A few more orchids, Bruce Peninsula style

The counties of Grey and Bruce are the hotspot for native orchids in Ontario, with at least 46 species known. Orchid enthusiasts from far and wide visit the Bruce Peninsula every year to search them out.  For a few years way back when, it used to be almost an annual event for me. Of the 46 species in this area, I have been fortunate to have seen and photographed about 40 of them. Some of them were photographed elsewhere, and for some which I was fortunate to find, I had considerable help from other orchid enthusiasts. More than one species was a long way from the car, and it was only with excellent directions that I was able to find them. In spite of the long trek and uncertainty, it was gratifying to be able to find these beauties.

I had intended to do it again in 2014, but just didn't find the time. However I did go a couple of years ago and even in a whirlwind trip, it proved to be fun and satisfying. Most of the following photos are from that trip.

One of the most widespread and easily seen orchids is the Large Yellow Lady's-slipper (Cypripedium calceolus var pubescens). This one is supporting another species of wildlife, waiting to catch an unwary insect that might be approaching to pollinate it. Can you see it?

Cypripedium calceolus var pubescens

Another lady's-slipper that is widespread and on average, much larger, is the aptly named Showy Lady's-slipper (Cypripedium reginae). It grows in clumps along damp roadsides adjacent to White Cedar thickets.

Sometimes the slipper is a deep pink colour.

Cypripedium reginae

On extremely rare occasions, and something I have only seen once, one may encounter a Showy Lady's-slipper that is completely white, and is sometimes referred to as a Snowy Showy. A beautiful clump of these used to occur a bit east of Wiarton. This photo was taken quite a few years ago, on film, and so has been scanned here. The population has since disappeared, a result of residential development.

Fens (a type of wetland) along the west side of the Bruce Peninsula are wonderful places for orchids and other neat plants. I showed a Grass Pink (Calopogon pulchellus) on the previous post, but it is such a beautiful orchid that it deserves a repeat showing here.

Calopogon pulchellus

This species has an interesting pollinating process. When a large insect lands on the upper part of the petal which has the pollen grains, the petal is 'hinged' slightly so that it along with the insect flops down onto the pistil below, thus making sure of the transfer of pollen as the insect visits flower after flower.

Another one in these fens is the Rose Pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides), about the same size as the Grass Pink, but with a decidedly different appearance.

Pogonia ophioglossoides

One of the rarer orchids of the Bruce Peninsula is also one of the smallest, known as the Green Adder's Mouth (Malaxis unifolia). It inhabits the edges of small acidic 'lakes', usually at the edge of a white cedar thicket. I had seen this orchid on one occasion more than 20 years earlier, and I wasn't sure I could even find the right lake let alone the orchid, given some changes to the road network. But I persisted, and there right at the edge of the small lake underneath some more dominant vegetation (compared to this orchid, all other vegetation is dominant), were a few that were just beginning to flower. This orchid is a classic example of one that is not showy at all; in fact the only colours are a green and a translucent green! Add to the fact that it is only a few centimetres high, has a single leaf that is at the most 3 cm wide and no wonder it is rarely found. Even when in full flower, it is only about the diameter of your finger! The petals are 'up to' 3 mm in length.....this is definitely macro material! The view of it on your screen is several times life size!

Malaxis unifolia

Close-up of a close-up!

They were even smaller than I remembered them, and there was no way to use a tripod in the wet, hummocky surroundings, so I had to carefully bend over and hand-hold the camera, macro lens (using an extension tube, of course!) and flash, attempting to balance myself without tumbling over. With the macro setup on a full frame camera, it worked out alright, but even then I had to crop the photo a fair bit.

One that is distinctly more showy than the previous one, is next: the Tall White Bog Orchid (Platanthera dilatata), a.k.a. Bog Candles or Fragrant Orchid. I like the last name especially as it is quite fragrant. I find that it smells somewhat like spicy cinnamon.

