Local wetland explorations

 I've been to Rondeau a few times, but have spent more time exploring some of the wetland habitats along the Lake St. Clair shoreline. The openness and the photo opportunities are great, not to mention the gentle breezes mean fewer annoying insects!

St. Clair NWA is close to home, which is another advantage.

View from the tower, looking E

 

 On the way to the tower, there are things along the way. A few Great Egrets can be seen, including some opportunistic ones if one is ready.

No, it didn't have a line attached to its foot :-), and fortunately I was out of range. It did swing by heading in the other direction, enabling me to get a closer photo.

There is a constant variety of wildflowers along the trail, which adds to the likelihood of finding butterflies.

Monarch on Joe-pye-weed

Black Swallowtail on Milkweed

Some other plants include:

Blue Vervain

Buttonbush

Water-willow

Water-willow close-up

Giant Foxtail

This next one is probably Grass-leaved Arrowhead, but it is similar to other members of the Sagittaria genus, so may be another one. At any rate, it is abundant.

Next is Missouri Ironweed, a tallgrass prairie species at risk. Of course tallgrass prairie dominated the area adjacent to the Lake St. Clair wetlands, so some species like this have lingered, or have been augmented through planting.

The flowers of this species has around 40 individual florets, which can help separate it from another species which usually has less than 30. Also the bracts at the base of the flower head are pointed, but do not have an extended tip, as other ironweed species do.

 A few birds may cooperate for the camera.

Backlit Eastern Kingbird

Green Heron

 

 

 

 

Sandhill Cranes are usually somewhere around, and sometimes are only heard as they are hidden by the tall wetland vegetation, and don't often stick close by when hikers are within view. Flybys are much more common.

Dragonflies are frequent, but typically in flight. On occasion one may catch one resting for a better view, as this Halloween Pennant is doing.

Double-crested Cormorants are usually somewhere around, and typically in a dead tree closer to the lake.

This photo from the tower, looking towards the lake, shows the above tree at the extreme left edge of the photo. You may have to click on the photo to get it larger before you can see them!

I've also been to the Mitchell's Bay North Shore Trail on occasion. At the end of the trail which goes through the Cadotte wetland, there are always some things to enjoy. An immature Bald Eagle is in a tree at the edge of the wetland...

...and after a short time, decided it was time to move on.

This Belted Kingfisher stopped by for a few moments.

Along another edge of the trail, the section that goes towards the village of Mitchell's Bay, provides a good spot for a family of Common Gallinules to search for a meal. There are two adults and at least 4 young in this photo.

 Along the trail one can find a lot of wildflowers. Again, this area at the time of settlement was partly wetland and partly tallgrass prairie, which would have varied depending on the naturally fluctuation of the Lake St. Clair water levels. While the wetlands have been retained in part, the presence of the tallgrass prairie plants is less certain due to the changes. However some representative species, such as this American Senna, have been planted, as have a multitude of grasses.

In some of the dead trees, Great Egrets will hang out....

...until they decide to come to the wetlands in search for food. Of course no one who reads Nature Nuggets very often would have any idea that I enjoy photographing Great Egrets.....:-).

With the shallow and somewhat muddy shoreline, it has attracted shorebirds, such as this Greater Yellowlegs.

In another dead tree, there are typically a lot of swallows resting in between feeding flights. Sometimes there may be several hundred of them, and at times, mostly Purple Martins.

  

 

 Another shorebird, this Short-billed Dowitcher, is using the shoreline edge.

And as is typical along the marshes of Lake St. Clair, Swamp Rose Mallow is widely scattered, and sometimes quite abundant. It is a species at risk, but one wouldn't know it by their abundance here.

 Sooo many things to see and photograph. The next post will likely feature some recent findings at Rondeau!

 

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Myriad wetland plants

Mid to late summer is a great time to see a diversity of wetland plants. Many will have a prolonged flowering period due to fluctuations in moisture levels. The proximity to water also moderates the air temperature, which can prolong the flowering period.

Wetlands are generally hard to access without a kayak or canoe. Fortunately there are trails complete with observation platforms in some of the provincial parks and national wildlife areas of the region that provide excellent access and viewing opportunities.

This first photo is of the observation tower at Rondeau, and the photo that follows shows a marsh scene looking north from the tower.

 St, Clair National Wildlife Area, along the shoreline of Lake St. Clair, also has a trail and tower.

 A more basic, but still quite useful observation platform is present along the Angler Line to Mitchell's Bay trail.

 Any of the trails leading to these towers pass through wetland areas that are full of attractive plants, some of which are illustrated below.

Spotted Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)

This Spotted Jewelweed, a.k.a. Touch-me-not, looks like a small horn-of-plenty. It gets its a.k.a. name because the seed pods, when ripe, will explode when touched, which is an interesting mechanism for seed dispersal.

Another species is the Fringed Loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata) named because of the fringed edges of the long-stalked leaves.

