April Anecdotes

 Looks like the weather has settled down a bit.  Lots of wind and rain recently!  Last Friday was a complete washout, so no walking around.  I did quite a bit of birding by car, but as usual did not see anything of note.  Lots of Lapland Longspurs have been moving through in the last week or so.  They are an attractive bird.

Saturday morning I headed down to Rondeau for a look around.  Nothing noteworthy with regards to birds, just the usual early stuff.

Foxy Sparrow

Lots of Red Admirals around of late.

And, this Garter Snake was taking advantage of the warm sun. I did not have  a "long" lens to get it all in a photograph.

There have been some prescribed burns in the park.  Here is one area near the maintenance yard.

In the afternoon it became quite warm and Reid CA was beckoning!  Some insects were out, including lots of Narrow-headed Marsh Flies.

Another very common, but very small creature was Margined Calligrapher.  Looks like there will be more when these two get done!

Bloodroot is not very common at Reid, but there are a few plants popping up here and there.

leaves

Some random forest scenes:

The evening was spent at the Sydenham Field Naturalist (SFN) annual banquet.  As always, it was an excellent affair.

Sunday, I had no other plans other than to go for a long walk at Rondeau Park.  I headed out marsh trail first thing.  The only new bird for the year was Virginia Rail.  A couple of them were calling in the same spot.

A Savannah Sparrow stuck around in the same spot all morning.

A pair of Field Sparrows was on the trail....quite far from a field.

More Ruby-crowned Kinglets are moving through.  Often we get the odd one attempting to winter, but there were none this year.  So, I did not get my first-of-year until late last week.  This one was too shy to be photographed.

Today, I stayed fairly local.  It was not too productive in the bird department, especially at Mitchell's Bay south shore trail.  I thought I would see more than I did!  

These Forster's Terns were resting on the dock.

Later, I walked Peers Wetland.  The Bald Eagle nest nearby had mostly blown down in the recent wind storm.  There were young there, but hopefully they had fledged before the incident.

I continued on up to Reid CA for a long walk (3.8 km) on my usual route.  As usual, I mainly looked at plant life.  Here are some common examples.

Wood Anemone

Downy Yellow Violet

White Trout Lily

One that I never paid attention to before (it looks like grass!), is a type of sedge.  At the SFN banquet Saturday, there were plants on the table that were to be taken by a lucky winner at the end of the evening.  This was one of them, called Oak Sedge.  I knew what to look for.

Oak Sedge

Of course, the flowers of Harbinger of Spring have long since disappeared.  I did keep an eye out for the plant, and I found yet another spot.

There are other plants yet to pop up, so I will be keeping an eye out for them in the future.

Here is one tiny insect  I tried to photograph.  

The Spotted Pink Lady Beetle is native, and I used to remember lots of these when I was very young.  I hardly see then anymore!