The autumn is getting quieter, but there are still lots of things to get one's attention. I have stopped at the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons, and there was a lot of ice, but that didn't mean there weren't any birds. I had a couple of species of shorebird, including several Killdeer walking on the ice...
....and a late Pectoral Sandpiper working the edges where there was a little open water.
One of the lagoon ponds had a bit of open water, where the waterfowl were concentrated. Given that it is waterfowl hunting season, although not here at the lagoons, the birds were a bit nervous, and the Northern Shovelers were often up flying around.
The Ruddy Ducks were more tolerant, even allowing me to get some relatively close photos.
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Ruddies, plus a Bufflehead at the back
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I went to the Erieau Marsh Trail, and there were a lot of ducks and coots out in the open water of Rondeau Bay, but well beyond photo range.
I did manage to see a Wilson's Snipe, quite motionless and presumably hoping I wouldn't see it due to its cryptic pattern. I got a distant photo.
A few Song Sparrows stopped their busyness in some shrubbery long enough for me to get a few shots
I had a reason to get out to Clear Creek Forest Provincial Park, and got a few photos. Some Wild Turkeys were feeding in a field immediately adjacent to the park, at a distance....
The park is closed on weekends for the deer herd reduction going on there, but since it was not a weekend, I decided to take a short walk to one of my favourite vantage points. It looks much more barren and winter-ready than the second photo below, taken in late October, from roughly the same vantage point. The creek bed in the first photo sure represents the dryness of the last few months, as there was not a drop to be found anywhere along this stretch.
The woods in winter are not for everyone, but I enjoy the solitude. On one occasion I went to Rondeau specifically for a twilight walk along a quiet trail, and other than a few geese flying overhead, a Sandhill Crane heard way out in the marsh, and a few Great Horned Owls and an Eastern Screech Owl calling, it was peaceful. Until I came across a Virginia Opossum along the trail, and it scolded me quite loudly for interrupting its solitude. It was way too dark to get a photo. This is one from a few years ago.
The even bigger surprise of this walk was to find a moth! It is an Autumnal Moth, a species that I have only seen on a couple of occasions when some came to my black light in early November a couple of years ago. As its name suggests, it is usually encountered fairly late in the season. This one was just sitting on the lower trunk of a maple tree. I didn't have my macro lens, so this is a heavily cropped photo, and given the twilight time of day, I had to use a very high ISO (3200) and held the camera as steady as I could with the lens being wide open (f/5) to get even a record shot like this. Fortunately the moth never moved, and I didn't need much depth of field to capture the pattern.
On another occasion I went out much earlier in the day, and saw a greater diversity of birds, and even got some photos. But the heavy overcast conditions made it challenging. There were several thousand Red-breasted Mergansers flying northeast, but well out in the lake....
...a bit of a surprise was to see almost 4000 Ruddy Ducks spread out over a large area of the lake, east of the park. They were not very close, and were spread out for well over a kilometre along the east side, enjoying the relative calm of the lake for a change. I have seen large numbers of this species on the lake before, but never in quite this abundance.
Along the trail I came across a group of 5 Cedar Waxwings, busily feeding on some berries and then flying up into a nearby tree.....
....and in the campground, there was a flock of 4 Eastern Bluebirds. I hadn't seen Cedar Waxwings or Eastern Bluebirds for quite awhile, so it was nice to catch up to a few of them.
The light was not good, and they were a bit flighty and against the sky, making a careful examination of them difficult. I am always hoping that some day, I will see a Mountain Bluebird, which has never been recorded in the park. I have seen them in Essex and Lambton, but so far not in Chatham-Kent.
A couple of Hairy Woodpeckers were along my paths.
I came across a couple of Norway Maple trees, in the campground, that still had leaves but were heavily blotched with a condition called Black Tar Spot, a pathogen that affects maples and sycamores and typically shows up in late summer and early autumn. I seem to find it primarily on the non-native Norway Maple more often than not. While it looks problematic, it apparently doesn't usually affect the long-term health of the tree.
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