Just Chillin

My, I like this yard! ...lots of food and water
and the dog can never catch me.

I may look like a dead leaf, but if you get too close
I'll have to leave my comfy spot.

This swamp is just perfect now that the
water level has dropped below our sunning log.

We're soaking up some April sunshine.
What a beautiful weekend!

(My condolences to blogging friends in Western Canada
who are receiving snow and very cold temperatures)

Lady's Slippers

Ontario is home to many species of wild orchids, but they are not widespread nor easy to find in our region. The Bruce Peninsula is known for its diversity of orchids and last weekend an orchid festival was held near Tobermory at Bruce Peninsula National Park. I have been trying to find at least one wild orchid on our area and asked a local naturalist for some tips on where they might be growing.


My directions were to park on a dirt road, walk on a certain trail past the first intersection and to veer right into a forest. Just past a creek I was to go off the trail and look around the swamp where large skunk cabbage plants are plentiful. The woods were beautiful with many types of wild ferns and wildflowers. I have seldom seen a place where native plant species predominate so completely.


Poison ivy was growing in large and small patches and I did my best to keep away from it. After an hour of searching, I found what I was looking for. There were only two flowers but they were perfect. I have heard there are large yellow lady's slippers and pink lady's slippers growing in local ditches and marshes but they are hard to find too. Like all treasure hunts, the search is as much of an adventure as the discovery.

Fresh from the Garden

The weekend was muggy and warm with showers, grey skies, big clouds and sunshine. Spring usually comes gradually, but with the beautiful weather we had in April, it is progressing rapidly. I was shocked to see my lilacs in bloom yesterday morning. The flowers were just starting to develop last week. Lilacs are an end of May flower and here they are, fragrancing the yard on the third of May.


I was waiting to pick fiddleheads from the ostrich ferns in the back corner of the garden. Last week there were none, but today, most of the ferns were six inches high, far too advanced to pick and eat. But there were a few fern heads in the shade of the fence, just enough for a serving or two.


I usually buy fiddleheads at the grocery store once a year and an exorbitant price of $5 a pound. This year I was a gatherer of the tender green shoots. While I was in the garden, I picked my first bouquet of the year. Forget-me-nots provide a ground cover in the flower beds right now and come up every year even when I pull them all out later in the month. One of my elderly patients calls them "Forgotten-not" in the English translation from her native language. I like that.


My "Forgotten-nots", Pulmonaria, Violets, and big yellow blooms with no name (the roots given to me by another patient) make another free gift from the garden.


I ate my plate of fiddleheads (and the violet) outdoors on the deck. The Becka enjoyed them too and they were much tastier and tender than the ones we buy at the store. With the warm weather in the forecast, they will be the only ones we eat from the garden this year. There is early lettuce and chives plus lots of rhubarb for dessert, but we are far from self sufficient. My husband is bringing home his limit of Lake Trout from Manitoulin Island tomorrow so hunters and gatherers we are for a day or two.

Squirrel Corn

In a new subdivision of identical tall houses on small lots, a pathway leads back to a bit of forest and swamp. Big forests and swamps once covered the area but they were gradually turned to farmland which was eventually sold to developers.

Black Cohosh

A pathway leads into the bush and wild flowers are poking up through the carpet of dead leaves on the ground. Bloodroot, Hepatica, Spring Beauties, Trilliums, Jack in the Pulpit, Wild Ginger, Black Cohosh and Trout Lilies are growing quickly and blooming before the trees high above come into full leaf.

Squirrel Corn

I look for Dutchmen's Britches and think I have found a patch, but no, this is something different. The flower is the same shape as the Bleeding Heart in my garden and the leaf shape is similar too. This is the first time I have seen Wild Bleeding Heart, or Squirrel Corn (Dicentra canadensis). It is very closely related to Dutchman's Britches (Dicentra cucullaria) in the Fumewort family of flowers.

Tubers of Squirrel Corn

The tubers of this native wild flower resemble corn and the next day I remove a single stalk from the ground to positively identify the plant.

I have taken many pictures of wild flowers in the past week and have posted some on my Flickr page. They are old favourites but a new discovery is always welcome. I would love to find some wild orchids this year if anyone knows of an area on southwestern Ontario where they grow.

