Orchid delights

 With so much happening in spring, it is hard to keep up with everything. But it is always a highlight of the season to search for and enjoy native orchids. Some are colourful, some are not, but they are always a delight to see. They are not abundant, which makes finding them all the more rewarding.

 Some places have a good variety of orchids, such as Rondeau Provincial Park, which has had 19 species found within its boundaries. Many other woodlands in the area have never had any found.  Sandy soils seem to make a difference.

The first species to appear in flower in Rondeau, one that has been considered a species at risk but hasn't quite made it yet, is Showy Orchis, which typically flowers during the last third of May. It isn't very tall, and it can be easily missed in spite of its colourful flowers.

Here is one that likely everyone has seen, at least in photos: the Small Yellow Lady's-slipper. It is widespread in Ontario, and in places on the Bruce Peninsula, can be very abundant. At Rondeau I have seen it in three locations and likely occurs in a few more. One small population seldom flowers anymore, and the larger population is well away from any easy access, so I don't get to track it down every year.

Closely related is the Small White Lady's Slipper. It is a real rarity, and in fact is legally endangered in Ontario. There are a few spots for it on Walpole Island First Nation, but none are very accessible, and even then only with landowner's permission. I haven't been to see them for several years, so this one is from my archives. Other than being at Walpole, there is only one, or maybe two, other locations for it in all of Ontario.

Purple Twayblade, shown next, is also a legislated Species At Risk. It grows in a few scattered locations, but never seems to be very plentiful even where it is found. This one was in the Windsor area, in the greater Ojibway Prairie complex. There are all sorts of rare, threatened and endangered plant species there, which isn't surprising since the entire habitat is endangered in Canada. A population that I had known about for several decades, seemed to have disappeared, likely due to the invasion of Phragmites. However some fellow orchid enthusiasts had access to some coordinates for a single plant in another section of the complex, and after a bit of a search, Marie and I were fortunate to be able to see and photograph it. Thanks John, Peter, Jeremy and Natalya!
 

One that is visible all year round is this next one: Puttyroot. However for most of the year, only its somewhat distinctive leaves are showing, especially from November through May.

By very late May and into early June, a few flower spikes appear. However in the main population I have counted almost 60 sets of leaves in the early spring, but have never seen more than 15-20 flower spikes, and usually less than 10.

It isn't showy, but it is distinctive.

This next species may still grow at Rondeau, although I haven't seen one in flower in decades. It is Hooker's Orchid. It isn't very colourful either, so one has to look a little more intensively to find it. For getting these photos, I had to travel to a sandy site in north Lambton County where I found a few plants.

 While I was there, I took the opportunity to track down a spot nearby which usually has a few Pink Lady's-slippers, also known as Moccasin Flower.

One of my goals on this trip to north Lambton was to find a tiny, but somewhat showy orchid called Ram's Head Lady's-slipper, which I have seen here before on several occasions. However on this trip, I did not see anything but leaves, so maybe next year it will be in flower. This photo was taken in 2019. A close-up looks impressive, but in reality this whole plant was no more than about 10 cm high. This location is believed to be the most southerly in all of Canada.

The flush of orchids will taper off somewhat now, at least locally. But later in the season there are a few others that I hope to find and feature on a future post.

Orchids and herps: including some Species At Risk

Here in southwestern Ontario, there is a high percentage of species that are rare and even legally at risk. With the current provincial conservative government at the helm, which just a couple of days ago made severe cuts to the Endangered Species Act, the outlook for many species looks a lot bleaker than it did just a short while ago. If you want to know the latest regarding these changes, check out this link.

On one of our continuing forays around Chatham-Kent, Marie and I went up to the trails and access points along Lake St. Clair. My goal was to see and photograph Cattle Egret which has appeared from time to time, as well as Yellow-headed Blackbirds, which have been seen much more regularly. Both species, or at least the blackbirds, are believed to be nesting in some off-shore cattail islands, and come to the mainland to feed on lawns and at feeders. Unfortunately for us, we did not see either species. But it was still a nice outing.

Great Egrets, which nest near the southern end of Walpole Island, are fairly regular here.

 On a sunny day, turtles are up basking on almost any surface they can climb on to. The Northern Map Turtle, shown on this next photo, are a legally at-risk species with the status of Special Concern.

In the next photo, a Northern Map Turtle is sharing a log with several Painted Turtles. The Northern Map Turtle is easily identified by its jagged tail end of its shell, and the yellow lines on the greenish skin, appearing like contour lines on a map. Painted Turtles are not yet officially at risk according to the Ontario status, but they are being considered.

While out doing shorebird surveys at local sewage lagoons, I came across this rather large Eastern Fox Snake, which is Endangered. Since I only had my telephoto lens, and the snake was in the grass, I only got a head shot. It was a warm sunny day, and the snake didn't stick around for further modelling, and scurried off into denser vegetation and rocks lining the edge of the pond.

There are at least 19 species of orchids recorded at Rondeau, and some begin flowering at the end of May.

The earliest species is Showy Orchis. It isn't officially at risk yet, but the Ontario populations are being monitored to some extent to see if there has been enough of a decline to warrant some At Risk status in the near future.

