Black-necked Stilts, Pelicans, Phalaropes, June flowers and...Orchids!

 I really had planned on getting more posts out in June, but it has been busy! Lots of the normal things to deal with, and I have been getting back into black lighting in a much bigger way than the past 2-3 years. It involves a lot of preparation time, actual black lighting for hours at a time, and then 'recovery time' as well as processing hundreds of photos. I will be including a black lighting post or two over the next month, which happens to be Moth Month. I am also preparing on a post regarding the saga of Prickly Pear Cactus at Rondeau, which is more complicated than it might seem. And of course taking time to get my head around, and produce the occasional post in my Life Is A Journey blog.

With that being said, this post might be a little longer than average, as there is so much to catch up on. Most of my efforts have been concentrated in the southern part of Chatham-Kent, but also includes a couple of forays to search for orchids elsewhere in C-K and beyond. 

Bird migration has slowed down, but there have been some interesting things to see. I mentioned Dickcissels having arrived in CK in my previous post, and they continue to be present there, as well as at other places. For example some friends who have a combination woodlot and planted prairie a bit north of Blenheim have had at least two pairs of Dickcissels present, and I spent at least a couple of hours quite recently watching and photographing them. They weren't often very close, but I managed to get some fair photos, with the first one showing a nicely coloured male in full song. What is handy about this species is that it will sing fairly frequently throughout most of the day.

The female, shown next, isn't up and nicely visible nearly as often as the male, as she is likely tending the nest. Her markings are more subdued.

Much more common than Dickcissels are Savannah Sparrows, and they occupy very similar habitat. I saw at least a dozen of them in the vicinity.

At the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons, there has been a pair of Black-necked Stilts busily feeding in one of the cells. The male is on the left, and has the black back....

...while the female has more of a brownish/black back.

Also at these lagoons, there was quite an 'invasion' of Wilson's Phalaropes earlier in June, at least 5 mated pairs, which I featured in my previous blog. After most of them left, there was a single male still present for several days. For this species, after the female has laid her eggs, she will typically leave the area in search of another mate, and the male will carry on with the incubation of the eggs in a grassy nest, and raising the young. I had hoped that this might happen since a male was present for several days after the female disappeared, but as far as I am aware, nothing like that happened. 

Male Wilson's Phalarope

Perhaps the mowing around the cells, or perhaps the greatly fluctuating water in the sprinkler cells was not conducive.  At any rate, my last two visits to these lagoons did not have any phalaropes present. I am aware of only one occasion when nesting of this species actually occurred here, as they are mainly a much more western species. But back in about 1980, there was a nest and I managed to get a photo of the male sitting on it.

Another unusual wetland bird species showed up at the Keith McLean Conservation Lands for 2-3 days. It was an American White Pelican.

It must have felt a little out of place, as even before I got very close, I could sense that it was getting restless. In just a few moments it got up and flew out to Rondeau Bay but I managed to get a few heavily cropped photos.

Much more common bird species are this one: Field Sparrow, a pair of which perched reasonably close by, enabling me to get this photo of the pair. They were busy flitting about a fairly large area, which must have been their breeding territory, but at least one periodically came back to this perch.

While the spring wildflower varieties have tapered off somewhat, there are still a few of the usual, mostly colourful ones present, and some are in fair abundance. This first one is False Indigo Bush, a bit of a provincial rarity, but unofficially introduced to Rondeau by someone.

A naturally occurring rarity is next: Green Milkweed. It doesn't seem to be as abundant these last few years, so I was pleased to see this one.

Much more common are:

Bladder Campion

Canada Anemone

Fringed Loosestrife

Ground Ivy

Pale-spike Lobelia

Hairy Beard's-tongue

Poke Milkweed

These next three often get the attention of even the casual walker:

Purple Flowering Raspberry

Wood Lily

Butterfly Milkweed

 One may encounter other elements of wildlife as one travels around. First off is a type of dragonfly, likely a White-faced Meadowhawk due to the season and the relative commonness of this species although the actual face cannot be seen to know for sure.

Lots of these little guys around, and on occasion they will even sit long enough for the camera.

