Lots of colours and diversity!

 First of all, I need to apologize for not responding to the many comments readers have shared with me over the past few months. I used to get immediate notifications when a comment was made, but something changed, and so comments that were made since the beginning of 2025 seemed to be tucked away in a different manner, and I only came across them today. I have tried to respond to all of those that were made since then!

June is the prime month for Tulip Trees to show off their impressive flowers. 

 The Tulip Tree Trail is one of my favourite trails at Rondeau for various reasons that I might explain in my other post. At any rate, there are lots of Tulip Trees, but unfortunately for the normal hiker, the flowers are hard to see as the flowers like lots of sunlight so are most abundant near the uppermost parts of the tree. A telephoto lens was necessary to get this next photo.

At ground level, fortunately, there are lots to see at this stage of the season. It is always nice to lock eyes on a butterfly!

Northern Crescent

Wildflowers are more apt to stay put for the camera. This next flower is a Narrow-leaved Blue-eyed Grass.

Another critter came into view: it is a Morbid Owlet, a moth, which was not very active and preferred the shadier parts along the trail. Not sure who comes up with these names, as I don't see anything morbid about it.

Butterflies are fairly active especially on sunnier days. If it doesn't get too hot, I expect they will really like the next few days as it becomes the warmest of the year so far!

Little Wood-satyr

A colourful wildflower that likes open grassy areas, such as at the edge of a prairie/savannah with lots of sun is this next one: Hairy Beardtongue, a native species.

 

 Purple-flowered Raspberry is starting to be more noticeable at the woodlot edges, as the deep red flower appear. Although it is a member of the raspberry family, the fruits are not edible.

And in a few places, one might encounter the Endangered, Red Mulberry. There are a few places scattered around Rondeau where this species can be found, and it is in flower right now.

 In some of the wetter areas, one will come across this next wildflower, Tufted Loosestrife.

Also along trail edges, but not a native species, is Common Mouse-ear Chickweed, named because the 5 petals are partially split, looking like a pair of ears.

And then another moth comes into view. It is known as a Black-bit Moth.

 An even smaller creature resting on a leaf was this Basal Click Beetle, barely a centimetre in total length.

Not a flower in the normal sense of what one might expect, is this next one: American Cancer-root, formerly known as Squawroot. It is parasitic on the roots of various trees, mainly oaks and beech trees, although this particular one was part of a clump at the base of a White Pine. But since the roots of trees intermingle underground, it could easily have been connected to an oak, which was nearby. It doesn't have leaves and flowers like most flowering plants, and what is seen above ground is really just the flowering/fruiting body.

One can come across Ontario's only lizard at Rondeau, the Common Five-line Skink. I know I have featured them in recent posts, but I thought this one was worth showing. I refer to these particular ones  as 'Love Skinks'. The male has the orange facial area. I have never seen a pair of them this close, and with the male having his right front arm over the back of the female!

While we were watching this pair, we had what we determined was likely a Short-tailed Weasel pop up on the boardwalk less than two metres of my feet, grab something and disappear. I suspect that as we had slowly walked along the boardwalk approaching this spot, the weasel dropped what it had in its mouth, and scampered away, but was reluctant to give up its meal and so returned. It all happened so fast I was unable to get a photo of the weasel. I didn't get a solid look at what it came back for, but the person I was with said it looked like a small skink, perhaps part of the extended family of the pair we were watching. I had seen young skinks in this immediate vicinity on previous visits, so it was entirely likely. Certainly an interesting time watching nature in action, much to the chagrin of the little skink.
 

Visitors to Rondeau earlier this season likely would have noticed where the park's prescribed burn efforts were this year. Several areas looked like this:

In only a short period of time, the grasses responded well, and even now, several weeks later, the growth has been quite lush, as expected. The burn keeps the numerous shrubs, some of which are not native and aggressive, in check, so that the native grasses and wildflowers continue to represent an important part of the park's vegetation mix.

I was going to feature some more early season orchids, but that may be in the next blog. And check out my new-themed blog, Life Is A Journey, at this link. I plan to post my next one on this blog very soon.

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Rondeau Butterfly Count

Just a brief note regarding Life on a Sandspit: it seems to have garnered a lot of interest and is doing well.

