The Merriam's Nature Corner
Gray Merriam is a distinguished academic researcher who has published over 100 papers during his career. He has been on the Frontenac Stewardship Council for 25 years and has lead numerous conservation initiatives in Eastern Ontario. Gray is a Land Between eco-hero (read his full profile by clicking here) who provided valuable sectoral insight during the conception of The Land Between Charity. Aileen Merriam is a teacher and an artist who is interested in all things nature. Together they are educators and activists for the preservation of nature.
Below are several blog posts written by Gray and Nature Notes Educational sheets by Aileen!
Download Aileen Merriam's Fun Nature Notes!
Interested in learning more about the wonders of nature? Check out the amazing information sheets made by Aileen. Click on the titles below to download them!
- Black Magic - Decomposers that Work for Us
- White Magic - Winter Water
- Swan Songs
- Sounds of Nature at the Lake
- Who's That Munching on my Trees?
Blog Written by Gray Merriam
Keep Your Cats Indoors: Disappearing Birds
A study of 500 species of birds in Canada and the US was published in the prestigious journal Science in September 2019. It found that in the last 50 years, 3 billion birds have disappeared. This is 29 percent of the number of birds in the 500 species surveyed. We are part of the causes. Over …
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The River’s Otters
We see otters on the Salmon River quite often, but their visits are not predictable. We simply must be looking at the river at the correct instant. Sometimes, it is just a passing male. Sometimes, at the correct season, it is the female leading a litter of juveniles. Anywhere from one to three. Once when …
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Kennebec Wetlands Are The Best
Recent media attention has reported that a study by environmental scientists Cheng and Basu at the University of Waterloo has found that smaller wetlands are more beneficial to the landscape than larger wetlands. A fundamental reason for this is that small wetlands provide more habitat to grow aquatic plants. An acre of a small wetland …
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Expensive Frogs
The British Columbia taxpayers have paid about $250,000 to fight the invasion of bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) in the Osoyoos region in southern B.C. Estimates for control programs for the entire province run into the tens of millions. Why get rid of bullfrogs? They are not native to B.C. and they are eating the young of …
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Environmentalism and Populism
There is a growing tendency for environmentalists (and their commentators) to avoid input from ‘experts’ and instead to use popular opinion as evidence. The belief, supported by ‘social media’, is that all opinions are equal. This could lead to uninformed programs and baseless political decisions. The problem is that the popular response to an environmental …
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Creeping Impacts
Talk of our impacts on the environment often seems to suggest that the only important impacts are big, severe and obvious. Don’t believe it. Environmental impact statements sometimes have trouble dealing with them, but many of our impacts these days creep up on things rather than blasting them out of their habitats. If we plan …
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Cattail Tales
The Land Between and most of eastern Ontario has been redesigned by our road managers and by cattails. The landscape is now mapped and marked by lines of cattails following the ditches along the shoulders of roads. Almost overnight, with the help of the wind, cattail seeds from this network have reached all open, wet …
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Better Than Biodiversity
The word “Biodiversity” has become prominent in the press and in our daily language. What does it mean? Often it just means how many kinds of plants or animals – the total number of species. A common aim of management is to conserve the highest number of species. But a large number of species with …
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