11 min read - Throughout history, various languages and cultures have contributed to a wide - and often confusing - vocabulary used to describe animals' genders, the young stages of their lives and what they may be called when they are gathered together in groups.Mule...
Doug Caldwell Articles
Swallow Bugs – Nasty Migratory Hitchhikers
3 min read - Recently the south Yukon has welcomed back the aerial acrobats of the swallow family. Barn, Cliff and Tree swallows are once again maneuvering through our back yards in search for mosquitos and other insects to eat. YAY SWALLOWS! Watching these acrobatic...
Faces of the Preserve: Doug
12 min read - It takes passion and love for Yukon’s wild spaces and the wildlife that inhabit it, to support the Yukon Wildlife Preserve - a non-profit organization dedicated to the education and protection of Yukon’s natural spaces. Meet our Wildlife Interpreter...
Those Things On Their Heads – Antlers Vs. Horns
10 minute read - In our modern language usage, some terms or words may be incorrectly applied when describing an item. For example: some people do not always distinguish between horns and antlers where they incorrectly refer to all animal headgear as horns. Antlers...
Preparing for Winter – Adaption or Bust!
10 min read -Some winters in the Yukon can be severe, and other years, they can be mild. Weather patterns are fickle and may change day by day. As the winter season may last for up to nearly six months, animals in the wild have several preparations to perform before...
Vernal Species Migration
11 min read - Part of Nature’s plan involves animals moving to new locations for two primary reasons:. One is seasonal migration when animals move to a summer location principally to give birth and raise offspring, and the other is permanent migration or colonized...
The Boreal Forest – A Life Source
11 min read - A key feature of the Yukon’s geography is the Boreal Forest. The Boreal forest grows around the Earth located exclusively in Northern Hemispheres at latitudes between the Arctic Circle and 50° North....
I Wish I Was as Tough as a Chickadee!
6 minute read - Banner image photo credit: Syd Cannings, iNaturalistGram for gram, there are few creatures in the North that have the endurance, temerity and constitution equal to a Boreal Chickadee. An iconic small bird of the north, this species lives its entire...
Thinhorn Mountain Sheep
10 minute read - For a long time, it was believed that there are three distinct subspecies of thinhorn Mountain Sheep in North America each of these known as: Dall, Fannin and Stone. Each subspecies displayed different colouring of their coats where Dall would be pure...