Profiles of Nature episode ~ The Rise and Fall of the Minesing Swamp

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The Minesing Swamp is a vast area of wetaland just north of Toronto in Central Ontario that turns into a lake many thousand acres in size every spring. The area is a unique assembly of microclimates that supports significant populations of plant species that are found at the extremities of their ranges. Plants from tundra regions can be found growing near plants more at home in carolinian forests of the southern US.

My favourite time of day for photography is early in the morning and late afternoon. In order to be near enough to the heron rookeries in the middle of the swamp for photography, we devised a floating platform supported between canoes to sleep on.

Swamps support very rich and diverse populations of wildlife. Photographing the residents of the swamp required some some innovation and produced some interesting solutions.