Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day weather wise. All week, the forecast called for cloudy skies and some rain. Obviously wrong again!
It was muddy walk, but nice to be out under sunny skies since it has been so gloomy lately. I ended up walking the better part of 4 km.
In the woods, there was lots of lichens and fungi to look at.
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| Little Nest Polypore |
On the same log:
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| Oak Shield Lichen |
The river was low enough to check out the edge for a while. I found quite a few mussels. Mapleleaf is a common and easy to ID species along the Sydenham, even though it is a vulnerable species in Ontario.
Another one:
Deertoe is another fairly common one, also vulnerable.
Probably the most common species one may find is Giant Floater.
One of the rarest is Lilliput. This is a small mussel I recognized right away when I saw it. This one was about 3 cm which is about average.
Last year, I found Lilliput here, which was a new location for the species. I also found one or two up at Ausable River Cut CA along the cut.
It is endangered and critically imperiled depending where you are in Ontario.
The river was calm, and a single male Bufflehead was swimming at Reid. Not often one sees a Bufflehead on the Sydenham.
Some blackbirds were flying over Reid, including lots of Common Grackles and a few Red-winged Blackbirds. I have not seen many lately, as one would expect this time of year. But, there are always some hanging around somewhere.
Here is another deformed tree seen along the way.
Today, was rainy as expected by the forecast. At least they got that right! I did some "car birding" along the St. Clair River up to Corunna. There was not much (again!). Quite a few Redhead (and two Canvasback) were at the Sombra waterfront. We used to get tens of thousands of these on the river in winter, but with climate change, they have no need to congregate here.
Along the Chenal Ecarte (Snye) three Pied-billed Grebes are still lingering. No need to leave! No photos today due to the weekend weather.
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