A Little Bit of Natural and Human History

Some readers may have noticed a recent article in the local weekly paper, Chatham This Week, which talked about all the black squirrels in Washington D. C. And no, it had nothing to do with anyone there being 'nuts'. 

Black squirrels are relatively common across southern Ontario, and even more so in the central parts of Ontario. Up until about the last century, they were non-existent in D. C. or anywhere close. According to the historical narrative, the current population of black squirrels there are the descendants of ones  that came from Rondeau Provincial Park.

 

Around the very late 1800s or very early 1900s, someone from that part of the USA was intrigued by the black squirrels at Rondeau during a visit, and arranged a delivery of a few of these squirrels to a zoo in the D. C. area. Wildlife exchanges were much more common in that era than they are today. They eventually they became numerous enough that they were released in the wild, and have been in the D. C. area ever since.

 

When I was the park naturalist of Rondeau back in the '70s and '80s, I recall coming across the written documents in the park's historical files, from the superintendent of the day relating to this event. This delivery of black squirrels occurred in 1902.

 

Black squirrels are really a colour form of the Eastern Grey Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). Both black and grey colour forms are common in southern Ontario. The grey colour form is the more common colour form of this species south of the border, especially so the farther south you go. The ecological advantage of being black here in Ontario is that it absorbs a bit more sunlight energy, keeping the squirrel a bit warmer than its grey counterpart during the winter period.

If you want to read a bit more, check out the article in Chatham This Week at this link. 

 

 On a completely different note, but also of local historical relevance, is The Guyitt House. This has been acclaimed as the most photographed abandoned house at least in southern Ontario, and some say all of Ontario.

It is along the Talbot Trail, formerly known as provincial highway #3, just a few kilometres east of Rondeau and within sight of Clear Creek Forest Provincial Park. There have been various media articles from time to time, and even YouTube videos, one of which surfaced quite recently.

I have photographed this abandoned house on several occasions. One of my first efforts was in early April, 2010. I photographed it during the daylight hours, but since it was an historical building, decided to process the image in black and white with a bit of sepia tone added.

At around the same time, I had been intrigued by photographing things by moonlight, so during the full moon later that same month, decided to give it a try.

While in a way, this next image may appear to have been photographed during broad daylight, it was actually a 303 second exposure at just after 11 p.m. using only the light of the full moon. If you look closely (click on the image to get a larger view) there is a white line just above and to the left of the chimney at the right hand side of the house. That streak is the light of a bright star, showing how far it moved during that 5+ minute exposure.

In June of 2011, I decided to photograph the house again, this time in broad daylight and in colour. The pinkish purple flowers in the foreground are a type of wild phlox, not a native plant, but one that was commonly planted by settlers of the region.

The house has deteriorated quite a bit in the decade following the time of taking this photograph. One wonders just how much longer it will remain standing, and at what stage it will be completely removed.

If you want to read a bit more about The Guyitt House, check out this link from an article by the CBC.

 

 

Kontinuing Kiskadee, etc

The Great Kiskadee, which first showed up at Rondeau in early September, continues to be seen daily, at least if there are a few folks out looking for it. The first few days of its known presence resulted in many hundreds of people visiting the park to see this first for Canada occurrence. After about a week, it seemed to have disappeared, but after several more weeks went by, it was seen again in much the same place.

Typical spots for it during the last few weeks include the old canal between the cottages along Water Street and Rondeau Bay.

It has also been seen along Water Street, sometimes at the very south end bend by the last cottage, where sloughs are adjacent to the road. With all the rain of recent weeks, the sloughs have quite a bit of water in them, so there is a lot of habitat for the Kiskadee to search for tadpoles as it was seen doing in September along the Marsh Trail.

When the Kiskadee is in the shrubby and vine covered habitat, it invariably is perched so that a branch or three are partially obscuring it. At these times it becomes almost impossible to get a decent photo.

 As the season progresses, there will be fewer and fewer tadpoles and frogs to feed on, so it may not be as needful of these small bodies of water. Recently the bird has been seen feeding on berries, of which there are many kinds in the profusion of shrubs and vines that Rondeau has to offer. Dogwood, spicebush, Virginia Creeper and poison ivy are all abundant, although the myriad warblers and thrushes that have already passed through have picked off many of the berries. Nonetheless, there are still oodles of berries which may provide sustenance for the Kiskadee for awhile yet.

