By ANN BROKELMAN I’ve said, over and over again, that I don’t think luck has anything to do with all of my animal sightings. I’ve always thought that, since I just spend so much time outside walking around, it’s inevitable that I see a lot of fascinating animals. However, after what happened on a recent […]
Category: On The Wild Side
On The Wild Side: Chances to experience nature can be found close to home
By ANN BROKELMAN I think a lot of people believe that every time I go outside, I have some sort of crazy animal encounter. It’s not like that at all, and, honestly, some of my favourite moments take place in a backyard with family. Today’s story is inspired by the simple, but lovely, time I […]
On The Wild Side: Maintain proper boundaries between wild animals and people
By ANN BROKELMAN The other day I almost had a smelly incident. I was walking and saw hotdogs and dog food behind a couple trees. I wondered what was going on. So, I saw more at another tree and something black. I figured it was a squirrel, so I headed over to the tree. I […]
On The Wild Side: How a chance encounter led to more than a decade of Beach Metro Community News columns
By ANN BROKELMAN If you didn’t know this already, let me be the first to tell you: This March, Beach Metro Community News celebrates its 50th anniversary! Congratulations on the milestone! I often think about a chance encounter I once had with Phil Lameira, who was taking photographs for Beach Metro Community News at the […]
On The Wild Side: The ducks of winter are now visiting Toronto
By ANN BROKELMAN Despite what you may have heard, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it may not actually be just a duck! I’m going to guess that if someone asked you to picture a duck, the first thing to come to mind would either be […]
On The Wild Side: January begins with photographer’s ‘luck’
By ANN BROKELMAN Some days I go out and feel like I am living in a children’s storybook. On my street alone I regularly see deer, foxes, coyotes, squirrels, owls, hawks, a plethora of pretty birds, and more. I’d like to share two short stories today; while they may seem to rely on luck, I […]
On The Wild Side: Discarded fishing line, hooks and lures a danger to wildlife
By ANN BROKELMAN This column is quite different and a bit depressing than what I usually write, but I had an experience a little while back that I cannot seem to move past. I am hoping that by writing about it and raising a little awareness, I can make a difference. This story began when […]
On The Wild Side: Taking a walking stick on the wild side
By ANN BROKELMAN If you’re used to reading my articles, you may have noticed that I don’t write about our six and eight legged neighbours very often. In fact, I owe them a great deal of credit. Learning to zoom in, use different lenses, play with and balance light settings, all while keeping a picture […]
On The Wild Side: Ospreys among migrating raptors to be seen along Lake Ontario shore this fall
By ANN BROKELMAN It’s that time of year again! (How often do I start my articles with some version of that expression?) Well, in this situation I’m referring to the time where you should be looking up into the skies to watch for migrating raptors. This, because it’s the one I’m thinking about at this […]
On The Wild Side: Now is the time to see great blue herons
By ANN BROKELMAN If you’re chatting with a neighbour, and they told you that a bird just landed on your roof, you’d probably assume it was something like a cardinal, a blue jay, or maybe a hawk. How would you react if, instead, if you saw a more than four-foot-tall bird perched up there? Well, […]