Snowy Owl, Geese and more

Early December has settled in, bringing a bit of snow with it. And that means snowy creatures as well as the white stuff.

A few days ago I roamed around part of the former Dover Township north of home and eventually came across my first of season Snowy Owl.

At first it wasn't very close to the road, and I had a hard time determining it was an owl. But after stopping and looking more closely, and then having the owl chase a small group of Snow Buntings, it at least got close enough for a distant photo that turned out okay even after being heavily cropped. The light was good, so that helped with the result. What intrigued me was the blood patch on its lower belly. As the bird had not seemed to have trouble flying, and always appeared quite alert, I concluded that it was left over from a meal it had recently fed on. Perhaps a rabbit that drenched the owl with its blood as it was in its dying throes?

Later that day, as the sky was clear, I managed to get some photos of the almost full moon. The forecast for the actual full moon was to be cloudy, so this one a day earlier was about 99% full.

A day or so later, I headed to Ridgetown, as there are always lots of geese and swans. A few Snow Geese had been reported regularly. The light was good, but waterfowl are particularly leery about getting too close to humans during the hunting season, and these birds were always on the far side of the far pond. There were 9 Snow Geese, including one blue phase. This first image shows 3 of the adult Snows and the one blue to the right.

This next image shows a juvenile Snow Goose, still featuring its grayish young feathers

This next photo shows 7 Snow Geese. The one white goose a bit towards the right of centre and a bit closer is a much rarer Ross's Goose. It is definitely smaller than the Snow Geese.

Aside from its smaller size, a close look shows a bit more of a rounded top of the head, a bluish patch at the base of the bill and it doesn't have the classic 'grin' patch that Snows have.

Among other waterfowl were lots of Mallards.....

...and Tundra Swans, although most of the swans were either flying over or already feeding in a harvested corn field about half a kilometre away. There were only half a dozen in the lagoons.

Later that day I went to Rondeau. I had thought about going to Erieau, as it was quite windy and I was thinking about trying for some wave photos overshooting the pier, such as this one that I got a few years ago.

However the wind was more due south, and for photos like this, it is better if they are east or southeast. So I contented myself with a hike down the east side of the park's South Point Trail. There was lots of wave action, which results in erosion.

When the lake gets riled up, lake freighters sometimes come in relatively close. One hardly ever sees them from the park unless the conditions are tough. No one wants to end up like the Edmund Fitzgerald, although Lake Erie never seems to get that riled up, fortunately. This one is the Algoma Enterprise.

While watching this freighter, I also saw lots of ducks flying, and remarkably they were flying straight into the strong winds. Most were Red-breasted Mergansers, hundreds of them...

Some groups had other species mixed in, such as this group of scaup which are in the middle front of this next photo. From the looks, there were both Lesser and Greater Scaup.

A check of the campground can be worthwhile, as the extensive open but shrubby habitat is great for attracting, and observing birds. There wasn't a huge diversity on this day, and not many wanted to be photographed, but I did manage to get these next two species. American Tree Sparrows, shown first, are starting to arrive in larger numbers in the last few days.

It seems to have been a good year for this ongoing resident species, Carolina Wren, as they can be seen or heard regularly in the more open parts of the park.

A quite late Blue-gray Gnatcatcher has been seen in the campground occasionally, but not by all who have been looking for it. Maybe tomorrow, or.....

Before I had a blog...

 ....I was spending lots of time in the field, and photographing as much as I could, whether it be landscapes, flora or fauna. But I didn't start this blog until several years after I retired. 

This blog is post #500. I didn't really know where my blog adventures would take me, or how long it would last. All of the posts have included various stories of interest, at times including some ecological wisdom (I hope!), highlights of my outings, and almost 7000 photos! It has been fun, and keeps me getting out of doors, as there is always something to see and photograph. And of course the encouragement I receive through comments on this site, as well as those sent privately or in person when I meet up with folks in the field, are always motivating. I hope to continue this for quite awhile in the future.

This post will highlight some of those photos that I took before I started this blog, and are among some of my favorites over the years. Some will even hearken back to film days!

This first one is of an open savanna habitat at the north end of Rondeau. It had been burned earlier in the spring, and the vegetation responded in impressive fashion, with the Butterfly Milkweed highlighting the landscape. This was taken in June, 2009. It was almost exactly a year later when I was photographing this again, that a Gulf Fritillary butterfly came into view at a nearby patch of this milkweed. I got a single photo, and at the time it was the first photographic record to confirm this species for Ontario. (Click on the photos for a larger version.)

