Wetland Wanderings

Wetlands are fun places to explore, especially if you can keep dry. Fortunately there are various opportunities in the area with trails traversing these habitats and include Rondeau Provincial Park, St. Clair National Wildlife Area and the two trails up along the Lake St. Clair shoreline both north and south of Mitchell's Bay.

I decided to check out some wetlands in the Mitchell's Bay area recently. Some friends (Bill & Judy) who have waterfront property on the lake near one of the trails, has a very nice wetland right in front, where waterbirds are seen daily. I had been particularly interested in photographing one of the pair of Common Gallinules that occur in the wetland, and Bill has been able to get numerous fabulous full frame shots. Unfortunately the two times I was there recently, they decided to stay well hidden. I did get some decent photos of the resident Pied-billed Grebes. This first one is of an adult.

 There were several full grown young around as well.

I spent a bit more time at the Mitchell's Bay North Nature Trail. It is always fun to check, since it goes through various wetland areas. Some of the drier sections have been planted into tallgrass prairie. One of the plants quite noticeable now is Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum).

 You can see by the way the leaves are joined where it gets its name.

There used to be a lot of wet prairie along the shoreline of Lake St. Clair. Some small pockets remain.

Maybe at some point, parts of the wetland at Mitchell's Bay will look like the photo above. If so, maybe the endangered Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid (Platanthera leucophaea), as shown in the next three photos, will appear.

Note the very long spur tube extending behind the more obvious flower. It is pollinated by night flying sphinx moths, which extend their long proboscis down the tube.

But on this trip, it was mainly the more typical wetland plants that were the prevalent ones.

Fragrant Water Lily (Nymphea odorata)

Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)

Arrowhead (Sagittaria sp)

Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos)

There were the usual bird species around.....Caspian, Common and Forster's Terns, Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, Green Heron, etc, etc, but very few that were close enough to bother photographing (not to mention that a few that I did try and shoot were heavily backlit and did not turn out). But a family of Eastern Kingbirds were around.

The always present Mute Swans were here and there......

....and a couple of Northern Harriers flew by along the edge.

Summer wetlands

World Wetlands Day is in early February but in this part of the world, wetlands are entrenched in their winter solitude at that time. This post will highlight some of wetland values at the current, more active time of year.

Wetlands are hugely important to a healthy landscape. For example they help contain runoff from rainfall so there is less soil erosion and degradation of our lakes, rivers and streams. They recharge the ground water table which keeps water wells supplied and forests healthy. Unfortunately their benefits have been ignored by many, so the majority of them have been drained for various kinds of development. Based on soils and early surveys, it is estimated that at the time of settlement more than 66% of what is now Chatham-Kent was one type of wetland or another (marsh or swamp). By 1982 less than 4% of the municipality was in wetland. That has since dwindled further, as currently only about 4% of the entire municipality is in any kind of natural cover.

Wetlands are a fun place to explore, but the best time is in the early morning or evening, unless you like the heat! There is an abundance of plant and animal life out there, although some of it takes more than a bit of effort to find.

June is prime egg-laying month for many turtles.

Midland Painted Turtle

Sometimes you see them up laying, but more often than not, the first hint of turtle egg-laying activity is this, where the buried eggs have been dug out of the hole and only fragments of egg shells remain.

The culprit? Raccoons are probably the most likely one, although skunks, foxes and opossums will take advantage of these fresh eggs as well. I remember on one occasion watching a snapping turtle laying eggs, and a raccoon was sitting right behind it, pulling each egg out of the nest hole as it was laid. It doesn't get any fresher than that!

Turtles are long-lived, so in order to keep turtle populations healthy, they only need to have a small number of eggs successfully hatch and the young reaching maturity to eventually replace the adults in the population. So even though the majority of turtle eggs are eaten, it may not do any significant damage to the overall turtle population.

The openness of the wetland landscape is great for seeing a multitude of birds. Waterbirds, including herons, egrets and terns are frequently seen.

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Green Heron

Forster's Tern

Unfortunately there is an expanding population of Mute Swans in our wetlands. While they are attractive birds in their own way, this non-native species is very aggressive and chases out our native waterfowl.

Mute Swan and cygnets

Much smaller things with wings are common, especially dragonflies. The Calico Pennant is one of the more striking dragonflies, in my opinion.

Calico Pennant

 Blue Dashers are much more abundant.

Blue Dasher male

Blue Dasher female

Twelve-spotted Skimmer

The Black Horsefly is a huge fly, with the body length up to 28mm. Fortunately it seldom bites humans, but it can be a nuisance to livestock.

This Black Horsefly was low down on a dead stalk of Phragmites, just a bit above the water. It might have ended up as a snack for a Bullfrog, which is by far the largest frog in Ontario. Bullfrogs are easily identified by their resonant 'jug-o-rum' call that you can hear from quite a distance. When you get to see one, you can tell it from the somewhat similar, but smaller, Green Frog, since the Bullfrog does not have ridges that go from behind the eye down the back almost to the hind legs. Bullfrogs are quite the vicious predator, in the sense that they will eat fish, other frogs, small snakes and even small birds.

Bullfrog

Plants are numerous in a healthy wetland, with a constantly changing array in flower. Right now, things like Fragrant Water Lilies (Nymphaea odorata) dot the surface of wetlands, poking up through the covering of lily pads.

Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata) is not a weed at all, but an attractive flower which pollinators such as bees like.

Arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia) is a common plant in shallower water.

A less obvious wetland plant is Giant Bur-reed (Sparganium eurycarpum).

Giant Bur-reed, male flowers

Giant Bur-reed, female flowers

Tufted Loosestrife (Lysimachia thrysifolia) is found along wetland edges.