It isn't abundant at Rondeau, but occurs in small numbers in several locations. There is lots of what appears to be very good habitat in the park.

Large Yellow Lady's-slipper is fairly abundant at places much farther north, like the Bruce Peninsula, but at Rondeau they are very rare. I know of three locations for them, although one seems to have disappeared in the last decade, and another just had two non-flowering stems appear this year. In 1980 I discovered another and much larger population, made up of at least 50 stems. The last time I saw this population was in 1987, and in all of those years I monitored it, I never saw any more than about a dozen plants in flower. I decided it was time to check on this population to see whether it still existed after this interlude of 30+ years. It is well off any beaten path, and I wasn't certain I could find it, but find it I did. I didn't cover the whole area, but covered enough of it to discover 11 plants in flower and about that many non-flowering plants. I was quite pleased to see that in spite of the high water levels of these last couple of years, the population was doing okay.

Puttyroot is not yet officially At Risk but like other species, is being evaluated for future consideration. There are at least 5 known locations for it at Rondeau, although only one population is of any size, and at least two of the others have not flowered for several years.

Sandy sites seem to be preferred by orchids. I went north, well at least to northern Lambton County, a few days ago, on the search for two other orchids which I had seen there in the past. The extensive Ipperwash Crown Land Reserve was my destination.

Pink Lady's-slipper is not at risk, and in fact is fairly widespread in parts of central Ontario. It is rare here in the southwest, but does occur in a few places.

My primary target, however was a much smaller and difficult to find orchid: Ram's-head Lady's-slipper. It is well represented in places like the Bruce Peninsula, but is extremely rare here in the southwest. In fact this very small population in the Ipperwash area is the most southern location for it in all of Canada. There were two plants in flower, and another 5-6 non-flowering plants. I photographed the tallest one which was less than 20 cm (8") tall. The other plant was about half that size.

Another orchid which I came across was Hooker's Orchid. I only saw the leaves of several non-flowering stems on this occasion, as I was not in the right part of the Ipperwash area where they are a little more common.

A non-orchid highlight of this venture was to come across Eastern Flowering Dogwood, an Endangered species in Ontario.

While I was prowling around north Lambton I did explore other areas, but that will be featured in a future post.

Orchid hunting

As much as I like birds, I get side-tracked from time to time, and there are so many things to get side-tracked with!

Last weekend I was on the prowl for an orchid species I hadn't seen in probably 35 years: Ram's Head Lady's-slipper (Cypripedium arietinum). It is fairly widespread in Ontario and elsewhere, but never common, and certainly not here in southwestern Ontario. I knew this species was likely still around in the greater Ipperwash area, as it used to occur (and maybe still does) in Pinery. However I recall hearing years ago that the Pinery population had declined significantly.

A friend gave me some directions to where I was likely to find it. With directions in hand, and a fairly good idea of the crown land layout that it was on, I headed out. As it turned out, it was closer to the beginning of the unofficial trail than I was expecting, so actually went at least a couple of hundred metres past it. It is a tiny orchid, barely 12-15 cm in total height. The sun was bright, and so the contrast and shadows did not make it easy to see. But by going well beyond it in my search, I came across several other orchid species.

This is Pink Lady's-slipper, a.k.a. Moccasin Flower (Cypripedium acaule) and is huge by comparison. There were at least a couple of dozen of these in flower, as well as numerous sets of leaves which will not produce flowering stems this season.

Another orchid I came across was Hooker's Orchid (Platanthera hookeri). I only saw basal leaves, no flowering stems, although it is more plentiful at another part of this site, and could be in flower now. It isn't nearly as colourful as the previous orchid, obviously, and one can easily walk past without noticing it.

Flower of Hooker's Orchid

I saw leaves of the Large Yellow Lady's-slipper, but none in flower. Again, it is more common elsewhere, not far from the Hooker's Orchid, and could be in flower very soon.

These next two photos show the target species. As mentioned, it is quite small, and easily overlooked. The macro lens used almost to its fullest was necessary to get these shots. I noted only two flowering stems and another 5 non-flowering plants. It is considered very rare in southwestern Ontario, and perhaps the only remaining population in Lambton County. It is likely the southernmost population in Canada.

Of course on the sandy pine forests of the Ipperwash area, there are other interesting, non-orchid species. Since I don't see them in Chatham-Kent, I took advantage of a healthy population of several species here just waiting to be photographed. This first species is Fringed Polygala (Polygala paucifolia), sometimes known as Gaywings. It really is a pleasing sight on the shaded forest floor.

A less colourful but still interesting plant is Starflower (Trientalis borealis).

In a nearby location, the Karner Blue Sanctuary owned by Lambton Wildlife, is a good population of Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis). Wild Lupine is critical for the survival of the Extirpated Karner Blue Butterfly, which used to occur at this site. It formerly occurred in the St. Williams Forestry Station in Norfolk County near Long Point, as well as Pinery Provincial Park. Some of the reasons for this dainty butterfly's extirpation are controversial, but it is largely due to some ill-advised management of the habitat. And that could be the topic for a completely separate blog post.