruce BagemihlQueer Ducks (and Other Animals) by Eliot SchreferEvolution's Rainbow Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People by Joan RoughgardenHow Far the Light Reaches : A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

When I look into the authors who wrote most of the naturalist, ecology, natural history books on my shelves, I mostly see white people, especially the older books. When I do interviews with folks in the field, I still find a majority of those who I am talking with are white folks. I wholly recognize that is on me in a lot of ways, but I also recognize that historically, access to these fields has been gatekept by and for white folks, mostly men.

When I come across initiatives that challenge that dynamic, I get stoked. When I find out they are taking students out to some of the places I have and continue to go to to learn about the natural world, I get really stoked, so much so, that I reached out to see about an interview.

Alannah Grant and Jonathan Chu are graduate students in Integrative Biology at Guelph. They are also the University of Guelph liaisons for FREED where they lead the organization and fund-raising (amongst other things) for UoG students to participate in FREED excursions. I wanted to ask them about recent movements to bring awareness to and correct the lack of representation of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour in environmental sciences, how they organize themselves, what is working and what they do on these excursions?

I am always excited when the things I love are made more accessible, so more folks can appreciate, participate, teach and learn. We all live on this wild planet and we should all be able to take part in the profound experiences of exploring, examining and connecting with the land, on the land. This is what FREED helps folks do.



To learn more : FREED websiteFREED instagram