Mitchell's Bay North Shore Trail

 The Mitchell's Bay North Shore Trail is one of my regular places to go to, especially in the summer. It is open, usually a nice breeze, fewer bugs, and always a few things to see and photograph. And it isn't that far from home.

For anyone not familiar with this trail, this is what it looked like when I took this photo in April of 1989, as I was giving some folks an aerial tour of the district.

 The wetland had been altered, obviously, to create more edge and what not. It has changed a bit, but the canals are still there, although somewhat filled in, and they aren't as sharply delineated as this photo shows. There is a gravel trail that goes out through one of the stands of cattails, and is a little higher elevation, which gives a great view of Lake St. Clair. The trail also goes south and ends at Mitchell's Bay village, following the shoreline. This next photo was recently taken from the slightly higher vantage point, looking northwest out over the lake, with Walpole Island First Nation in the background. There is even a picnic table to rest at and spend as much time as you want, watching the ducks, geese, cormorants, egrets, gulls, eagles, terns, etc. moving around.

 Great Egrets are almost always seen, from early May until freeze-up. Sometimes they are perched on something along the shallow water edge....

...or sometimes up in a tree fairly close to the trail. They must feel a little safer higher up.

 A cormorant swims by in the canal adjacent to the trail....

...while a Green Heron partially hides in the vegetation out in the shallows.

Shorebirds can be around, depending on water levels of course. Here is a Greater Yellowlegs....

...with a Killdeer nearby.

Sandhill Cranes are often in the area, although sometimes just seen flying well out over the lake. The wind turbines in northern Essex County are visible out in the back ground.

This shows that shorebirds can be seen in close proximity to one another, as in this next photo, a Solitary Sandpiper is on the left, then a Lesser Yellowlegs in the middle and a Killdeer on the right.

A closer look at a Solitary Sandpiper, not a species that ever seems to be very abundant.

There is some Phragmites along sections of the trail. This sparrow popped up and got my attention. It isn't a typical plumage, but appears to be a partially leucistic plumage of a Song Sparrow. Leucism is the result of a lightening of the feathers, as opposed to albinism, the latter of which results in some or all of the feathers being white, and the eyes, legs and beak are pink.

Along with the Phragmites, there are other plants, especially as in the last decade and a half, some of the land areas have been planted with tallgrass prairie species. Of course when flowers are blooming, butterflies can be found, such as this Viceroy.

Purple Loosestrife, can be abundant, unfortunately.....

...and this next photo shows a view across the canal along the trail, and the Purple Loosestrife can be seen in the foreground, with numerous taller Cup Plant in the background.

Cup Plant

Another non-native, but fairly abundant species is Velvet Leaf. It is quite common anywhere near roadsides or agricultural fields.

The next two species are definitely tallgrass prairie associates.

Missouri Ironweed

Indiangrass

Great Blue Lobelia, next, is native but a generalist.

And other critters will be found on the flowers such as:

Goldenrod Soldier Beetle

Arcigera Flower Moth

Another prairie plant species is American Senna, next, but is pretty much finished flowering now.

Various critters can be found along the trail, including a few Bronzed Tiger Beetles...

...and Differential Grasshoppers, which are a species at risk, but quite abundant here. They are on the gravel path... 

...or resting in the adjacent vegetation.

This Eastern Pondhawk dragonfly was quite cooperative resting on the bent over stem of Indiangrass.

So there are a few things to see along this little used trail. Sometimes there are people from the Mitchell's Bay village hiking or biking along the trail, but sometimes I have the trail all to myself for an hour or two. I don't mind a bit :-).

 

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Odes, wildflowers and a couple of uncommon birds

I haven't done a lot of birding, per se, lately as other than shorebirds, there isn't a lot happening in the bird realm these days. But that will change very soon. There are numerous other things to enjoy, and on several occasions I've been out looking for orchids and dragonflies for example.

On one occasion a few days ago, I spent several hours checking on a couple of orchids that are at Rondeau: Small Green Wood Orchid and Nodding Pogonia. I thought it was just a bit early for both of them and sure enough, neither were in flower at the time. They are now, and more on that in the next post I expect.