Much less common is this next one: a Blanding's Turtle, which is a provincial rarity. It was crossing the main road in the Rondeau forest, seemingly out of its normal wetland habitat.

Finally, a bit on some successful orchid hunting. Earlier in June I ventured into northern Lambton Co, hunting for some specific orchids. I had hoped to find a Ram's-head Orchid, with the known location being the most southerly location in Ontario for it. But it was not found. However a Pink Lady's-slipper is always a treat to see, and usually are farther north in Ontario than where I venture most of the time.

Next is Hooker's Orchid, a much less colourful orchid, and I have seen it at Rondeau but not for many years. It may still occur, but I don't spend as much time off the trails as I used to, due to the risk of Lyme Disease.

At Clear Creek Forest Prov Park in eastern CK, I caught up to these two orchids. First is Large Twayblade, a provincial rarity.

More widespread but less showy is this Fen Orchid.

 That does it for this post. Hopefully the next one will show up sooner!

 

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Preview of a butterfly count

'Tis the season for butterfly counts. Several in southwestern Ontario have already taken place, and the Rondeau one is coming up this weekend. In preparation for it, I have been out scouting around a bit to see what to expect. With the drier than normal weather, early indications are that butterfly diversity and abundance is down from normal.

Patches of Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) are well known for their attractiveness to butterflies. I visited a large patch a couple of days ago. This area is affectionately known as the Dillon Dump, as it was used as a temporary holding place for debris such as brush, branches, stumps, etc before they were burned. It is located along what remains of the former Dillon Trail, which used to be a driveable road across the southern part of the park. The entire route is next to impossible to find now unless one is quite familiar with the layout of it, and one has some good high rubber boots. Regardless, this open area near the beginning and driest part of the Dillon Trail is now dominated by Common Milkweed. If there was one plant, there had to be at least 1000, and many of them were in some stage of flowering.

Partial view of the Dillon Dump area

Needless to say, this is a hotspot for butterflies. By far one of the more common ones on this occasion was Silver-spotted Skipper, the largest skipper we have. There must have been 50 or more.

Silver-spotted Skipper

The next image shows a view of the Silver-spotted Skipper that one doesn't see nearly as often as the one in the previous image.

There were some smaller skippers around...mostly European Skippers, and some other small butterflies such as Summer Azure, which I didn't photograph. But there were larger butterflies on the wing, such as this Eastern Comma.

Eastern Comma

 The comma is more obvious on the underside of the wing.

Great Spangled Fritillaries were there as well, although the handful I saw all seemed to be a bit faded and not very fresh looking. This one is a little battered as well, with its right hind-wing showing some wear and tear.

Great Spangled Fritillary

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails were noticeable due to their size and flashy colours. There were at least 8 of them there.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

There were a few Little Wood-Satyrs around.

Little Wood-Satyr

A couple of Appalachian Browns were there, one of which was quite fresh looking as well as being cooperative.

Appalachian Brown

With all of the milkweed, I was hoping for a good number of hairstreaks. Alas, I only saw one....this Banded Hairstreak, below. With all of the oaks in the vicinity, I was sure there would be more, which there likely were. However they can be surprisingly difficult to see if they are on the far side or underside of a flower head, and they don't seem to fly as often as many other species of butterflies, so can go unnoticed. This site is in Blake's territory, so undoubtedly he will find a few and maybe some other hairstreak species as well. (By the way, Blake....be prepared for chiggers).

Banded Hairstreak

There were a few dragonflies zipping around, but not a lot of diversity in them. By far the most common one was this White-faced Meadowhawk.

White-faced Meadowhawk

There were other species of milkweed in the area, including Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa).

Butterfly Milkweed

For some reason there weren't any butterflies on them while I was looking.

Another milkweed nearby in the grassy beach dunes is Green Milkweed (Asclepias viridiflora). It isn't very colourful, and I have not seen butterflies on them....only ants.

Cluster of Green Milkweed

Sunday looks like a decent day for the butterfly count.....mostly sunny, with temperatures ~28C so hopefully there are lots of butterflies.