Luminous Spring Scilla
April 5th, 2010
I love this time of year.
I love it because this is when luscious carpets of little blue flowers--so blue they almost seem to glow--spring up in the northwest woods of Mud Lake. They're usually the first flowers I see in spring. They smell wonderful.
In past years, I wasn't "into" flowers as a naturalist (though I always enjoyed the sight) so I didn't try to identify them. Now I am. But I tried several wildflower field guides and came up empty. Google finally cleared up the mystery for me, courtesy of a comment on this page: it's scilla, specifically scilla siberica (Siberian Squill), and it's not a wildflower at all, at least not in this part of the world! It's a garden flower that spread to Mud Lake from nearby Britannia, and naturalized.
The sun was slipping in and out of the clouds. Each time it peeked out, I shot the flowers backlit. That seemed to give them the glory they deserved.
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An Afternoon at Jack Pine Trail (part 2)
April 4th, 2010
In terms of friendliness of wildlife, Jack Pine Trail is Mud Lake and then some. Ducks, geese, chickadees, nuthatches, chipmunks and squirrels have all learned, from repeated contact, that the humans there are no threat to them and may provide food on request. Even species I normally expect to be quite skittish, such as hares, grouse, and juncos, are more trusting in this area. (I once had a Ruffed Grouse at Jack Pine Trail step out from under a bush and walk right up to my feet. Alas, I didn't have a camera with me then, and I have yet to re-encounter him.)
The White-Breasted Nuthatches will stalk you, the way chickadees do at Mud Lake. Flitting from trunk to trunk as you walk by, at eye level, doing their game best to catch your attention. This makes for some excellent photo opportunities.
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The woods that day were absolutely teeming with migrant Golden-Crowned Kinglets. The most kinglets I've ever seen in one place--and that's saying something. These tiny birds, barely larger than hummingbirds, are among the forerunners in songbird spring migration. They're apparently more tolerant of cold than warblers, because they migrate earlier in the spring and later in the fall, and also winter in the states, while most warblers continue on to the tropics.
The Golden-Crowned Kinglets were doing what they usually do, which is to say, mocking me. I've told this story before. It's like a big game of keep-away. The kinglets must never give me an opportunity to photograph their little selves without ten intervening branches, or motion blur, or poor lighting, or, if they do, they tilt their heads away so I can't catch those beautiful bright yellow crown stripes. Or, if I get all those things--a Golden-Crowned Kinglet out in the open in good light showing his crown and not moving a muscle--then my camera will mysteriously fail to auto-focus on it. And then it flits away.
"Oh, you mean this golden crown?"
Slate-Colored Junco
These are the other birds that the woods were teeming with. They hopped in front of me on the path in little foraging flocks, and sang from up in the trees: an unmusical but resonant trill. Like kinglets, this is their time for moving through Ottawa on their way to their breeding grounds.
Song Sparrow
Song Sparrows are one of our most common and widespread breeding sparrows, and the first to come back in migration. They're everywhere now, singing their song of 2-3 distinct whistles followed by a trill.
Mallard
"Do I hear the sweet, sweet sound of visitors to Jack Pine Trail? And do the visitors have food for me?"
An Afternoon at Jack Pine Trail (part 1)
April 3rd, 2010
I didn't expect to see much at Jack Pine Trail this afternoon. I figured most birds and animals would be laying low, hiding from the heat.
I was wrong. It was hopping with activity.
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I was on the boardwalk when a couple of ladies came by and told me about the "wild rabbit" a little ways down the trail, who had "beautiful colors." I thanked them and walked on. This news didn't excite me much since rabbits are a dime a dozen at Mud Lake.
Then it struck me: this is deep woods and cattail marsh. There are no open, meadowy areas for cottontails to hop around in. And what did they mean "beautiful colors"? Cottontails are brown.
When I found him, my suspicion was confirmed: their "wild rabbit" was a Snowshoe Hare! One who was in the process of shedding his white winter coat for a new brown one. Not sure I'd call him beautiful in this state--dishevelled, maybe. He was much tamer (and much less nocturnal) than the hares I've seen on Old Quarry Trail, so I was able to get a close-up.
