We’ve looked at needle-leaved and broadleaved trees this winter but standing and fallen dead trees make enormous contributions to PEI’s forests, too!     Trees die naturally from a variety of causes: old age, disease, insects, fire, weather damage, or environmental stress, among others. The death of a tree is part of the life of a forest and is necessary for the survival of everything from plants, lichens, and fungi to insects, birds, and mammals.    Insects such as Bark Beet

Last month, I posted about the advantages and disadvantages of multi-year needles versus annual broad leaves on trees (You can read about that here: https://www.pei-untamed.com/post/conifer-adaptations ). Some of you asked about Eastern Larch, a tree with a foot in each world. Let’s take a look!   Keeping needles all winter does have a price: it allows snow to build up on the tree, placing tremendous weight on its branches. This can cause branches to break, or entire trees to

Welcome back to Ask a Naturalist, your own personal Google for information on all things natural on PEI. Jeff Matheson sent me this wonderful photo of blue resin on the side of a spruce tree and was curious about the unusual colour. Let’s take a look!   First, it’s useful to know the difference between sap and resin (sometimes called pitch). All trees have sap, and it’s analogous to blood in animals: it carries water, sugar, nutrients, minerals, and hormones throughout the tr

Snow on spruce trees is a hallmark of the Canadian winter. While most PEI plants lose their leaves or disappear altogether as temperatures drop, you may not have thought about how and why conifers take a different approach. Today, we take a look!     Broad-leaved trees like Maple, Beech, and Birch produce big leaves with huge surface areas that are very efficient at catching sunlight and turning it into food for the tree. Even if those leaves didn’t freeze, they lose water an

Few PEI scenes are more beautiful than frosty winter mornings like the one we had last week. Under certain conditions, ice crystals coat trees, twigs, and fence lines, turning the landscape into something magical. We call this ‘hoar frost’, but there are actually two very different types of ice that cause this phenomenon. Let’s take a look!   ‘Hoar’ is an old word for feathery white, like a beard. It’s an apt description for the delicate, feathery ice crystals that form true

The Island’s winter landscape is mostly monochrome, making the occasional burst of colour all that more beautiful. One of my favourite bright spots is the aptly-named Maritime Sunburst Lichen ( Xanthoria parietina ). Lichens are interesting in many ways, including how they survive our coldest months. Most living things go to great lengths to protect themselves from drying out or freezing: two major (and usually lethal) side effects of winter. That’s why PEI’s trees, plants, f

There have been some bitterly cold days this winter, with temperatures well into the minus teens and twenties Celsius. Clear, cold days are great times to be in the woods, but you may notice some unusual noises: the snap, crackle and pop of trees! Media have been having fun with sensational ‘exploding tree’ headlines, but let’s look beyond the clickbait. A clear, bitterly cold day in the woods on PEI. Trees do their best to prepare for winter. This includes getting rid of tho

It’s been a busy year: more than 100 educational posts on the plants, fungi, and wildlife of PEI; 79 in-person events at 25 locations across the province; and one popular new book! I sincerely thank the more than 2,000 people who attended my public walks and talks, the 17,500 who follow me on Facebook and Instagram, everyone who visits this website, and all those who took the time to like, comment, or share my posts. I’m truly grateful to each of you for supporting this work.

At the end of the last Ice Age about 12,500 years ago, PEI would have looked more lunar than Earthly: no vegetation, just clay, silt,...

This time last year, I posted about why I’m not a fan of #NoMowMay.  You can read it here (https://www.pei-untamed.com/post/early-spring-...

Welcome back to Ask a Naturalist: your own personal “Google” for information on all things natural on PEI.  This time of year, I get a...

PEI forests provide a critical but temporary habitat this time of year: vernal pools. Although you might think of them as just wet spots...

Some of PEI’s natural habitats punch well above their weight – their importance far exceeds the area they occupy in the landscape....

Sites where human and natural histories meet are always interesting, and PEI’s offshore islands are great examples of this. They tell...

Bubbling Spring. The Healing Spring. Spirit Spring. Fountainhead. PEI’s springs are so culturally important that many have names. We may...

I describe natural history as the story our land tells about itself.  PEI’s bogs tell many interesting stories, and at Black Banks the...

We’ve lost our nature literacy.  Here’s why that matters. It wasn’t that long ago that just about every Islander knew how to catch a...

Hurricane Fiona brought many changes to our Island landscape: some dramatic, others subtle, and a few that are – paradoxically – both. ...

Many people were heartbroken at the sight of PEI’s world-famous sand dunes following Hurricane Fiona last fall. At the time, I wrote...

Welcome back to my PEI Habitat Highlights series. You can find previous editions – including Grey Dunes, Krummholtz Forest, Peat Bogs,...