Nature

Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the possible exception of a moose singing “Embraceable You” in spats.
~Woody Allen

Last week, the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects recognized the City of Toronto Biodiversity Series of booklets with their Service to the Environment award. The award is “In recognition of the recipient’s ongoing contribution in supporting sensitive, sustainable stewardship of the environment.”

Here for ROM for the Holidays, it’s the long-awaited return of the Earth Rangers Studio Winter Wonderland in Life in Crisis: the Schad Gallery of Biodiversity!

It’s that time of year!  ROM for the Holidays is finally here, and we’ve been hard at work in the Keenan Family Gallery of Hands-on Biodiversity (HOB for short) getting some new hands-on activities ready to go.

First up is the brand-new, never-before-seen touch table that we put together in honour of our lost baby bison.

Question: It’s fall, why are all these bugs coming into my home? I’ve never seen them before!

Western conifer seed bug; copyright ROM images

To educate and foster appreciation for these much-loved colourful insects, the City of Toronto, in partnership with the ROM and Livegreen Toronto, has published a new book, Butterflies of Toronto: A Guide to their Remarkable World. With hundreds of full-colour photographs, this new publication shares the local history of butterflies and details on where they live in Toronto. It is part of a Biodiversity Series being produced by the City to commemorate the Year of Biodiversity 2010.

We love picnicking outside in the summer but in August and September our meals are inevitably cut short because of wasps. What are they and what can we do about them?