Just yesterday, Steve Charbonneau who has been at Rondeau almost daily for weeks and weeks, reported seeing the Kiskadee over on Harrison Trail south of the pony barn, feeding on berries! He speculated that the bird may have spent a fair bit of time wandering elsewhere in the park during its several week hiatus from the Marsh Trail from mid September to early October, including by the log pond along Harrison. That area does not get much coverage by birders at this time of year, so could have easily been missed. There are hundreds of hectares of what appears to be suitable habitat of this type available to the bird, so maybe it will survive until the Christmas Bird Count on December 16. If it does, the challenge for birders will be to be able to track it down on that day, so stay tuned.

There are lots of other birds still around, or recently arrived. American Goldfinches seem to be abundant.

A few more northern winter finches have appeared in small, and widely scattered numbers. These include Evening Grosbeak, Common Redpolls and Pine Siskins. I haven't seen any in the last time or two I've been at the park, but others have reported them. Of course most of the birders reporting them have much better hearing than I have, so that can make a difference.

American Tree Sparrows, many of which will remain for the winter, are showing up in increasing numbers.

There are non-bird things to see along the way, such as squirrels busily scrambling around for more seeds and nuts to put away for the winter.

In other news, the shorebirds at the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons are fast disappearing. Only a week or so ago there were hundreds of shorebirds of at least 10 species. The Hudsonian Godwits were a major attraction with as many as 5 present for a few days. It was hard to get more than three in the camera frame at any one time.

HUGO trio

HUGOs with yellowlegs for comparison

 It was getting late for Semipalmated Sandpipers, but at least two or three remained until a few days ago.

The last visit by anyone, as reported on eBird, resulted in only 4 species of shorebird, totalling a mere 16 individuals.

Snowy Owls are reappearing. Of course an occasional one from last winter was still found somewhere in Chatham-Kent at least until the end of July, an unheard of event. But for the last couple of months or more, they have been nowhere to be found. That is until the last few days, when Snowies have appeared in the Pain Court area, where this photo was taken.....

....as well as northern Chatham-Kent and just north of Erieau. Perhaps another invasion of Snowies is in the works.

While driving around, there have been other things along the way, including this immature Bald Eagle feasting on a dead critter well out in a field.

 And now that more and more fields are being harvested, leaving at least a bit of grain scattered on the ground, sometimes there are huge flocks of blackbirds on the move and swirling around. This one flock I encountered while out looking for the above pictured Snowy Owl I estimated to be at least 35,000 birds. The majority were Red-winged Blackbirds and Brown-headed Cowbirds, but I also saw Common Grackles and European Starlings mixed in. I was hoping to get at least a glimpse of a Yellow-headed Blackbird, and there may well have been one or two, but I did not pick any out this time.

A small portion of ~35000 birds

Summer Tanager and little known facts of Washington DC black squirrels, etc.

I'm playing catch-up a bit here. I've been out in the field a few times in the last week, but have also been busy with some project reports with deadlines that are fast approaching. Yes I'm retired, but really only semi-retired since I have my hand in various projects related to landscape ecology, species at risk, etc.

Open grown White Oak

When some people see me out on the trail, or wherever, with my optical equipment around my neck or over my shoulder, they ask me if I am a birder. And the answer is yes, to a certain extent. Mike Bouman and I discussed some of the nuances of this topic just a few days ago. Getting interested in birds many decades ago was fun but, we agreed, the more you get out and explore the world of birds, your eyes get opened to so many more things. I try to be on the lookout for birds every time I am out of the house (and even when I am in the house looking out!), but there are so many aspects to the natural world, not just birds. It is wonderful just to be out looking at whatever there is that comes along, whether it is some specific critter or plant, or the shapes, shades and colours of so many things along the trail, beach, wherever. And I must admit that as one ages and the eyesight and hearing isn't what it used to be, it is even easier to concentrate on things that don't require excellent eyesight or hearing to see or identify!

The image above is one of my favourite old time images. It was taken by former Rondeau Park naturalist R. D. Ussher on Kodak slide film back in the early 1960s. I scanned it a few years ago, hoping to preserve the ambiance of this autumn scene.

This time of year, things in the birding world are slowing down in terms of species diversity. There are still some great things to enjoy.....they don't have to be super rare (okay, I wouldn't mind if a Bullock's Oriole, Pink-footed Goose, Mountain Bluebird, Little Egret, Dovekie or Northern Fulmar showed up around here like they have done in other places farther east......). But we have been fortunate in having a few 'good' birds around (hmmm....poor terminology here....I don't intend for the others to be 'bad' birds....). Locally over the past few weeks we have had things like Townsend's Solitaire (for part of a day), Franklin's Gulls, Sabine's Gull, Say's Phoebe, Ross's Goose, Eared Grebe and Summer Tanager around. What else is out there but not yet noted?

