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!

Showing More Mussel(s)

 I spent quite a bit of time at Rondeau on Thursday.  It was quite calm, at least on the east side, so it was good for lake-watching, not to mention walking through the woods.  I started at dog beach.  Most numerous duck was Long-tailed.  There were hundreds out there, many beyond scope range.  There are more out there than you think!

Horny Grebe

A number of Horned Grebes were floating around too.  

My hope was to see a Red-necked Grebe at some point, and I actually did!  In fact I caught sight of two from that vantage point, but too distant for a photo.

I checked out south point trail next.  Nothing earth-shattering, but more Fox Sparrows and kinglets were in.

I noticed a  few mussels at the washout beach....needless to say.

Eastern Pondmussel (species of concern)

One of the more common ones I find at Rondeau is Fatmucket.  This one below caused a bit of a controversy on iNaturalist as it was not the usual shape.

The "new" washout is just beach now.  Although I did not take a photo, the beach is fairly wide at that point, at least for now.  One would never know there was a road there!

Here is a scene of the erosion where the trail used to be.  It continues to erode.  One can always see the layers of time, so to speak.

Speaking of erosion, the other day there was an interesting article in the Chatham Daily News about a camp at the end of Kenesserie Road.  Camp Kenesserie, a church camp, has been in existence since 1903.  I had no idea!

The article concerns erosion of the cliff there and the buildings are in jeopardy.  Funds are being raised to move some of the buildings.  Here is a link to that article:

Camp Kenesserie Article

This is of interest to me as I was a camper there for a week in the summer of 1972.  I happened to save the shown item from that time!

I remember we had to name our cabin, and we chose "Canada".

That was not the only time I was there.  Back in the summer of 1969 (medieval age!), I recall staying a couple of days when my mother was assisting in the kitchen.  I remember the craft cabin and archery site.  Fox Snakes would hide in the hay bales!  Probably the first time I had ever seen a Fox Snake.

The buildings were WAY back from the shoreline then, and I recall a staircase going down to the beach.  One afternoon, when I was a camper there, we hiked the beach from Kenesserie to Palmyra, then back the highway.  Imagine that....we would be way out in the lake now!

Some wildflowers are starting to peak out at Rondeau, including Bloodroot.

And, Cut-leaved Toothwort.

Today, I was crazy enough to head north.  There were some clear skies, but I ran into several snow squalls.  I just needed to do something different.  Not much in the way of birds, so obviously I picked the wrong day for birding up that way.....again!

However, the sun was out when I stopped into Ausable River Cut CA.  

(old photo)

Usually there are never many birds there, and this held true today.  I wanted to look for mussels along the river's edge, as there are always oodles of them in one area.

There were lots to choose from, so I just picked out some select ones.  Three-ridge is quite common here.

         

Mapleleaf and Deertoe are here as well.

Deertoe

      

Fatmucket is common here it seems.  More normal in appearance than the "lake" specimens at Rondeau.

I found a couple of small ones, which I suspected to be Lilliput.  Sure enough upon examining photos at home, they were (!).

This was significant as they are rare in our area as alluded to in previous blog posts.  There is only one other record on the Ausable River.  

And, as you recall, I found them at Reid CA last week as well.  I have been looking at mussels for many years, and for whatever reason, this is the first year I have seen them.  Perhaps I have overlooked them before, but I do not think so.

They are typically small, usually being about 3 cm, as these ones were today.

Lilliput

It is interesting that this portion of the Ausable is a dredge cut, and there was never a river here.  Shows how things will colonize when given the chance.  The dredging was started in 1872.