It is currently available at the Friends of Rondeau store (inside the Rondeau Visitor Centre), as well as the Bayview Market, just outside the Rondeau PP gates. It is also available via the Sydenham Field Naturalists, and you can see it, along with other nature publications on their web site here. I am slowly finding other local sites where it may be available, and will provide updates on those as they occur.

On to the butterfly count post.

Just a few days ago, on July 9, was the annual butterfly count, for the Rondeau area. Over the past 22 years, it has ranged from 35 to 47 species, averaging about 41 species. I don't have the final tally for this year, but based on the area that I and my colleagues did for this one, I think we will definitely be below average both for total species and individuals. I usually get about 18 species, but this year I got only 15. Of course weather is always a factor, and the cool, cloudy, misty weather this year did not bode well. And a downpour of heavy precipitation in the afternoon for some, did not help at all. Nonetheless, it can always be worthwhile to get out and see what is around. The following photos are ones I took while meandering through the several spots I normally cover. I didn't get photos of all the species I recorded, and the results vary.

This first one is the only swallowtail species I encountered, and just one individual!

Black Swallowtail

Bronze Coppers, next, are not a guarantee, and I only saw this one. Fortunately it cooperated to get the kind of photos that allowed me to separate it from the American Copper.

If this count was taken a few years ago, I would have no problem identifying this next one as a Summer Azure. However the lepidopterist taxonomists have examined the Celastrina genus a little differently, and it apparently is not quite so easy, so this one could be as Summer Azure, but I left it as Celastrina sp.

Common Wood-nymph

Eastern Comma

Eastern-tailed Blue

Little Wood-satyr

Monarchs, shown next, got off to a slow start in the count, but as the day wore on, I came across several areas where Common Milkweed was present in the hundreds of plants. One area could have even had more than a thousand plants, so getting several dozen Monarchs was not hard. If I had been able to carefully survey this largest milkweed site, I could have easily doubled the number of Monarchs, but by that time I was losing energy so I did most of my surveying via scanning the large field with binoculars.

Crescent butterflies are normally fairly common, but for some reason, that wasn't the case on this day. I had just this one Northern Crescent.

Although the ? on this next butterfly isn't all that visible, it was indeed a Question Mark.

Red Admirals, at 57 individuals, were by far the most common of the butterflies, other than Cabbage Whites at about 70.

Of course anytime one is out in such habitat, there are always other things to see, so I took advantage of the photo ops I was given. This Eastern Gartersnake was quietly sitting along the edge of one of the first trails I took. I presume it was trying to soak up some of the non-existent sunshine, as it never moved even a bit, although I got quite close.

Along the Erieau Marsh Trail there were the usual things like Great Blue Heron.....

...and even a Trumpeter Swan.

Song Sparrows were common in most areas.....

...as were Red-winged Blackbirds.

Along one area, which follows an old Railway Track, I saw three Wild Turkeys, but true to their character, did not allow me to get very close. This next photo is highly cropped.

Along this same part of the area I covered, I noted several clusters of a Species At Risk, known as Prairie Rose.

And I even saw the occasional day-flying moth that enabled me to shoot it: the Eight-spotted Forester.

Once all the results are tabulated, I will update the results for this count, but as far as I can tell in talking with several other counters, it will not be one of the better ones. Every year is different! Update: there was a total of 1777 individuals of 36 species recorded on this day, so definitely on the low end of average.

 

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Butterfly count during National Moth Week

 I had intended to get this post featuring my efforts for the Rondeau butterfly count out a few days ago. 

Really. 

But alas, many other things happened, not the least of which was processing well over 1000 images of moths taken over the last little while, including those during this past National Moth Week.

The Rondeau butterfly count was held on July 18. It was supposed to be the week before, but the weather had something to do with it. Sunny conditions are much more appealing to butterfly activity than rain, so the 18th it was.

My territory isn't some of the most productive habitat, but someone has to do it. I started off in the Erieau area, covering the McGeachy Pond trail as well as the Rail Trail. Butterfly diversity wasn't plentiful, but maybe it was too early in the day. Others described the slowness of activity before 10, and that was certainly what I experienced. Nonetheless, I did what I could to not only see butterflies but hopefully get a few photos. Certainly some of the most popular nectaring plants were past their best. I did manage to get about 8 species of butterfly here.