Ahhh...The Country Life

I always enjoyed the story of the town mouse and the country mouse which is based on a fable by Aesop. Many people who enjoy the convenience of city life romanticize the resourcefulness and peace of country living.

There once was a mouse who liked his country house until his cousin came for a visit.

"In the city where I live," his cousin said, "we dine on cheese and fish and bread. Each night my dinner is brought to me. I eat whatever I choose. While you, country cousin, work your paws to the bone for humble crumbs in this humble home. I'm used to finery. To each his own, I see!"

(Read more here)

We took a trip to Luther Marsh which is near the headwaters of the Grand River. The river runs wide through our city but is just a trickle in a farm field a few kilometres north of the marsh. Luther Marsh is a nature sanctuary and no canoes are allowed on the water until after August 31st so the many birds which nest here are not disturbed.

Yellow accents were provided by pussy willow flowers rather than the forsythia bush in my yard. The trails were beautiful and very soggy but biting insects which will swarm the marsh in a few weeks were not around yet.

In a dead stump near the water's edge, a pair of country Chickadees worked furiously making a cavity for a nest. Their skill at creating sawdust was surprising seeing they are not woodpeckers. I never realized until this year that Chickadees are cavity nesters.

Apparently the female selects the nesting site and both birds work diligently to build a softly lined nest. In yesterday's comments, Laura mentioned the lovely moss-lined nests that Chickadees make. I peeked quickly in the "back door" of the box in our yard when the birds were out and sure enough, they have imported a lot of moss.

Our backyard Chickadees have the convenience of a ready-made home but these country birds will be working for several more days before their nest is ready for eggs. I wouldn't be prepared to say that the marsh birds will have a better life than the city birds as we saw plenty of racoon tracks and snake holes in the area. I hope this pair will be secure in their little place.

I found lots of interesting information about Black-capped Chickadees at this site.

Spring Break

In my last post I listed what I hoped to find on the weekend. We enjoyed...

...an early morning visit to the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival, the largest of its kind in the world with the Guinness record for the most maple syrup served in one day.

I found...

... lots of Skunk Cabbage blooms in the swampy ground beside a creek.

We watched...

...two Bluebirds in love, barely in sight with a camera, but fun to watch with binoculars.

Another single Bluebird sang a lovely spring song from an overhead wire.

I didn't find...



... any Great Blue Herons at the heronry and I think they may have relocated this year. There were none in the many ponds and streams we passed but my husband reported seeing one in the river early in the morning last week.


I am taking a short blogging break for this busy week and will be back here and visiting other blogs after Easter. It looks like March will enter and exit like a lamb this year in our part of the world. I hope everyone is having a wonderful spring season.

Pinniped Colonies and Human Mimicry

Sea Lions in San Francisco- October 2009

California is home to various seals and sea lions and we enjoyed viewing them when we visited last fall. There were many sea lions in San Francisco at Pier 39 but they suddenly left the area at the end of November for reasons unknown. Apparently a few are now returning. (source). They were smelly, noisy and amusing to watch and I am glad we got to see them.

Harbour Seals near Pebble Beach, California

We saw many Harbour Seals on the 17-mile Drive at Pebble Beach near Monterey, California. They sunned themselves on rocks near the shore while balanced on ledges and steep slopes. Brown Pelicans and Cormorants were their close neighbours.

Elephant Seals near Point Piedras Blancas, California

South of Big Sur along California Highway 1, we stopped at the beach near Point Piedras Blancas where many hundreds of Elephant Seals were lined up on the sand. They were mostly inert but every so often one would flick some sand on its back. In the picture above, a seal is sanding its back with a very subtle flick of its flipper. These seals are the largest pinnipeds and are much larger than Harbour Seals. Males can weigh up to two tons and reach a length of ten feet.

It was too cold in late October for the average person to sun themselves on the beach but humans can exhibit behaviour similar to these seals and sea lions. I was looking at pictures on the BBC website last week which showed 5000 naked humans supine on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Artist Spencer Tunick has done similar photo shoots in other parts of the world. His work is not erotic in nature, but reminds me of pinnipeds on rocks and beaches. Some poses are reminiscent of pictures taken in Nazi concentration camps. It does not take much to erase human individuality and make a group of homo sapiens look just like another herd of mammals.