Platanthera dilatata

I will have to dig through my slides and scan some of the other orchids from my Bruce Peninsula travels....some with exotic sounding names like Arethusa and Calypso the latter of which is magical to find, and others with descriptive names such as Striped Coralroot.

Early season native orchids

The topic of orchid flowers conjures up thoughts of exotic flowers from the tropics, and the ones sometimes used as a corsage on special occasions. But not too many people think about some of the plant species which naturally occur in Ontario as being orchids. The fact is, there are approximately 60 species of orchids that are native to Ontario! And some are quite colourful and exotic looking in their own right. Rondeau Provincial Park can lay claim to 19 species growing within its confines, but the orchid capital of the province are the counties of Bruce and Grey, and especially the Bruce Peninsula, where at least 44 species of orchids are known.

One of the earliest to appear in the southwest is the Showy Orchis, which grows in rich hardwood forests. In spite of its name, it is not that showy unless you get down for a closer look. It seldom gets more than 15 cm (6 ") high, and may be obscured by taller vegetation. At Rondeau, it typically begins to bloom about the third week in May.

Showy Orchis

At about the same time, and in slightly more open woods, may be found the Yellow Lady's-slipper. It occurs as a large form and a small form, which generally occupy different habitats, but there may be some overlap.

Large Yellow Lady's-slipper

The Small Yellow Lady's-slipper can sometimes be found on some of the better quality native tallgrass prairies. There it can hybridize with an extremely rare native orchid, the Small White-Lady-slipper, especially if the flowering times overlap, which they usually do. The hybrids are even rarer than the Small Whites, and can take on some unusual but attractive colour combinations that draws the attention of serious botanists and photographers.

Small White Lady's-slipper

Small White Lady's-slipper

This species is, as its name implies, small, seldom growing over 20 cm (8") high. It does occur in one or two other places in Ontario, but in somewhat different habitats. The bulk of the Ontario population occurs on the private lands of tallgrass prairie in Lambton County. It is an Endangered Species under the various provincial and federal statutes.

Another type of Lady's-slipper is the Pink Lady's-slipper a.k.a. Moccasin Flower. Depending on the latitude, it may be in flower in May but a little farther north, will still be in flower in early June. It prefers the slightly more acidic sandy soils in sand dune systems which have developed to the point of also growing coniferous trees. It also occurs at the edges of bogs, which are not found in extreme southwestern Ontario.

Moccasin Flower

Moccasin Flower

By early June, another orchid appears in flower....the Puttyroot. This occurs in rich hardwood forests, and is not nearly as colourful as the previously shown ones. But it can grow taller than the others.

Puttyroot in flower

Puttyroot flower close-up

The Puttyroot isn't visible in flower for long. One of the ways to find it, however, is to look for their distinctive leaves during a period of late autumn to early spring when there is no snow cover. It is not a really rare species, but is certainly not common in spite of its relatively widespread range in southern Ontario.

Puttyroot leaves

An uncommon orchid in southwestern Ontario, but more common in the marl wetlands and fens of the Bruce Peninsula is the beautiful Grass Pink. In the southwest it may occur in very small numbers in wet grassy areas including tallgrass prairies.

Grass Pink

Later in June, another rare orchid appears, the Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid. In spite of its rarity, it grows in a wide variety of habitats, from high quality tallgrass prairie, to the edges of marl lakes, to fens of eastern Ontario and even along wet ditchbanks! Some type of disturbance or environmental condition to keep the vegetation open seems to be the key to survival, so at least in tallgrass prairies, the regular occurrence of fire at the right time of year is a necessity.

Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid

Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid

One of the interesting aspects of this latter species is that it is pollinated by night-flying moths, and specifically the Sphinx Moth types. I was monitoring a population of this orchid near the former Windsor Raceway in the 1970s and early 1980s. It eventually died out, and one of the main changes in its environment were the extensive night lights that were along the road and the raceway. Moths don't function normally under well lighted conditions, so it is possible that the population of orchids went unpollinated, stopped producing seed, and the older plants eventually died out. Interestingly since that time, another population appeared a few hundred metres away, in a well shaded environment.