I did see a few other plants of interest while I was out, including:

Monkey Flower

Fringed Loosestrife

 This next one is Red Mulberry, an Endangered species in Ontario and Canada. The best populations are found at Rondeau, Point Pelee, Fish Point on Pelee Island, and in the Hamilton area. There are at least 15 good quality trees of Red Mulberry at Rondeau, and once in awhile a new one or two are discovered. I say "good quality" because it can hybridize with the non-native White Mulberry, which degrades the genetics of this overall declining species.

 I actually did find an orchid in flower, but not one of the ones I was hoping for. It is Helleborine (Epipactis helleborine). It is not a species native to North America, however. Regardless, it is found frequently but scattered in woodland situations as well as many other habitats.

I spent some time checking out a few waterways and other wetland areas. The old gravel pits at Clear Creek Forest Provincial Park are always interesting, especially for dragonflies. I had been hoping to get a look at a Comet Darner which others have seen. Burg Birder (Blake Mann) posted a photo of one on his blog a couple of weeks ago. And I did get a look through the binoculars as one or two were well out over the water patrolling the area. They never seemed to land anywhere, nor did they come very close. My attempts at a photo were far from satisfactory, but given the size and colour combination, even such a poor photo as this is still fairly identifiable.

 Others were quite a bit more cooperative.

Eastern Pondhawk

Widow Skimmer

Other places I wanted to check out were a couple of places where the road crosses over the Sydenham River. This river is well known for its superb diversity of mussels due to water quality, especially compared to the Thames River. So one of the places that I often check along the Sydenham is the Dawn Mills Road crossing. I saw a few American Rubyspots and a few other dragonflies and damselflies, but none were very close and the river bank was rather slippery. I didn't want to get very adventurous while carrying camera equipment, so I decided to go to the village of Florence, which straddles the county line between Lambton and Chatham-Kent. The best access to the river is at the corner, in C-K. And the odes were quite close by.

American Rubyspot (male)

Am Rubyspot (female)

 In another week or two, I intend to check here for the much rarer Smoky Rubyspot.

A species of Dancer (Argia sp)

Blue-fronted Dancer

A species of Bluet, I think

 A damselfly that is fairly common in places, and always catches my eye, is the Ebony Jewelwing, with its large black wings and shimmering green body

 I came across this Black-shouldered Spinyleg; it is the first time I've managed a photo.

 While I was cautiously approaching the various odes this Green Frog swam right up to me.

 The Sydenham River is also known for its large populations of an uncommon plant species, called Lizard's-tail. This next photo shows a very large patch of Lizard's-tail just upstream from the bridge at Florence and there must be hundreds of stems here. A slightly smaller patch was across the river from my access point, and I could see additional patches farther down stream. If one had a kayak and could cover a lot of the river, I expect there would be thousands and thousands of stems of this uncommon plant.

 The appearance of its flower is how it got its name, not surprisingly.

The last few days haven't been entirely devoid of interesting birds, however. I came across two Yellow-headed Blackbirds at the Mitchell's Bay park. The species nests in some of the cattail islands about a kilometre out in the lake at Mitchell's Bay. Earlier in the year adults can be seen foraging at various locations around Mitchell's Bay. Now that the nesting season is over, adults and young-of-the-year can be seen. This is likely a young male. The other one I saw was an adult female, but I didn't get a decent photo of it.

 Finally, I had been out at the Tilbury Sewage Lagoons about 10 days ago, doing a shorebird survey. The shorebirds were few and far between, so I had to be satisfied with this American White Pelican. Since the species is now nesting on some of the islands in the western basin of Lake Erie, they are more often seen at various points along the north shore than they used to be. I think this is the first record for these lagoons.

Counting butterflies and other things along the way

The Rondeau butterfly count of this past weekend had excellent weather: sunny, not as hot as some days, tolerable humidity and with a slight breeze. As expected, however, the butterfly season has been a bit less diverse than what we used to get, and the questions arise as to why. There are probably a number of factors, including the cool, wet spring which was hard on overwintering butterflies, as well as the ongoing extensive use of pesticides and genetically modified and/or pesticide ready seeds being used which affect many pollinating insect species. But as usual, some species were relatively plentiful and others were noticeable by their absence or at least extremely low numbers.