Photo from The Huffington Post

Red-winged Blackbird Song

Male Red-winged Blackbird

The Red-winged Blackbird is one of the commonest birds in North America and one of the earliest to arrive here in early spring. I usually see or hear them in the first few days of March, about ten days or so before Robins return.

The Becka phoned me at work to say she heard a RW Blackbird today. (she says she is not interested in birding!) So we took the dog out to the field at the end of our street and sure enough, two males were calling back and forth. One of them posed nicely right in front of me while he belted out his call...conk-a-reeeeeeeee!

Sad to say, this may be the last year the birds return to this old landfill site. A section of the park is now a sledding and biking hill, and the field above is to be developed further this year. Two soccer fields, a parking lot, picnic area and splash pad will be constructed.

Frogs sing and breed in the vernal ponds, Red-tailed hawks and Kestrels hunt for small rodents, ducks, Kildeer and blackbirds nest in the cattails and grass. Many other birds and animals are at home here in the middle of a subdivision. Thirty-five years ago this area was on the edge of the city and undeveloped but houses and malls now sprawl several kilometers beyond this point.

and the squeeze continues...

Death and Life in the Park

The first bird we saw as we drove through Algonquin Park was a Golden Eagle which flew from a tree top in front of our vehicle. It was the first time I had seen this large bird which winters in this region. Near the east entrance to the park, the visitor centre had several displays featuring taxidermic animals and birds. One showed a Golden Eagle feeding from a deer carcass while Ravens and a Bald Eagle waited their turn.

Park rangers placed a road-killed deer far out in a bog below the visitor centre and had a telescope focused on the animal. Wolves had been spotted earlier near it but there were none around when I took this picture. Three days later, wolves removed the carcass and the pack is shown on this YouTube clip.

My husband is standing on the balcony of the visitor centre looking for action around the dead deer. Winter is difficult for wild creatures and many do not survive the harsh conditions. There are few seeds and berries for the birds this year and feeders here have supported Goldfinches, Gray Jays, Pine Grosbeaks, Chickadees, various woodpeckers and a few Pine Martens. Pine Martens are particularly fond of eating Red Squirrels and there were plenty of squirrels around the feeders.

We are very used to Chickadees feeding from our hands but Red-breasted Nuthatches seldom are this tame. The birds were accustomed to humans and flew toward us before we had seeds ready for them. While we saw very few animals in the days we were there, fresh tracks criss-crossed the snow and provided evidence of life in the bogs and forests. Most of the action was taking place during the night and pre-dawn hours of the day. We stayed in a nice motel in town, but I would consider staying in one of the yurts (with electricity and floors) which are available for winter camping in the park. Perhaps I would see the animals who leave the tracks as they work to survive in the wild.

Winter Weekend at Algonquin Park

When this blog was very, very new, I wrote about Grandma's birding club which had its inaugural outing on May 3, 1937. In the first picture, Grandma and her friends are sitting on the ground outside the cabin at the farm which is 5 miles outside of Aurora, Ontario. In another post I wrote about a birding birthday party held on the property in 1944.

In early 1942, a Gray Jay, also known as a Canada Jay or Whiskey Jack was seen at the farm. The Gray Jay is a bird of boreal and sub-alpine forests and is rarely seen as far south as Aurora. On January 11, 1942 the bird was banded by the Toronto Field Naturalists and the event was written up in the newspaper along with this picture of the bird.

I have never seen a Gray Jay and this past long weekend, my husband and I drove three hours north of Toronto to Algonquin Park for some winter trail walking and nature exploration. Birding has been very slow at the park this winter as there are few pine cones or berries around. Last winter large numbers of winter finches and grosbeaks were found all over Ontario but only a handful of sightings have been reported this year.

