Cattail Tales
by Gray Merriam, Landscape Ecologist. Eastern Ontario has been redesigned by our road managers and by cattails. The landscape is now marked by lines of cattails following the ditches along the shoulders of roads. With the help of the wind, cattail seeds from this network can reach any open, wet spot that develops, almost overnight. So cattails are available everywhere and if the nutrients are there, a dense colony can develop.
The appearance of these cattail colonies is worth watching if you are interested in the nutrient ‘loading’ of your lake or river. It has been clearly shown that cattails colonize and thrive in wetlands with high phosphorus. See More…
Headwaters of the Salmon River – an 18 page document authored by Gray Merriam detailing the source origins of our Salmon River. “Headwaters means the places where a river starts. First it is a trickle that soon further downhill will be joined by another trickle to form a flow that is hard to jump across. As other sources add their flows the stream becomes a substantial creek. Creeks flow together and a river is formed.” Headwaters of the Salmon… (This link downloads the 15 MB .pdf document which you then open)
Wetlands – The Kidneys of the Landscape – by Gray Merriam “Wetlands trap nutrients from surface runoff and store those nutrients in organic matter and sediments. Much of this process is carried out by green plants taking up the nutrients as they grow.” See more…
Watersheds – by Gray Merriam “The Salmon River watershed is about 80 kilometres long. It starts north of Cloyne, just a few hundred metres south of Mazinaw Lake and Bon Echo Park which flow northeast into the Mississippi River watershed.” See more…
Conservation Easements – What Are They? – by Gray Merriam “The name does not suggest the great potential for environmental stewardship. A conservation easement can apply your wishes for a property into the future for 9,999 years.” See more…
Wetlands Slow Climate Change – by Gray Merriam “The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the inescapable root of climate change. Anything affecting the rate of addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is unquestionably related to climate change.” See more…
Salmon Watershed Springs a Leak– by Dugald Carmichael and Gray Merriam “Westward from Sheffield Long Lake, a long narrow bay extends all the way to the boundary of the Salmon Watershed, which is marked by a small dam about one metre higher than the midsummer level of the lake.” Salmon Watershed Springs A Leak (this link downloads a .pdf document which you then open)
Holes In the Watershed – by Gray Merriam “A recent study led by Canadian ecologists Kristina Cockle and Kathy Martin* underlines the fact that many species, birds and some mammals, often have their populations limited by availability of tree holes.” Holes In the Watershed (this link downloads a .pdf document which you then open)
The Watershed – where Biodiversity is Made – and maintained – by Gray Merriam “Humans relate to living things at a very fundamental level. We value living beings. Most households have something living in them.” The Watershed Biodiversity (this link downloads a .pdf document which you then open)