We don't get a lot of hard winter in this part of Ontario, but when it does arrive, it can be photogenic. This is one of the sloughs along Bennett Avenue at Rondeau, after a fresh wet snow fell and clung to the trees while the water in the sloughs was not yet frozen.

The sloughs and forest along Bennett Ave are often a place I like to target for photography. The settings vary so much depending on the time of year and weather of the day. Foggy conditions can give an ethereal mood to it.

 

 

Harrison Trail

In the next two photos, Marie is a point of interest as she explored Tulip Tree Trail. I got her to wear her yellow coat to stand out. It is always nice to have a willing subject!

On another foggy day, I wanted to capture a bit of the oak savanna near the Rondeau campground. Back in the 70s and 80s most of this was regularly mowed. Fortunately to save a bit of $$, areas not in use as important day use were left to regenerate, and this relatively narrow stretch of the park is some of the most impressive remnants of Black Oak savanna.

The same Black Oak savanna on a sunnier day.

At the southeast part of the park, there is some Pine\Oak savanna. It was managed as a campground in the late 50s and into the early 70s, when the record (at the time) high water levels of Lake Erie caused it to be closed. It regenerated nicely, and has undergone several prescribed burns to maintain the savanna feature. However with the even higher water levels of the last few years, burns have not been possible, and much of the openness has been overtaken by wetland loving shrubs, especially Gray Dogwood. For anyone familiar with the park, you might wonder about the vantage point this photo was taken. I confess, back in the day when I was the park naturalist, the light beacon, while having a chain link fence around the base of it, did not have the warning/danger No Trespassing signs that it has had in recent years. It was in about 1982 when I climbed over the fence and went up the ladder to the top of the tower and took a few shots to get this perspective. Given the changes that have happened since, I am glad I did, as it is the only one of its kind!

Pines have always gotten my interest, and is part of the reason that when we moved into Chatham, I purposely planted 4 White Pines around our urban yard. I particularly like this image. In a small crevice of a very old decomposing White Pine stub, is this seedling of the same species getting a start in life. Chances are it didn't survive, as it was just the right height for a passing White-tailed Deer to nibble on.

This is a different White Pine, which made me think of a Tom Hanks character.

Forrest Stump

The ground cover of a forest is full of diversity, but one of the things I always gravitate to are ferns.

Broad Beech Fern

The sloughs of Rondeau, especially when the water levels drop by mid summer, are typically full of ferns.

A spleenwort species

Sloughs and woodland pools are always fun to explore. While I was doing some field work assessment in Lambton County in the early 2000s in preparation for a proposed major industrial development, I came across this woodland pool. It looked perfect for Prothonotary Warbler habitat, although it was a little ways away from where one would normally expect to find that endangered species. But I went back another time under better photographic conditions with my camera as I was especially fond of capturing the three oaks across the pool. No Prothonotaries have ever been reported from this site to my knowledge, although it is well off the beaten path on private/industrial property, so it hasn't really been examined effectively. I have a large photo of this hanging up in the house.

Wetlands are challenging to explore, but so often worth the effort. This next photo is of a small part of the ~1000ha Rondeau marsh, taken from the now dismantled observation tower along the trail. More on wetlands another time.

 

Over the course of my career, I spent a lot of time on Pelee Island. Fortunately I didn't always have to spend the time, sorting out endangered species conflicts on private land. I managed to get a bit of time exploring one of the various nature reserve properties, such as Fish Point Provincial Nature Reserve at the southern tip of the island. The spring wildflowers are incredible there. This shows an expanse of White Trillium, but there are numerous other species that are just as abundant and dominant at different times.

 

 Habitat for the endangered Blue Racer was often the reason for a land use conflict. Pelee Island is the only place in Canada where the species is currently known from. It used to occur in a few places on the Ontario mainland, but as is so often the case, other human use conflicts resulted in the wildlife suffering and being eliminated from the landscape.

Night time photography is something I have played at from time to time, as readers of my most recent blog may remember. In the case of this next photo, I was on Pelee Island for some field work for a couple of days, and it coincided with a full moon rising. Normally a full moon photo would be quite large, featuring just the moon. For this photo I had a very wide angle lens to show the rocky shoreline. It was an 8 second exposure, so the gentle wave action smoothed out nicely, and it wasn't too long to make the moon show any movement. 