Certainly there was no shortage of Cabbage Whites, and this first photo shows the way one normally sees them once they have stopped fluttering.

On occasion you can catch them with their wings open.

There were a few Eastern Commas.....

...but only a single Red Admiral.

Summer Azures were not plentiful either at least along these two trails.

The day before I had been at Rondeau, and probably saw at least 100 of these Summer Azures along one trail. The difference was that at Rondeau, there are more coyotes, who don't pick up after themselves, leaving their digested food remains out in plain view and available for things like certain butterflies.

There were at least three of such coyote discards, with as many as 20 or more azures vying for a place at this dining spot.

Maybe if people out walking their dogs along the Erieau trails were not so responsible at picking up after their canine pets, I would have seen more of these azures. Just kidding, of course, and there is no certainty that the dog food remains would be as appealing to butterflies as the menu that coyotes feed on.

 This American Toad was resting on one of the boardwalks going out into the marsh.

 When there weren't many butterflies to focus on, there were a few birds. Nothing out of the ordinary, but there were the usual Yellow Warblers.....

....and Singing, er Song, Sparrows.

I next met up with Keith and Steve to check out an old field type habitat closer to Blenheim. It is getting more grown in, so it isn't as productive as it has been in years past. It was a good spot to find Common Wood-Nymphs, which although they were plentiful and easy to document when in flight, typically drop down in the vegetation and make it difficult to see let alone get a photo.

Next stop for me was along the Fargo Road railway tracks, where there is a wide vegetated area for several kilometres, some of which was adjacent to the only wooded area in my territory. There were a few more butterflies, including Monarchs, which were usually found at each site I checked out.

I got a single Question Mark.....

....and a tattered hairstreak, which I concluded was a Banded Hairstreak.

With the abundance of flowering plants attracting pollinators, such as Spotted Knapweed and milkweed species, I had a few moths to check out. Okay, they aren't butterflies but since it was National Moth Week, I thought I could include these attractive moths that upon a casual glance actually look like a small hummingbird. Hence these are known as the Hummingbird Clearwing, a member of the Sphinx moth group.

A Wild Turkey was out patrolling the tracks when I got there, but decided to disappear into the nearby wooded area before I could get a closer photo.

I did a few other spots, including the B-Fit trail on the south side of Blenheim. There are lots, and I mean lots, of Swamp Milkweed. Probably over 1000 plants in one of the pondwater storm cells that the trail goes around. I was hoping for a deluge of butterflies, but other than Monarchs, there wasn't anything else that I could see.

In a few places were some Swamp Rose Mallow, but only one was in flower. It is a species at risk in Ontario.

At one of the residences adjacent to the trail was a colourful garden full of plants that pollinators love. I saw Monarchs and a couple of Summer Azures, but that was about all. One plant stood out as unusual. It is Queen-of-the-prairie, a tallgrass prairie species but not native to Ontario. It is more common in the mid-west.

The Blenheim Sewage Lagoons were also on my list of places to check out. Unfortunately a lot of the usually best areas had been recently mowed, so there wasn't much to look at. I did see a few ducks, including Ruddy Ducks. Even though they are normally a mid-western species, there always seem to be a few hanging out here throughout the breeding season.

In one section of the hayfield which was cut and baled a few weeks ago, there was a good crop of trefoil and clover. I got my only two Black Swallowtail butterflies here.

Northern Crescents were not abundant anywhere, but I saw a few.

I also checked out the grassy fields along the north side of Blenheim. The wildflowers that were so abundant in the past are largely gone, so it is mostly grasses. Other than Monarchs, there were no butterflies to be seen, but I did note a couple of Bobolinks lingering.

All in all, it was a fairly typical count for my area. Maybe slightly fewer species, but the wet weather just prior to the count, and a slightly later date, might have made a difference. 

Additional note: Please be advised that if you are a subscriber to this blog, the blog site has indicated that sometime after July it will no longer be providing automatic email notices of when this blog is published. I will try and get a subscriber's list assembled and let you know, but in the meantime, if you would like to be advised of the publication of future posts of Nature Nuggets, let me know via this email: prairietramper@gmail.com.

The blog post appears to still have the email subscription function. The blog feeder has just indicated that it will discontinue after July.