Orchids and herps: including some Species At Risk

Here in southwestern Ontario, there is a high percentage of species that are rare and even legally at risk. With the current provincial conservative government at the helm, which just a couple of days ago made severe cuts to the Endangered Species Act, the outlook for many species looks a lot bleaker than it did just a short while ago. If you want to know the latest regarding these changes, check out this link.

On one of our continuing forays around Chatham-Kent, Marie and I went up to the trails and access points along Lake St. Clair. My goal was to see and photograph Cattle Egret which has appeared from time to time, as well as Yellow-headed Blackbirds, which have been seen much more regularly. Both species, or at least the blackbirds, are believed to be nesting in some off-shore cattail islands, and come to the mainland to feed on lawns and at feeders. Unfortunately for us, we did not see either species. But it was still a nice outing.

Great Egrets, which nest near the southern end of Walpole Island, are fairly regular here.

 On a sunny day, turtles are up basking on almost any surface they can climb on to. The Northern Map Turtle, shown on this next photo, are a legally at-risk species with the status of Special Concern.

In the next photo, a Northern Map Turtle is sharing a log with several Painted Turtles. The Northern Map Turtle is easily identified by its jagged tail end of its shell, and the yellow lines on the greenish skin, appearing like contour lines on a map. Painted Turtles are not yet officially at risk according to the Ontario status, but they are being considered.

While out doing shorebird surveys at local sewage lagoons, I came across this rather large Eastern Fox Snake, which is Endangered. Since I only had my telephoto lens, and the snake was in the grass, I only got a head shot. It was a warm sunny day, and the snake didn't stick around for further modelling, and scurried off into denser vegetation and rocks lining the edge of the pond.

There are at least 19 species of orchids recorded at Rondeau, and some begin flowering at the end of May.

The earliest species is Showy Orchis. It isn't officially at risk yet, but the Ontario populations are being monitored to some extent to see if there has been enough of a decline to warrant some At Risk status in the near future.

It isn't abundant at Rondeau, but occurs in small numbers in several locations. There is lots of what appears to be very good habitat in the park.

Large Yellow Lady's-slipper is fairly abundant at places much farther north, like the Bruce Peninsula, but at Rondeau they are very rare. I know of three locations for them, although one seems to have disappeared in the last decade, and another just had two non-flowering stems appear this year. In 1980 I discovered another and much larger population, made up of at least 50 stems. The last time I saw this population was in 1987, and in all of those years I monitored it, I never saw any more than about a dozen plants in flower. I decided it was time to check on this population to see whether it still existed after this interlude of 30+ years. It is well off any beaten path, and I wasn't certain I could find it, but find it I did. I didn't cover the whole area, but covered enough of it to discover 11 plants in flower and about that many non-flowering plants. I was quite pleased to see that in spite of the high water levels of these last couple of years, the population was doing okay.

Puttyroot is not yet officially At Risk but like other species, is being evaluated for future consideration. There are at least 5 known locations for it at Rondeau, although only one population is of any size, and at least two of the others have not flowered for several years.

Sandy sites seem to be preferred by orchids. I went north, well at least to northern Lambton County, a few days ago, on the search for two other orchids which I had seen there in the past. The extensive Ipperwash Crown Land Reserve was my destination.

Pink Lady's-slipper is not at risk, and in fact is fairly widespread in parts of central Ontario. It is rare here in the southwest, but does occur in a few places.

My primary target, however was a much smaller and difficult to find orchid: Ram's-head Lady's-slipper. It is well represented in places like the Bruce Peninsula, but is extremely rare here in the southwest. In fact this very small population in the Ipperwash area is the most southern location for it in all of Canada. There were two plants in flower, and another 5-6 non-flowering plants. I photographed the tallest one which was less than 20 cm (8") tall. The other plant was about half that size.

Another orchid which I came across was Hooker's Orchid. I only saw the leaves of several non-flowering stems on this occasion, as I was not in the right part of the Ipperwash area where they are a little more common.

A non-orchid highlight of this venture was to come across Eastern Flowering Dogwood, an Endangered species in Ontario.

While I was prowling around north Lambton I did explore other areas, but that will be featured in a future post.