Fringed Loosestrife

This next species is Giant Ragweed (Ambrosia trifida). It occurs in disturbed areas as well as along the edges of wetlands. It can be very tall, sometimes reaching 4-5 metres in height. Its greenish candelabra style of growth and branching reminds me of a book I had to read back in about Grade 10 English.....The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham. It was a sci-fi story about tall plants that could move on their own, and spit venom into people's eyes which caused blindness. The few illustrations in the book showed these weird plants having a distinct similarity in appearance to Giant Ragweed, too. At least that is what I recall....Grade 10 was a loooong time ago! And interestingly, the species part of the scientific name of Giant Ragweed is 'trifida' so I assume there must be some kind of connection, even if only in a sci-fi way. I think about that literary classic (?) often when I see this plant.

Giant Ragweed

In the dense vegetation along wetland trails, you may see this three-leaved plant twining around other types of vegetation. There will be a pea-type flower that is pale bluish white. It is known as Hog Peanut (Amphicarpa bracteata).

Hog Peanut

Often closely situated with Hog Peanut is Swamp Thistle (Cirsium muticum), a much taller plant. It looks like other thistles, except there are few spines on the mostly purplish stem. Also the flower heads often have many strands of spider silk present, more easily seen in the second photo.

Swamp Thistle

Boneset (Eupatorium perforatum) is another one often found close by, along with Spotted Joe-pye-weed (Eupatorium maculatum).

Boneset

Spotted Joe-pye-weed

Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) may be found along shrubby wetland edges, as well as open woodland edges. It flowers progressively, with flowers, developing fruit and ripe fruit sometimes present on the same flower head. Although the dark purple berries look tasty, and in fact are popular with birds, they apparently are somewhat poisonous to humans, so leave them for the birds!

Pokeweed

Some plants are covered with white flowers. The one that follows is Wild Cucumber (Echinosystis lobata).

Wild Cucumber

Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata) is a less obvious species than most of the ones shown previously. It also blooms for a long period. Only a very few flowers are open at any one time, but there is a progression of them from bottom to top. In addition to wetland edges, it is found in wet prairies. Although the colour of this shows as purplish-pink, in reality is a little more blue. But for some reason photos of blue flowers typically show up with more pink than they actually have.

Blue Vervain

Once you get to where there is open or standing water, the vegetation changes a bit. The following photo is of Water-willow (Decodon verticillatus) a.k.a Swamp Loosestrife. It has arching stems. When they bend far enough to touch the water surface, the stems will expand via special cells that make them very spongy, and often roots will extend from these spongy cells.

Water-willow

 One of the rarer wetland plants in Canada is Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos), and is considered a Special Concern classified Species At Risk with a provincial ranking of S3. S3 means there are fewer than 80 known locations, and due to their habitat or other factors, are at risk of being extirpated. It is quite abundant in the wetlands along the Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair shorelines, but away from those areas it is almost non-existent. It apparently was recently found in a single wetland along eastern Lake Ontario, the only location on that lake. It is a large, showy plant and easily stands out amongst the cattails.

Swamp Rose Mallow

This latter image was taken from the observation platform along the Erieau Rail Trail, looking out towards the village of Erieau.

Another plant is Wild Rice (Zizania aquatica), also seen here from the Erieau Rail Trail platform.

Wild Rice is quite abundant in lakes of northwestern Ontario, but the southern Ontario variety has declined considerably and is ranked as S3. It is greatly affected by water levels. It seems to do best when the water levels are high in the spring, which suppresses some of the vegetation, but drops almost to the point of exposed mudflats by mid summer. If that happens, it can be the dominant vegetation. The large drainage ditch along Erieau Road just north of the McGeachy Pond area is quite full of Wild Rice. This particular photo shows only a single plant, but is easily identified by its height and form. Wild Rice is a favourite of wildlife. Ducks love it, and if you come across a dense stand in late August when Soras are migrating, toss a pebble into the stand during an evening visit and you may hear a chorus of peeps. I have done that in a very large stand of it and on occasion estimated there were at least 100 Soras peeping back at me.

An obvious wetland plant is Cattail (Typha sp.) I use the 'sp.' to indicate that it is difficult to tell sometimes whether the species most common in this area is Wide-leaved or Narrow-leaved Cattail, and they often hybridize to the point where it is almost impossible to tell for most of the season. When it is in peak flower, there are slight differences in the flowers, but those characters only occur for a short time. It is believed that most of the cattail vegetation in southwestern Ontario is the hybrid type. Of course the brown cattail is quite identifiable as Typha.

Cattail

And with that, I will close, but before I do, I want to wish all of the summer staff at the Rondeau Provincial Park Visitor Centre a sincere thank-you for all of your work this summer. Many of you will be pursuing your education goals beginning as early as next week. If you have time to read this before packing it in at Rondeau, I sincerely hope that the transition back to school goes well for you. And hopefully we will see you back at Rondeau in 2015!