I've already posted images of some of those that I saw on previous blogs. But the local 'star' at the moment is the continuing Summer Tanager. It has been around for more than a couple of weeks, and with some continued mild weather and ample supply of berries, suet, etc., it just might make it to the upcoming Christmas Bird Count. Maybe it will even make it to 2016 when it can be a good start to a new year list.

I have seen this bird on several occasions. The first time was when it appeared on top of a cottage chimney which, fortunately, is covered with Virginia Creeper vines and berries.

It then flew right overhead to a tree that had some other berries.

The sun even came out a bit to provide some good light, affording the opportunity to even catch the sun highlight in the eye.

 It can be quite elusive on occasion. It took me a few tries to catch up with the bird, and there are some folks who have yet to see it.

Snowy Owls are also beginning to build in numbers in various places in Chatham-Kent.

 As many as 5 or more have been seen close to Erieau in recent days, and several have also been seen in the former Dover Twp towards Mitchell's Bay. It is a good start, but I don't expect we will see the record numbers of last year, however.

With all of the mild weather, there is no ice anywhere in the area. Waterbirds are still around in good, but slowly diminishing numbers. Horned Grebes are plentiful but widely scattered along the Lake Erie shoreline. Last weekend just checking in 3 places, I conservatively counted 67 birds, and considering that some spend a fair bit of time underwater in search of food, I likely missed more than a few.

A walk through the forest is pretty quiet these days, so it enables one to look for other things. Raptor nests are more visible. This is likely last year's Cooper's Hawk nest, but since Great Horned Owls occupy nests built by other birds, and start the nesting season earlier than most hawks, it is possible that this nest may be taken over by a Great Horned Owl. I'll let you know.

On the forest floor amidst all the fallen leaves, certain things stand out. It is a great time of year to search for a rare orchid, the Puttyroot (Aplectrum hyemale). It isn't officially a Species At Risk yet, but is in the process of being evaluated by both federal and provincial committees to see if it warrants that status. And late fall through early spring is the best time to find them. Their greenish/gray leaves, with lighter lines, are fairly conspicuous once you get an eye for them.

 One of the projects I was involved with was searching for Species At Risk at a north Lambton location, and my colleagues and I came across a minimum 238 leaves of this rarity! This population was unknown until a little more than a year ago, when I discovered a few Puttyroot leaves poking up amongst the fallen brown, yellow and golden ones.

Searching for Puttyroot

There are other things. As I was walking the forest trails of Rondeau Provincial Park, I came across a gazillion (yep....actual count :-) of seeds of the Tuliptree on the ground, on logs, on the moss, etc.

Tuliptrees are very prolific seed producers, but a less known fact is that less than one per cent of even the fallen seeds are viable. Many other seeds are still clinging to the branches, and will remain until the spring, but those are not viable.

Most fern species are relatively fragile and disappear late in the fall. Christmas Fern, however, is a more robust species, and its deep green coloured leaves are evident throughout the winter.

Christmas Fern

Squirrels are even busier than normal since it was a good year for many oaks to produce acorns, and the snow-free and mild conditions have enabled squirrels to gather acorns much later than some years.

In this part of the world, one can see both the gray colour phase of the Eastern Grey Squirrel and the black colour phase of the Eastern Grey Squirrel. Black squirrels are a little more obvious, and at Rondeau may even be a little more common.

Black Squirrels are much more common in the northern part of their range. This is reputed to be due in part because their black fur absorbs more sunlight energy so as to keep them warmer in the colder temperatures. Also in northern forests where conifers are more abundant, there are more dark shadows, so they are less obvious to predators.

Black squirrels have been of interest to some communities in the USA, and where they have survived, the community takes great pride in their black squirrel population. For example back in 1904, during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, an influential person (whose name escapes me at the moment) in Washington DC arranged to obtain several black squirrels from Rondeau. Trading wildlife or obtaining and releasing wildlife from other jurisdictions was a much more common practice in that era. I have read some of the correspondence between Issac Gardiner, the first superintendent of Rondeau, and this individual from Washington DC from the Rondeau archives. So next time you are in Washington DC, take note of the population of black squirrels....they are descendants of Rondeau squirrels.

Is this one attempting a hand-stand? Not really, I just happened to catch it as it was leaping from one log to another!