Gray Jay at Algonquin Park

Highway 60 runs west to east for 56 kilometers through the southern portion of Algonquin Park. Most of the 7630 square kilometers of this huge provincial park are inaccessible by road. But there are many trails along the highway where people can walk, ski or snowshoe in the winter and animals like moose, deer and wolves are sighted daily. At kilometre 10, we had a magnificent view of a Golden Eagle flying up in front of the truck. This eagle is not very common our area. We found no Gray Jays the first day and were a little overwhelmed trying to decide where to look for them. A helpful employee at the visitors' centre told us of a few places to start our search and we came back early the next morning.

Gray Jay
February 15, 2010

We found two Gray Jays who stayed in very close range for over half an hour. They are beautiful birds and are much larger than I expected. In my next post I will share more pictures and information about this pair of birds.

Remember Whensday

Parable of the Forest

Not far from our home is a small 35 hectare woodlot of white pine, sugar maple, beech and red oak trees. The canopy towers high above the forest floor and busy roads and an industrial park line its perimeter. It is easy to walk through the trails in half an hour which makes it perfect for a late afternoon stroll on these short winter days. These old trees have marked time for decades. Carved intials, dates and hearts are engraved in the smooth grey bark of the beeches but many are distorted as trees have grown and stretched the scars. Upright dead trees are full of woodpecker holes while others have fallen and are covered with mosses and fungi. The face of the burled tree above is obscured by leaves in the summer and fall, but greets me at the entrance to the trail in the winter.


I came here Friday after work, my mind replaying the day's events, some of which had been unpleasant. Change is coming again and staff stress is increasing with the uncertainty of inevitable restructuring in the coming weeks. Gossip is rampant and criticism of co-workers and management is heard throughout the day. I wanted to confront some people to tell them a thing or two and was practicing speeches in my head as I started my walk. The forest was completely silent. I didn't hear a bird or squirrel or footstep of another person. The wind was still, the sun was low in the sky and the moon was visible above the trees.


The angry words in my head slowly vanished and the stress of the day dissipated. I had hoped to find some birds and then didn't care if I found nothing but silence. I observed the effects of constant change and stress around me. Trees develop burls to enclose areas of trauma and infestation while they continue to grow upward and strong. The roots and tubers of spring's wildflowers wait in the cold and ice for their brief days of bloom and beauty before they prepare for another winter. Some trails are closed to allow nature to heal an area damaged by man or weather.


I have been reading A. J. Jacobs' book The Year of Living Biblically. The author is a secular Jew, an agnostic by his own label, who endeavored to obey the Bible as literally as possible for a full year. The book is "laugh out loud" funny but is never disrespectful or trivial. I could relate to his difficulties with the command, "Do not go about as a gossiper among your people..." (Leviticus 19:16). He made two observations. Keeping silent was the best way to avoid spewing biblically banned negative language, and the less he vocalized negative thoughts, the fewer negative thoughts were in his mind in the first place.

Tomorrow is Monday and the start of another work week. Change is inevitable and I must continue to grow and be positive in spite of circumstances which are beyond my control. And I must internalize the silence and peace of the forest and learn the lesson of the trees.

Friday Flowers: Preparing for Next Season

The last of our summer flowers are in bloom, Chrysanthemum, Fall Crocus, Asters, Rose of Sharon, Goldenrod, Autumn Joy Sedum...


Walking through the city and along nature trails, the evidence of flowers which bloomed weeks or months ago remains. While the flowers were pretty, the seeds produced after the flower died are far more important to the survival of the plant after the cold, cold winter.


The smallest Monarch caterpillar I collected in my garden at the end of August finally became a chrysalis three days ago. It can take up to two or three weeks before it ecloses into a Monarch Butterfly and I wonder at the possibilities of it surviving a trip at Mexico at this late date.


Left on its own, nature is bountiful. The seeds produced by one plant are abundant and are able to feed birds and animals with enough left over for germination next year. This has been a poor year for butterflies in our area, but I don't doubt they are able to make up for the losses in another season.

The biggest hindrance to this bounty is not weather, but human activity as we change and control the natural environment around us.

Are you able to identify the pictures above?

Answers:
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ןǝsɐǝʇ ˙3
ןɐǝs s,uoɯoןos ǝsןɐɟ ˙2
ʇıdןnd ǝɥʇ uı ʞɔɐɾ ˙1