Grasslands, wetlands and other odds and ends

 I've been out intermittently these last few days, depending on the weather, and trying to mix my day time excursions satisfactorily with my night time black lighting.

Grasslands are always intriguing. Most of the ones I've visited lately aren't really tallgrass prairie types, at least not yet, but they have some long term potential. But even hayfields can be worth checking out.

One spot a bit west of Chatham has been a hayfield for a few years, although it is periodically pastured or cut for hay. But it is suitable for attracting grassland birds, and has had Dickcissels there on a somewhat regular basis in recent years. There were 2-3 males there recently, although they seldom come within good photogenic range from the road. Given that it is private property, that is as close as one can get. A visit to it a few days ago enabled me to get a couple of decent record photos.

It isn't super sharp and is heavily cropped, but at least the sun was at the best angle and the background worked well. I went back to this spot a couple of days later hoping for better success, but by that time the cattle had been moved into this area and had trampled a lot of the vegetation. Given how dry the weather had been, the cattle had to be moved somewhere from their other pasture, so it wasn't a total surprise. Unfortunately there were no Dickcissels to be seen or heard.

In a more encouraging scenario, some friends of ours had purchased an agricultural field next to their woodlot, and had a mix of pond/wetland, prairie and hayfield established over the several hectares of this new acquisition. I've had the pleasure of advising them on the tallgrass prairie portion of it, and even scattered some native prairie seed that I had available to me to help it along. So I get to visit it on occasion, and a few days ago I went out to see if any grassland birds had taken to it. I was pleasantly surprised to see a few, including lots of Savannah Sparrows, 

....and at least 3 Dickcissels. It was well away from the road, and I was able to get some better shots of this species in various spots. Sometimes they were sitting up on a tall Dock (Rumex sp.) species as this first photo shows.

At other times they would be on a developing sunflower, singing away and advertizing their territory. I noticed a couple of times when one male would be chasing another one, so it looks like they have found this spot to their liking. Both of these Dickcissel photos are heavily cropped as well. I plan to get out again, and see more evidence of their approval of this site.

I went out to the Dealtown Crown Land, which back in the '90s, was planted into tallgrass prairie to be the source of seed for future restoration projects. After a few years, a better location for the prairie seed nursery was found so this ceased to be a priority for managing for that purpose. As a result, much of the site is quite shrubby, although there are some good sized open grassy areas, and I was hoping that some Dickcissels had shown up as they had in previous years. But none were to be found on this visit. There were lots of other birds, but nothing unexpected. I managed to get some photos of other species, just so it wasn't a complete wash. There were several Cedar Waxwings, which will be in nesting mode by now....

...and a few Mourning Doves. This one had a nest with two eggs, in a Red Cedar tree.

I've been out to St. Clair NWA on occasion as well. There is always something to see and photograph here.

Evenings are great, as the daytime temperatures cool a bit, the bird activity seems to pick up. And the golden light of late day conditions work well. This Tree Swallow was using a nest cavity just below where it was sitting.

Canada Geese are abundant, not surprisingly, but are also photogenic at times.....

...Mute Swans, well they are an invasive nuisance species, but also photogenic. One can see why they were imported decades ago to dress up gardens and ponds.

Unfortunately they do create havoc to many native waterfowl species.

There is a pair of Northern Harriers, formerly known as Marsh Hawks, occupying a territory at this NWA. Once in awhile, one might get a fairly decent photo of them as they flyby, like this female did.

Of course wetlands are heavily occupied by Red-winged Blackbirds. There is no shortage of them here, and one can get some pretty decent photos of them in the golden glow of the evening.

On other occasions, I have been there in the morning, and had some photographic fun. Again, Red-winged Blackbirds can be easy subjects....

...but capturing them in flight is a much more challenging proposition.

Great Egrets are more predictable with their flight lines.

An Osprey was perched high on a dead branch overlooking the NWA.

....and a pair of Northern Flickers were busily chiseling out a hole, and taking time out for some copulation.

Getting flight shots of Barn Swallows was even much more challenging than for the Red-wings. Swallows are smaller, and fly quickly and erratically, so even with the capabilities of my camera having multiple focus spots specifically for this type of photography, I deleted far more photos than I bothered to save.

I also checked out the Fletcher Ponds, which can sometimes be good for a few birds. It is like an island in a sea of agriculture, so can be a magnet for birds in on occasion. However on this visit it was surprisingly quiet. The only thing of note was not a bird at all, but a Species At Risk plant: Climbing Prairie Rose. It looks a lot like other species of rose, but a couple of the main features to differentiate it is the three leaved arrangement, and the stem of the leaf has a couple of wide wings at the base, with each wing resulting in a separate pointy look to it. These can be seen to the left of the flower.

Another botanical highlight of the last few days is to come across a new population (to me) of a provincially rare orchid: Purple Twayblade. I found a loose cluster of 7 plants at Clear Creek Forest Prov Park, 5 of which showed evidence of flowering. However they were all well past their best, and this single flower shown below was the best example remaining. Now that I know where they are, I hope to check them out more strategically next year.

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