"Some" Insects, Portly Shorebirds, and "Jack"

 Monday was warm enough for a walk at Reid CA.   This month has just been too cold for the most part with continuous northerly winds, so not much insect life.  The whole month has been the pits for weather!

Odonates included Four-spotted Skimmers which were quite numerous.

A few butterflies included these:

Monarch

Silver-spotted Skipper

Eastern Tailed-Blue

Eastern Giant Swallowtails

And an Asteroid Moth.  Not much to look at, but the caterpillar is fairly attractive.

Tuesday I was in the mood for the long walk out Rondeau's south beach.  Winds were fairly light, but still out of the east (what's new?).

There were a few migrants along the trail.  The highlight was a singing Worm-eating Warbler at one point.  I never got much of a view, but it was singing quite a bit.  Lighting was horrible anyway under cloudy skies.

The walk out south beach started off nicely, with three Red Knots not too far out among other shorebirds.  Always a treat to see these portly shorebirds as they are scarce anymore.

There were in fact lots of shorebirds all along.  The knots and others flushed to way out south beach, and when I got there, a fourth Red Knot had joined them.

Even some Whimbrel were out there.  Two were on the beach for some time, but I did see a flock of about 18 come in as well.

A good variety of shorebirds was out there, including this White-rumped Sandpiper.

Others:

Sanderling

Black-bellied Plover

Dunlin

After that long walk, I checked out a bit of the north end of Harrison trail past pony barn.  Then I was done.  Getting too old for those long walks!

Today was a dismal day weatherwise with off and on drizzle.  I did get a fairly long walk in at Reid CA early before the weather turned really gloomy.  Too early and cool for many insects, but I did get this Eastern Calligrapher.

A couple of passerines were in the yard this afternoon.  Both a female Magnolia Warbler and a Blackburnian Warbler took advantage of the facilities.

Probably the drabbest Magnolia Warbler I have ever seen!

In the history department on this date,  the small freighter Jack was torpedoed in 1942 by U-155 about 100 miles southwest of Haiti.  37 lives lost out of 63.  The vessel was built at Lorain, Ohio in 1919.

It was a visitor to Wallaceburg in 1925, as shown here at the sugar factory.

There were several vessels in the "poker fleet" such as Ace, King, Ten, Nine that visited Wallaceburg on occasion.