More on orchids in a future post....

I gave blood today....

....a lot of blood! But more on that a little later.

A couple of days ago one of my friends from Walpole Island, in Lambton County, contacted me to see if I was available to visit one of the higher quality tallgrass prairies with the landowner and her family. I jumped at the chance, since I hadn't been to that particular site for more than a decade. It is quite isolated, not visible from any road, and when you are out on this prairie, from certain spots you can look in 360 degrees and not see anything except the natural setting of tallgrass prairie, oak savanna and woodland. At that time in 2002 the Dense Blazing-star, an iconic tallgrass prairie species if there ever was one, was in good shape, surrounded by other prairie specialties such as Ohio Goldenrod and Rigid Goldenrod as well as an abundance of prairie grasses. The image below is a scan of a slide I took that day.

Taken in August, 2002

The weather forecast at the time we made our plans for today, Thursday, July 3, was predominantly sunny but cool, a welcome change from the hot humid weather we had been experiencing. Prairies are wonderful, but on a hot, sultry day, they are not always pleasant or comfortable places to be in. However by late last evening, which was confirmed on radar this morning, the forecast had changed considerably (Blake will appreciate that :-). A couple of large bands of shower activity were sweeping across Michigan and heading our way, although there was the possibility that those bands would miss us. So we ventured out anyway, taking our chances.

We parked the vehicles and struck out through the oak savanna, heading south towards this special prairie.

On the way, we were treated to things such as Ohio Spiderwort, Pale-spike Lobelia and Spreading Dogbane all in flower, and scattered amongst the Bracken Fern. There would be many other plants coming into flower over the next few weeks, but those were all that we noted at this point.

Spreading Dogbane

And then it started to rain. The protection of the widely spaced oaks, with their large spreading branches so characteristic of a savanna, gave a certain amount of protection, but eventually we had to leave that and get into the open prairie. And then it really rained!

Rain gear helped, for those who had it, at least at first. Some of us were a bit too optimistic (or foolhardy?) and didn't bring rain gear. In the end, it didn't matter a whole lot, as everyone became quite drenched. Even wearing tall rubber boots didn't help a lot, as the tall vegetation we were walking through soaked our pants, then trickled down to the bottom of the boots, and soon squishing sounds were heard as we trudged along.

After a little while, the rain stopped....the first band of showers had gone by. And the rich colours of vegetation were evident....no hotspots from sun reflection to be a distraction in a photograph.

Milkweeds were the predominant species in flower. Butterfly Milkweed in particular was in fine shape, the orange providing a beautiful complementary colour to the rich greens. A few Black-eyed Susans put in an appearance as well some Hedge Bindweed.

Butterfly Milkweed

Prairie Milkweed, a.k.a. Sullivant's Milkweed, was also fairly abundant. It looks at first quite like Common Milkweed, which actually was common. But the leaves of Prairie Milkweed are more upright, have much more purple main veins, and are quite hairless below.

Prairie Milkweed

Purple Milkweed, quite a rare plant in Ontario, was also present, but not in as good a shape as the other two species. The rain didn't help their appearance either.

Purple Milkweed

 With all of the milkweeds present, one would hope to see lots of butterflies. Alas, they weren't visible....they were probably smarter than us, taking shelter somewhere. I did see a few Common Wood-Nymphs such as this one on, appropriately, an unopened Butterfly Milkweed. I am sure that on a sunnier day, the meadow would be alive with butterflies and dragonflies.

Common Wood-Nymph

And then the rain returned, harder than ever. As wet as we all were, we had had enough of the weather and mosquitoes. I mentioned giving blood at the outset. The mosquitoes were out in full force, and they must have called in reinforcements! Even those of our group that used repellent found little respite. The effective ingredient of said repellent got either washed off or sweated off, so in the end one could only stay as covered up as possible and keep swatting or brushing them away. I guess the local fauna have to have their nourishment.

