Attention Earth Rangers! Do you think reptiles rock? Are you a sucker for shells? Then you’re not gonna want to miss our newest Wildlife Adoptions project: it’s turtle-y awesome!

Introducing… the Midland Painted Turtle!

The Midland Painted Turtle is a type of painted turtle found in Ontario and Quebec. It is one of four subspecies of painted turtle, identifiable by the symmetrical dark grey markings underneath its bottom shell. Its top shell is dark and looks a bit like a puzzle, made up of oddly-shaped pieces – kind of like a soccer ball! The turtle’s skin is striped, with yellow stripes on its face and red stripes on its arms, legs, and tail. These yellow and red markings are also sometimes found on its top shell, making the “painted” name even more appropriate! It has webbed feet to help it swim and both males and females are usually 13-17 cm long.

Growin’ up turtle

It can be tough to grow up without someone to take care of you but that’s life for a baby painted turtle. They are on their own from the moment they hatch because their parents don’t stick around to raise them. Females lay their eggs (about 15 at a time) in a freshly dug nest, covering them with sandy soil and when she’s done, she abandons them. But before she leaves, she also digs a few fake nests to distract predators from the real nest so that the eggs can hatch, and the babies can get to safety.

Livin’ la vida turtle

The painted turtle makes its home in streams, ponds, wetlands, and marshes that have thick muddy bottoms – these are usually full of food like plants, animals, and insects. They may be slow on land, but underwater the turtle is speedy when it comes to scoping out a meal!

They need our help!

Wetlands are important habitat for many animals, including Midland Painted Turtles, but sadly, this habitat is disappearing. That’s why it’s so important we conserve and restore the natural spaces that painted turtles call home, like southern Ontario’s Lathrop Nature Preserve – and that’s where you come in!

Today, we are going to get our ‘bearings’ within a day in the life of a grizzly bear!  Grizzly bears are the magnificent, humongous, bears that live across North America.  They mainly live on the Western side of Canada and the United States, and can even be found in Alaska.  So without further ado, get ready to gab about grizzly bears!

If you were a grizzly bear, you would most likely live in a woodland, forest, alpine meadow or a prairie.  Most often, grizzly bears pick habitats close to rivers and streams, which they use as a food and water resource.  After rolling out of bed from your bear slumber, you would most likely be a little hungry, and set off to search for food!  Grizzly bears are omnivores, which means they eat both plants and meat.  In particular, grizzly bears like to snack on fruits, berries, nuts, grasses, forbes, fish (especially salmon!), rodents, and hoofed animals, like moose, elk, caribou and deer.  Not a bad selection!  Grizzly bears are famous for wading in rushing rivers, to try and catch spawning salmon.  The fats and nutrients found in salmon are a very important component of the grizzly bear diet and will help sustain them throughout the winter while they hibernate. To hibernate, bears must find a place to hole-up and wait out the harsh winter months.  They often burrow underground in a hillside insulated by snow to keep warm.  When bears hibernate, it’s almost like they’re sleeping; their body temperature drops and their breathing, heart rate and metabolism slows.

When they are not in hibernation mode, grizzly bears roam around huge areas of land and require a large habitat size.  Female grizzly bears require a habitat range of about 130-390 square kilometres, while male grizzly bears require a range of 1,500 square kilometres.  Because they need such a large space to roam around, grizzly bears are threatened by loss of habitat.  Not only that, but in the past, aggressive hunting has significantly reduced their population size.  Luckily now, the grizzly bear population is starting to recover, and can be viewed as a conservation success story!  However, we still have work to do to ensure these animals continue to be protected from issues such as habitat loss, poaching and climate change.

We hope you enjoyed today’s grizzly gabbing!  Comment down below if you’ve ever seen a grizzly bear in the wild before!

Can you guess the subject of today’s topic?  I’m black and yellow, with stripes!  I really love flowers and I produce a sugary, sweet, sticky treat.  What am I?! 

That’s right, today’s topic is about none other than our pollinator pals, bees!  Bees are pretty special bugs. They’re considered social insects and live in huge colonies of up to 200 workers at times!  There are many species of bees including 400 different types of bees in Ontario alone!  Some species of bees that might sound familiar to you include bumblebees and honey bees, but there are so much more!  Ever heard of carpenter bees?  Leaf-cutter bees?  Mining bees?  Sweat bees?  Each species of bee is just a little bit different, and have a variety of foraging, nest building and behavioural habits.

For today, let’s focus on one species of bee so there aren’t too many bee facts buzzing around our heads!  Let’s talk about the great bumblebee.  A bumblebee is a particular species of bee.  Bumblebees get their name from the clumsy, “bumbling” way they fly around. Their characteristic buzzing sound is the source of their scientific name, Bombus, which means “booming” in Latin.  How interesting!  A bumblebee’s diet consists of nectar (which is considered a carbohydrate) and pollen (which is a protein).  They get both of these nutrients from flowering plants.  Bumblebees particularly enjoy flowering mint plants, asters, lavender and snapdragons.

Leading a bumblebee hive is a bumblebee queen.  Unlike the queen honey bee, queen bumblebees have a bit less of a glamorous life.  Queen bumblebees are hardworking and are in charge of many roles within the bee community.  Bumblebees have an annual life cycle, which means they die before winter – but not the queen! She survives over the winter by burrowing down into the ground to wait out the cold, then once spring arrives, the queen is brought out of her deep sleep and the work begins!  She must find a new nesting site for her hive, seeking out ideal spots like tree cavities, holes in the ground, or nice patches of grass.  Once the queen has found the ideal nest site, it’s time to lay her first batch of eggs.  She must keep the eggs nice and toasty, and once they hatch she must tend to her little bee babies!  Bee babies – aka larvae – are fed pollen and nectar until they grow up to become worker bees.  Now that they are older, they can help out with tasks around the hive, like foraging and nest-building.  A queen’s final task is to produce a new batch of queens and males.  Once these bees mate, the queens will disperse and burrow underground for winter and the cycle continues!

It’s clear that bumblebees are pretty neat creatures – and they’re important ones!  As I’m sure you know, bumblebees are extremely significant pollinators.  Many fruit and vegetable crops depend on bees for pollination and without the hard work of bees, we’d sure be in trouble!  Sadly, many bee populations are declining all over the world due to habitat loss and exposure to toxic chemicals, like pesticides.  In order to help out our bumblebee buddies, you can create pollinator gardens to increase their habitat, be mindful of the products you use that might end up in the environment or adopt a western bumblebee to help our partner, Nature Conservancy Canada (NCC) as they work to restore this important species throughout southern Saskatchewan.