National Forest Week and some of the smaller inhabitants

 This past week has been National Forest Week. I intended to do a post specific to this topic, but the week got away on me. However I will give a short nod to forests, since they are so incredibly important for a huge number of reasons.

It is always fun to explore them, as they have so much to offer. One of my main reasons to wander through them is for the inspiration they provide, experiencing their creation and diversity and providing a lot of stress relief. I know that many of you do the same.

Here are a few of my favourite forest photos.

It won't be long before this is the way many forests will look!

The trees are the giant inhabitants of a forest, of course. This next set of photos will feature some of the smallest, and least observed, inhabitants of a forest.

It will be no secret to regular readers of Nature Nuggets, that I am fascinated by moths, and other creatures that come to lights. The diversity is huge, and using a black light is often the only way to see them. While I have been reasonably active in trying to see as many of these night-time creatures as possible over the last few years, my efforts this year have been limited largely to my own yard as well as Rondeau Provincial Park. While my own yard does not qualify as true forest, there are parts of it that, on a very small scale, are forest like. In fact it was after we moved to our current location 34 years ago and planted many trees, that one neighbour wondered if we were trying to make it look like Rondeau, where we had moved from. Regardless, the creatures that follow are, for the most part, typical of forests in the area, although they have all been photographed in our yard.

 Some are extremely small, being barely 5-6 mm in body length. The size of the weave in the cloth background will give a hint of the relative size.

American Idia

Banded Sunflower Moth

Barberry Geometer

Celery Looper

Chickweed Geometer

Dark-collared Tinea

European Pine Shoot Moth

Common Pug

Hairnet Acleris

Harnessed Tiger Moth

Juniper Geometer

Metallic Casebearer

Bee Moth

Oak Leafshredder Moth

Painted Lichen Moth

Pearly Wood-Nymph

Polymorphic Pondweed Moth

This next one is considered quite rare in Ontario, being more of a western species.

Rufous Crambid Moth

Small Bird-dropping Moth

Almost pure white is this next one: the Snowy Urola, a member of the Grass-veneer group.

Soybean Looper

Speckled Xylesthia

This next one is one that is the first record for Chatham-Kent, the Spotted Peppergrass Moth.

Three-lined Balsa

As mentioned, there are many non-moth species that arrive on the sheet, although I don't spend as much time photographing them. Some are just too small, being barely 3-4 mm in length! But some of the others that I have captured are as follows:

 Leafhoppers are always fun to 'shoot'. Some are relatively large, such as this Eight-lined Gyponana, which is 7-8 mm n length.

One time when I was photographing a smallish moth, I noticed this tiny creature just below. It is a midge of the Cricotopus genus, and barely 4 mm in length,

Plant bugs, such as this one in the Lygus genus, are periodically found.

A highlight for me was to have one of these Round-headed Katydids come to my sheet. They can be either green, as this one is, or tan coloured. My first one was tan coloured and I found out that it was the first record for Ontario. I get them annually in the late summer, and I have seen them at Rondeau. Others have photographed them elsewhere in southwestern Ontario. One of the key characteristics to note is the black line just below the tip of its 'nose'.

Spiders come by occasionally, probably thinking that a light means insects, and insects mean a potential meal. This is a member of the Orb Weaver family.

I have lots more photos of ones I have photographed at Rondeau, not surprisingly, and I plan on highlighting some of the more interesting ones in a future post. Depending on the weather, I expect to try and do some more black lighting for another month, and some of the late season ones are hard to come by. Some are the result of arriving as migrants from the south, arriving on favourable winds, and then showing up at a light. I have photographed almost 800 species overall, but with about 3300 species known for Ontario, I have a long way to go!

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Shorebirds, Orchids and Leps

This is post #600 of my blog: Nature Nuggets.  Little did I know at the time back in early 2014, how this would unfold. Thanks to many readers, I find doing this highly satisfying.

 It is a great time to be out exploring, with camera in hand, of course.

The local sewage lagoons have been productive, especially for shorebirds, although things have tapered off in the last 3 days or so. But there has been a good variety continuing to show, such as the following:

American Avocet

Baird's Sandpiper

Typically lots of this next one, a Lesser Yellowlegs....

....and always at least a few Pectoral Sandpipers.

Short-billed Dowitcher

A highlight for at least a couple of days, was this young Willet, a species that breeds a fair way to the west of us here.

Not a shorebird, obviously, but a hunter of shorebirds. From one to three Peregrine Falcons have been seen swooping and diving after shorebirds. This young Peregrine one was a fair distance away, but hovered briefly, allowing me to get this shot.

At Rondeau, there are lots of birds moving through, although they are hard to photograph with the dappled/contrasty light, and lots of leaves.

Northern Parula

Philadelphia Vireo

I also saw almost a dozen White-throated Sparrows, the first ones I had seen this late summer. In pretty short order, they will be one of the most common migrants passing through.

In my previous post, I showed some close-ups of the Autumn Coralroot. Here is an overall view, showing how obscure this little orchid really is! It is about 15 cm tall and in full flower.

In the past few days, Great Plain's Ladies'-tresses are showing up in various grassy places at Rondeau.

The flower spikes have a spicy vanilla fragrance, and the centres of each flower shows a creamy colouration.

I always like seeing a young White Pine seedling make an appearance. Will this one survive to maturity, or will it become nutrition for a White-tailed Deer?

I have been to Clear Creek Forest Prov Park a couple of times, partly to look for a very rare butterfly (Marine Blue) that had been seen, but partly just because the open meadows are great for butterflies and the quiet woods of this old growth type forest is just so inspiring.

I didn't find the rare butterfly, but there was a good variety of more typical ones, including, Common Buckeye, which were actually common.....

Common Ringlet

Common Wood-Nymph

This next one, an Eastern Tailed Blue, was as close as I could get to the Marine Blue.

I was pleased to find at least a couple Great Spangled Fritillary busily feeding on various sunflower types.

Viceroys were fairly common. In fact they outnumbered the similar looking Monarchs.

The couple of Monarchs that I did encounter liked the Teasel...

...as did the Orange Sulphurs.

Red Admirals were very few, at least of what I saw.

I only saw this single Silver Spotted Skipper, but there were likely more.

As I was walking through the open meadow, I noticed this dead tree full of roosting Turkey Vultures. They have been gathering and migrating southwesterly, and the local hawk watch sites have reported them in increasing numbers over the last few days. There are tens of thousands on their way!

In other news, last night I had the black light on in the back yard. Most things I got were fairly typical, but I'm glad I paid a little more attention to this one. It is a Coffee-loving Pyrausta, and is the second one I have had come to the lights in my yard. The first one was back in August, 2020, and at the time it was the first record on iNaturalist, and the first record for Canada. Since then, it has been found in a small number of places elsewhere in Ontario, and someone who was digging through their old moth photos, posted one that was photographed near Leamington back in 2017.

This morning, while enjoying my second cup of coffee in the back yard with Marie, I saw this butterfly come in. I got a quick look, then went and grabbed my camera but it disappeared. Fortunately it came back and I managed to get a couple of photos. It is Horace's Duskywing, a late summer migrant from the south. According to iNat, it is the first record for Chatham-Kent, with only a handful of other records in southwestern Ontario. Most are in Essex Co, with a single record in north Lambton and a couple in the Toronto area.

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