There was another highlight before we got back to the vehicles. While returning through the oak savanna, a covey of about a dozen Northern Bobwhite flushed up very close by, scattering in many directions! This species is nationally and provincially endangered. Most biologists believe that the only naturally occurring population of Northern Bobwhite in Ontario occurs in the savannas and prairies of Walpole Island.

All in all, it was a fabulous time....a spectacular habitat with special friends!

Some non-feathered winged things of a local wetland

A couple of days ago, while some of the more popular summer destinations were quite busy, I spent some time at one of southwestern Ontario's less well-known sites: St. Clair National Wildlife Area. In the three hours I spent there, I saw no one else! But the wildlife and photographic opportunities were there.

SCNWA is a site along the eastern edge of Lake St. Clair. It is approximately 240 ha (600 acres) of primarily impounded wetland. Historically this area would have been much more subject to the fluctuating water levels of the adjacent lake. During lower levels it would have been tallgrass prairie, but during higher water levels it would have been cattail marsh. Some prairie species are still present along the drier dyke edges, but it is currently cattail marsh. Being impounded, that is being enclosed by a man-made dyke system, gives the managers some control over the openness of the wetland and also some of the more problematic invasive plant species.

There is a hiking trail on the dyke that leads from the small parking lot to the main cross-dyke. About a 10 minute walk from the parking lot, there is an observation tower which provides some nice views of the wetland in all directions.

Taken in May, 2012

Looking southwest from the tower

The tower is a great vantage point to get some nice sunrise shots, since one can get above the cattails and Phragmites to include more water in the scene. The image below was taken at sunrise in May, 2012.

Looking east from the tower

 I wasn't anticipating shooting many birds here, so I only had one of my lep/ode combinations of camera equipment (Canon 7D with 100-400 mm lens and a 20mm extension tube). Nonetheless I had my eyes and ears open for feathered creatures. I heard or saw things like American Bittern, Pied-billed Grebe, Black Tern, Great Egret and various Canada Geese, Mallards and Wood Duck. Cormorants passed by in small numbers, some of them deciding to roost on one of the dead cottonwood trees along a smaller dyke to the west.

At this time of year, the water surface is covered with aquatic plants, especially Fragrant Water Lily. The lily pads are excellent for insects and small frogs to bask on, and the shaded undersides provide a surface for aquatic invertebrates to cling to or small fish to take shelter under.

Water lilies covering the surface

The hot sunny day made it conducive for flying invertebrates. There wasn't an abundance of butterfly diversity.....there were Northern Crescents, some skippers and Red Admirals. The presence of a fresh looking Mourning Cloak was nice.....I usually associate them with woodlands and edges and either early in the spring or later in the fall, so it was a bit surprising to see such a fresh one in the middle of a huge wetland complex.

Mourning Cloak

Red Admiral

One of the more pleasant surprises was to see so many Monarchs. I saw at least a dozen, perhaps more, which is probably more than I have seen all spring so far. They were flitting about continually, and it was wonderful to see them on the vegetation or at times, chasing each other against a blue sky background. The erratic flight in these circumstances made it almost impossible to get a photo, but I did manage to get a few shots when one came to rest, such as this one on a Canada Thistle that should be open in a few days.

There is quite an abundance of Common Milkweed along the trail, so hopefully the numerous Monarchs make good use of it to lay their eggs on. This will give some certainty in enhancing the local production of future generations of Monarchs!

Dragonflies were buzzing around in good numbers. A few damselflies were present as well, but normally they were out over the water so I didn't get any damselfly photos.

Dragonflies which I was able to get good photos of, included:

Blue Dasher male

Dot-tailed Whiteface

Dot-tailed Whiteface showing the white face

Eastern Pondhawk

Halloween Pennant

Widow Skimmer female

 Other critters were out basking as well. This diminutive Painted Turtle was making use of an old water lily root to climb up on.