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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An unpredictable orchid, and other Rondeau stuff

August is the time when one of the rarest orchids in Canada is to be looked for. As it turns out, the only known location for it in the entire country is Rondeau. There are some historic records for it in the southern Essex County area, where it was first discovered in Canada back in about 1950. However that woodlot is small, heavily grazed, and the orchid has not been seen there in over 25 years.

The orchid I refer to is Nodding Pogonia (Triphora trianthophora), and it is a provincially and federally endangered species. While numbers of this orchid have, on occasion, been more than 1000 plants, in recent years the numbers are considerably lower. Unfortunately there has been more than one year recently where flowering was minimal and there was no successful seed production at all.

The other day, I ventured to Rondeau in the morning to check on the orchid. I have been monitoring it via some study plots for over 30 years, and for more than a decade before that, I searched for it regularly with varying degrees of success. One of its peculiarities is that the flower buds of the entire population develop to a certain stage, then on the second morning following a significant night-time drop in temperature, all of the blooms will open up....but just for the one day. It may be several days, or more than a week before the process repeats itself. Timing is everything, and one of the things we don't know is just how much of a temperature drop is required to trigger the buds to open up.

When I arrived at the spot where there were a few plants, I saw this:

The buds were developing nicely but seemed like they had a way to go before being ready to open. So I waited for a couple of days, and this is what I found upon my return:

They had opened the morning before, and were now closing up!

This is what I was hoping to find (photos from previous, more successful times):

But it wasn't to be on this day. Perhaps later in August.........

To get a fuller appreciation of the unusual nature and complexity of this endangered orchid, check out my earlier blog post here.

Even though I was not successful on this trip to capture the Nodding Pogonia in good flower, I did manage to see a few other things. On the walk to the orchid site, I noted these seed pods developing. This is an uncommon woodland milkweed, known as Poke Milkweed (Asclepias exaltata). The seed pods are smoother and considerably slimmer than the more abundant and widespread Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca).

There were some flowering grasses along the way. Grasses do have flowers, and they are wind-pollinated. These are the flowers of Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), a typical prairie and savanna species. This photo shows the male parts--the anthers--dangling down, as well as the smaller purplish female flowers sitting tightly to the stem.

 Sometimes the flowers are distinctly yellowish rather than purplish.

On a part of the walk along the Tuliptree Trail, I came across this little critter.

 It is the nymphal stage of a Leaf-footed Bug. It is less than 10 mm in total length, and being an active little critter, was difficult to get in focus all the time.

A much larger invertebrate critter was this meadowhawk, probably a Ruby Meadowhawk, but sometimes the several meadowhawk species found in the area are difficult to tell unless you examine genitalia.

Along the beach dunes, there is a profusion of Cylindrical Blazing-star (Liatris cylindracea) coming nicely into flower. It is not a common species, but restricted to sand prairies and the sandy beach dunes of Rondeau's east beach area are perfect for it.

Maybe on my next trip to Rondeau, I will have had some success in photographing Nodding Pogonia, but if not, there is always lots of other things to focus on!

Milkweeds and Monarchs

Milkweeds are nicely coming into bloom these last couple of weeks. There are nine species of milkweed in Ontario, some of which are quite rare. Some of the more common ones include the bright orange Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) .

 One that is not uncommon, but many people would not notice it, is the Poke Milkweed (Asclepias exaltata), which grows in small numbers along the edges of lush deciduous forests.

 An uncommon species more or less restricted to prairies and savannas is Purple Milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens).

Of course the most common one is, as its name suggests, Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). It is the most aromatic, in my opinion. Fortunately milkweeds were removed from Ontario's Noxious Weed List a little more than a year ago, and that will greatly benefit the declining Monarch butterfly population.

I tried to count the number of Common Milkweeds in my yard....some of which I planted several years ago, and others that just came up on their own. I counted approximately 105 plants, the majority of which will likely flower this year.

More pollinators are found on Common Milkweed than the others, presumably due to their more aromatic nature. Bees, ants, beetles, butterflies all can be found, sometimes all at the same time. But milkweeds can also be traps, as certain sized insects may get their leg trapped in the flower parts and cannot escape. The bee in this next image is one of several bees I have noticed dangling from the flowers in my yard.

Adult Monarchs have not been plentiful yet this year. In fact I have not seen any in our yard, but clearly at least one has been there.

About a week ago, we spied at least 5 good-sized larvae on various milkweeds in our yard, and the neighbours had a couple on theirs as well. They were all about the same size, so it is likely they all were from the successful efforts of a single female Monarch passing through and laying eggs a few weeks earlier.

 A couple of the milkweeds had two larvae feeding on the leaves.

A few days later, they all disappeared. I expect they all left the milkweed plants to find a safe place elsewhere, in order to make their chrysalis where they will develop into an adult.

Go Monarchs!