There are many, many more things to get your attention.....I encourage you to get out and enjoy a wetland!

Some recent wetland visits

Wetlands are fun to visit in mid summer. By now the water has warmed up considerably, with many plants and creatures quite abundant and in prime condition. A visit to any of the wetlands in Chatham-Kent, such as Rondeau, McGeachy Pond or St. Clair NWA or elsewhere is a worthwhile time.

Rondeau Marsh

As the water warms up, aquatic plants send up their stems and many floating plants can be seen. Fragrant Water Lilies have rather large leaves, and in between the leaves are the striking flowers. The flowers provide nectar for pollinators. The leaves provide shade for critters beneath the water, as well as being something for other critters to rest and bask on. Of course they also absorb sunlight energy to provide nourishment for the plant.

Fragrant Water Lily (Nymphaea odorata)

A much smaller floating plant is European Frog-bit. It has very small floating leaves by comparison, with a three-petaled white flower. It is not native to North America, but was discovered in the western part of Lake Ontario several decades ago. The first record for Lake Erie was at Rondeau back in about 1977, when a former university professor of mine who specialized in aquatic vascular plants came to visit me while I was working at Rondeau and during the course of our canoeing through the Rondeau marsh, he discovered it. Since that time, it has become quite abundant in the quiet waters of the Rondeau Marsh and Bay as well as many sloughs. It has also expanded to many other wetlands in the Great Lakes.

European Frog-bit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae)

Here, somewhat appropriately, a couple of Green Frogs are seen amidst the abundant frog-bit.

One of my favourite wetland plants is Pickerelweed. Its presence is usually an indicator of somewhat deeper water. Bees love the flowers of these plants. It has unusual flowering arrangement, often with the flowering parts (pistils and stamens) arranged in three different combinations of sizes and lengths, even on the same plant.

Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)

Here a Blanding's Turtle is feeding on aquatic vegetation. It is wandering through an extensive mat of duckweed, those really small floating plants which will have one or several tiny dangling rootlets. This turtle has a high-domed shell and a bright yellow chin and throat. Unfortunately from the perspective of this photo, neither feature is evident.

Dragonflies are abundant as well. Here a Widow Skimmer is at rest, while below is a female White-faced Meadowhawk.

Widow Skimmer

White-faced Meadowhawk

Some non-feathered winged things of a local wetland

A couple of days ago, while some of the more popular summer destinations were quite busy, I spent some time at one of southwestern Ontario's less well-known sites: St. Clair National Wildlife Area. In the three hours I spent there, I saw no one else! But the wildlife and photographic opportunities were there.

SCNWA is a site along the eastern edge of Lake St. Clair. It is approximately 240 ha (600 acres) of primarily impounded wetland. Historically this area would have been much more subject to the fluctuating water levels of the adjacent lake. During lower levels it would have been tallgrass prairie, but during higher water levels it would have been cattail marsh. Some prairie species are still present along the drier dyke edges, but it is currently cattail marsh. Being impounded, that is being enclosed by a man-made dyke system, gives the managers some control over the openness of the wetland and also some of the more problematic invasive plant species.

There is a hiking trail on the dyke that leads from the small parking lot to the main cross-dyke. About a 10 minute walk from the parking lot, there is an observation tower which provides some nice views of the wetland in all directions.

Taken in May, 2012

Looking southwest from the tower

The tower is a great vantage point to get some nice sunrise shots, since one can get above the cattails and Phragmites to include more water in the scene. The image below was taken at sunrise in May, 2012.

Looking east from the tower

 I wasn't anticipating shooting many birds here, so I only had one of my lep/ode combinations of camera equipment (Canon 7D with 100-400 mm lens and a 20mm extension tube). Nonetheless I had my eyes and ears open for feathered creatures. I heard or saw things like American Bittern, Pied-billed Grebe, Black Tern, Great Egret and various Canada Geese, Mallards and Wood Duck. Cormorants passed by in small numbers, some of them deciding to roost on one of the dead cottonwood trees along a smaller dyke to the west.

At this time of year, the water surface is covered with aquatic plants, especially Fragrant Water Lily. The lily pads are excellent for insects and small frogs to bask on, and the shaded undersides provide a surface for aquatic invertebrates to cling to or small fish to take shelter under.

Water lilies covering the surface

The hot sunny day made it conducive for flying invertebrates. There wasn't an abundance of butterfly diversity.....there were Northern Crescents, some skippers and Red Admirals. The presence of a fresh looking Mourning Cloak was nice.....I usually associate them with woodlands and edges and either early in the spring or later in the fall, so it was a bit surprising to see such a fresh one in the middle of a huge wetland complex.

Mourning Cloak

Red Admiral

One of the more pleasant surprises was to see so many Monarchs. I saw at least a dozen, perhaps more, which is probably more than I have seen all spring so far. They were flitting about continually, and it was wonderful to see them on the vegetation or at times, chasing each other against a blue sky background. The erratic flight in these circumstances made it almost impossible to get a photo, but I did manage to get a few shots when one came to rest, such as this one on a Canada Thistle that should be open in a few days.

There is quite an abundance of Common Milkweed along the trail, so hopefully the numerous Monarchs make good use of it to lay their eggs on. This will give some certainty in enhancing the local production of future generations of Monarchs!

Dragonflies were buzzing around in good numbers. A few damselflies were present as well, but normally they were out over the water so I didn't get any damselfly photos.

Dragonflies which I was able to get good photos of, included:

Blue Dasher male

Dot-tailed Whiteface

Dot-tailed Whiteface showing the white face

Eastern Pondhawk

Halloween Pennant

Widow Skimmer female

 Other critters were out basking as well. This diminutive Painted Turtle was making use of an old water lily root to climb up on.