 On another occasion I used nothing but the light of the full moon to light up some pilings out in the lake off the shore near McGeachy Pond, Erieau.

And on another occasion I just used the full moon light for a 49 second exposure, to light up the Erieau pier showing a few gulls that were roosting there for the night, and also capturing the red light of the light beacon.

I've also had a leaning towards sunrise and sunset photos. I try and carefully plan for what I want to capture, so knowing the landscape and opportunities are critical, as is checking on the forecast weather conditions. As most serious photographers will know, light is one of the most important elements of successful photos. This next photo is a panorama of several images I captured at the north end of Bear Line in Chatham-Kent, looking out over the vast wetlands of Walpole Island First Nation. I plan to devote a blog in the near future to some of my more successful attempts at such photo types.

While landscape type photos are a mainstay of my photography, I will jump at the chance to capture photos of individuals that may tell a story.

Finding a Black-Crowned Night Heron in winter is unusual. This immature heron was so intent on finding something to eat in January that it didn't mind me parking at the road side with my camera aimed at it.

This next photo was quite unexpected, but I'll take it!

Herons are always great subjects. I have photographed a rookery of Great Blue Herons on Rondeau Bay from my kayak on occasion, which gave some great photo ops.

Great Egrets are sometimes quite tolerant of photographers, as this next one was feeding at a sewage lagoon.

On one occasion, when the water levels were low at St. Clair National Wildlife Area, upwards of 100 egrets decided to use one open spot as an overnight roost. I had to be in place and set up before sunrise, so the light was quite limited. Fortunately the egrets were rather motionless at this time before they left for their feeding grounds elsewhere, so even though the photo exposure was almost half a second, the birds showed little or no movement.

When a Great Egret flies right overhead, a backlit bird shows the bone structure in their wings. Such brilliant white in a bird against the intensive blue sky is always pleasing.

Much smaller, more secretive and less tolerant towards photographers is the Green Heron, so photo ops are not plentiful. I always like the intensive look on their face.

 

Photos are where you find them. I photographed this cottontail from our kitchen window, as it was hunkered down in a small prairie patch awaiting the snow.

Other times, photos are planned. I like the image of a Purple Coneflower in its brilliant purple colour, but decided to show it a little differently on one occasion, as the petals are still pale while emerging.

On another occasion while photographing waterbirds at Erieau, it was in March and the Ring-billed Gulls which most people don't pay a lot of attention to, are in their finest breeding plumage, and are quite territorial.

Sometimes subjects are staked out. Owls are always a crowd pleaser, and the presence of this very northern Great Gray Owl that showed up in Essex a few years ago, drew hundreds of people over the several weeks it was around.

While exploring the Rondeau marsh in my kayak, I came across several Northern Map Turtles sunning. Normally if one is walking in the presence of turtles, they are quick to escape into the water. But from a kayak, it is a whole different story. I actually had the front of my kayak within a metre of this turtle, and at one point had to carefully move the kayak back as I was too close to focus!

Coming across a cooperative, brilliant Scarlet Tanager always calls for photos. I came across this one in the wilds of Rondeau on one occasion, and perhaps it was a bit exhausted from its previous night of flight, as it was very cooperative.

On one occasion when I was doing some inventory field work for a project in eastern Chatham-Kent, I came across a small wetland which had some junk in it. But some Midland Painted Turtles were making the best of the situation.

Tired Turtles

Having spent so much time over the years at Rondeau, I had numerous opportunities to photograph deer, especially during those years when they were so abundant. This next photo is one of my favourites, scanned from a slide taken in the 80s.

Wood Lilies are often fun to photograph, especially as a single flower is emerging amidst an extensive green background.

An earlier photo of this post featured a sunset over the Walpole wetlands. As mentioned previously, I have tried to capture various images featuring sunset or sunrise photos, especially before the sun shows above the horizon or immediately after it goes behind. The effects can be dramatic, and I will focus more on that in a future post. Here are three Red-breasted Mergansers drifting along on the lake in the early morning glow of the sun, which has not yet appeared above the horizon.

But sometimes one can capture an image with it showing.

Photography is such an awesome way to spend time, especially during such chaotic times. I expect that most people have been experiencing varying levels of stress and anxiety over the past few months, and clearly the sources of stress and anxiety are not over with by a long shot. So with that in mind, here is a great way to spend a few minutes putting things in perspective. Check out this link.

Until next time....