March 14 – Beautiful day for spring skiing at the Kawartha Nordic trails north of Burleigh Falls. Lots of snowfleas (springtails)in many locations, especially where soil and leaf litter were exposed. Active on mild, late winter days. If you watch them carefully, you can see several jumping and disappearing out of sight. They are all black, about a millimetre long, and were once thought to be feeding on microscopic organic debris on the snow surface. This has since been disproved. A new hypothesis is that by late winter they have reproduced to a point where space is at a premium. The overcrowding means that some have to escape to the surface, where they simply wander around aimlessly until colder temperatures force them back under the snow and into the soil. Drew Monkman
March 22 – Today, from 10am to 1pm, the Peterborough Field Naturalists held a public waterfowl viewing event at Little Lake. Scopes were set up at the Canadian Canoe Museum dock and at the boat launch at the bottom of Mark Street. About 60 people dropped by to see the ducks and other waterfowl, despite the rain, snow and strong winds. Here’s a list of the species seen.
Trumpeter Swan 3; Canada Goose 7; Mallard 12; Ring-necked Duck 60; Lesser Scaup 8; Greater Scaup 2; Bufflehead 8; Hooded Merganser 25; Common Merganser 2; Red-breasted Merganser 4; Mallard 12; Pied-billed Grebe 1; Common Loon 1; Ring-billed Gull 28; Bald Eagle 2; American Crow 2; Song Sparrow 1; Common Grackle 4;
