Free Reports on Stuff

## Ermines

Ermines are cool animals part of the Mustelidae family. The animal is also known as a stoat. They can be found in Eurasia and North America. The habitats of the stoat are riverside woodlands, marshland, and open areas next to forests or shrubs. Their homes are in tree roots, logs, walls, and abandoned burrows made by rodents. Stoats are solitary creatures, and they are kind of territorial. That makes them kind of aggressive. They mate once a year and have about seven kits.

The life of a stoat is rather short, with an average lifespan of 1-2 years. The sizes are different in the northern and southern hemispheres, but females are always smaller than males. Ermines even change colors! In the summer they are brown, in the cold winter they are all white except for their tail tip which is black. If it’s only partly cold, the fur turns partly white. The diet of a stoat is mostly rodents, including mice, voles, and lemmings. Ermines will also eat squirrels (surprisingly), rabbits, birds, and bird eggs.

## Fiddleheads

Have you ever eaten a fiddlehead? They are often described to taste like asparagus, spinach, and broccoli combined. You can get fiddleheads from Ostrich ferns. There are a few other ferns you can get them from, but Ostrich ferns are the most common. By common, I mean that they are the ones you usually get in the short, early spring window of time you can get them. They are rare, and usually very pricey. Fiddleheads are found by foraging.

## Two of Prince Edward Island's Beaches

Prince Edward Island has a beautiful red sand beach called Thunder Cove Beach. It has awesome big cliffs of red sandstone, and of course, red sand. It’s a near-perfect spot to take pictures of Tea Cup Rock, which is another famous landmark on PEI. You can also explore sea caves near the beach. The beach is located in Darnley, which is near Kensington. This beach is spectacular, but it’s not the only super special beach on Prince Edward Island. If you’ve ever been to Basin Head Beach, you know what I’m talking about. The white sands there are known as “singing sands” for the sound they make as particles rub together. To be fair, though, it doesn’t really make a beautiful singing sound. It’s more of a squeaking noise.

## Nova Scotia Shipwrecks

Shipwrecks are very common in Nova Scotia, especially on Sable Island. There are so many that Sable Island is literally called “The Graveyard of the Atlantic.” There are more than 350 sunken boats recorded off the coast of Sable Island. But truly, all of Nova Scotia is the graveyard, with more than 10,000 shipwrecks recorded in all.

The shipwrecks are mostly sailing ships and steamships from the 1700s and 1800s. Many were traveling along the major shipping routes when they met with disaster. There are a few reasons why there are so many sunken ships: One of them is that Sable Island is next to one of the world’s best fishing places. Another is that the current major shipping routes between Europe and North America are very close. That means hundreds of boats go by each year. Yet another reason for the slew of old shipwrecks is the “rough seas, thick fog and submerged sandbars surrounding the island. There have been over 350-recorded vessels wrecked by Sable. Thanks to advances in technology and navigation, shipwrecks are extremely uncommon around the Island today.”