My area consists of several small patches, some near Erieau at the McGeachy Pond and Rail Trails, as well as roadsides adjacent to woodlots, old fields, etc., in the greater Blenheim area. All of these sites I do on my own, but for a short time in the middle of the day, I meet up with Steve Charbonneau and Keith Burk to do an old field near the sewage lagoons, which is getting a lot shrubbier than it used to be and is not as productive.

Monarch were pleasantly abundant, unlike some years. I had 69.

 Red Admirals were widely scattered, with about 15.

 Somewhat surprisingly, Cabbage Whites and both sulphurs were not all that common, which is unusual.

 I had a single Mourning Cloak.....

.....and a single Question Mark.

While walking along the McGeachy Pond trail, I noticed this little critter feeding and fluttering exactly like a butterfly. It wasn't anything I had ever recalled seeing before, and managed to get a few photos. It wasn't long until I realized it was a day flying moth, and when I got home I determined it was a Spear-marked Black moth.

There were lots of dragonflies, and I stopped to get this photo of a cooperative Eastern Meadowhawk before a bee came along and the dragonfly left.

When Steve, Keith and I checked out the old field near the sewage lagoon, we added a few species to our list. The most unusual one for our day was this Delaware Skipper, which posed very briefly before vaulting itself into the air in typical skipper fashion, never to be seen again.

I continued on my way, checking out various easily accessible spots. One old field looked promising with a lot of milkweed patches. But it turns out they were almost all Prairie Milkweed (Asclepias sullivantii) and while it looks superficially like Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), I have often found that Prairie Milkweed is not as effective at attracting butterflies. It doesn't seem to be as aromatic or something. Prairie Milkweed flowers are a bit deeper red in colour, have smooth, hairless leaves which are more upright and often have a dark red mid-vein.

I did manage to get a photo of a Common Wood-nymph. Usually these critters are only seen flitting through the vegetation and when they land they are often in an almost impossible spot to photograph.

I checked out the pollinator garden and grassland area near Canadian Tire, where a good population of grassland birds have been the last few years, such as Dickcissel, Bobolink, Eastern Meadowlark and Savannah Sparrow. The one section has been planted with numerous wildflowers. While there was a good diversity, they weren't at their peak, with only scattered individuals throughout the patch, including the following.

Butterfly Milkweed

Large-flowered Coreopsis (not native)

Purple Coneflower (not native)

As was typical everywhere I stopped, there were a few Monarchs, but not a lot of other butterflies. I was pleased to see a lot of Bobolink, however. I stood in one spot and scanned, counting a total of 16, a mix of adult males and females and probably some of them were young of the year, looking much like the females. Some of the males were starting to lose their predominantly black and white feathering as they transition to their non-breeding plumage.

Another stop was at the B-fit park on the south side of Blenheim. It is a walking trail, a loop of about one kilometre. Inside the loop are two cells, one which is mostly wetland and the other is considerably drier, with a lot of Swamp Milkweed and Dogbane.

Swamp Milkweed

I was hoping for something interesting on the Dogbane, but did not see anything. Again, Monarchs were by far the most common butterfly.

One of the adjacent landowners has a sizeable flower garden right next to the trail. Most species were not native, although they were colourful. But there were a few prairie type species, including Butterfly Milkweed, Purple Coneflower, Black-eyed Susan and one which I was quite surprised to see, Queen-of-the-Prairie (Filapendula rubra). This is not a species native to Ontario, but is an indicator of a high quality prairie found in the mid-western states of Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, etc. In spite of my many trips to mid-western prairies, I have either been a bit too early, or a bit too late and never seen one in flower. In fact it is considered a somewhat rare and local species even in the mid-west, so I was quite surprised to see it at the edge of Blenheim!

There were several large plants of dill in this garden, and the Summer Azures were quite interested in it.

I ended up with 19 species of butterflies, not too bad considering the overall lack of habitat diversity of my area, and certainly a little lower than some previous years. Regardless, it was a great day to be out!