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The chipmunks are quite tame on that trail, too.
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Apologies for the close-up if you are not one of those weird people who thinks snakes = OMG CUTE. I am in fact such a person.
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Red Squirrel sez: it's hot. Way too damn hot. April 3rd. 29 degrees. Mother nature: you're fired.
American Crow sez: there are ways to beat the heat, you know.
Protein For A Muskrat
April 1st, 2010
A puzzling sight at Mud Lake yesterday. Why was a muskrat pushing a ball in front of him as he swam?
The mystery cleared up when he went ashore...
The item was in fact a freaking big bivalve. (Seriously--how does a little wetland like Mud Lake support a shellfish of that size? It looks like it belongs in the ocean!) A mussel perhaps. And he was not pushing it along, but had somehow managed to get a grip on the thing with his teeth.
He settled down, gnawed the shell open, and feasted.
And then, that was one happy muskrat. He actually splashed around in the water afterwards.
Mourning Cloak
March 31st, 2010
Mourning Cloaks are among the first butterflies to appear in the spring. They're tough to photograph well, especially when they lie camouflaged on dead leaves! I cheated with this one by stealing some saturation from the leaves and giving it to him :-)
Gilded
March 30th, 2010
Every now and then I like to remind people how beautiful common-as-dirt European Starlings really are.
Foreign Language Skills
March 28th, 2010
Sometimes you just suspect it, but then other times it's undeniable.
I had scattered sunflower seeds on a rock and a chickadee landed there to pick through them. At just that time, a red-winged blackbird some distance away, at the top of a tree, uttered a RWB-style alarm call, i.e., a call used to warn other red-winged blackbirds that a potential predator, such as a raptor, is near. (You've probably heard it before: a high-pitched piercing note, falling in tone, or sometimes three or more such notes in quick succession. The latter is a more urgent call, I suspect, and is the one he used in this case.)
The chickadee made a sort of startled chirrup, left the seeds behind, and immediately dove for cover in the nearest bush.
I was also mildly surprised and thoroughly pleased to run into a Wild Turkey at Mud Lake this morning. He was right at the start of the trail, off Cassels. He slipped away down a side path as I approached. Turkeys tend to be fairly sedentary, so there's a good chance I'll get to photograph him on some future visit before he moves on.
Wood Duck Pair at Riverain Park
March 24th, 2010
Found them again.
They're still skittish, as new arrivals so often are. They only allowed me a few shots before they got fed up and flew to the far shore.
Early Arrivals
March 23rd, 2010
Canada Geese quench their thirst at the ice edge of the Ottawa River.
Welcome back, Wood Ducks!
March 22nd, 2010
One mated pair, Rideau River by the tennis club.
Now it's time to break out the camera again.
Lots of Mallards and Canada Geese at Riverain Park today--and two men feeding them what looked like hunks of sesame bagel. There were geese in the mix who were noticeably smaller and slimmer than the rest. I don't know that they were quite small enough to be Cackling Geese. In fact after years of birding, I still haven't added that species to my list. I've seen a lot of smallish Canada Geese, but I could never be sure. Canada Geese come in many sizes and only the smallest of them has (recently) been classified as a separate species.
Anyway, what was interesting about this was the sheer aggression of the small geese. The big ones--the type you usually see in parks around here--seemed to understand how this worked: everyone would get their share, there was no need to push and shove. The small geese were trying to chase everyone else away and get all the bagel to themselves. And the big geese let themselves be bullied!
South of Hurdman Station and north of Riverside Hospital, the Rideau goes through a wooded area. It's not usually productive for more than very common species. But in late March and early April, it's a spring migration gold mine. It floods. Often it floods so much that the flood engulfs the bike path, and you need waterproof boots to get through. Wood Ducks, Hooded Mergansers and Ring-Necked Ducks are attracted to it, as are thrushes and kinglets: the ducks swim amidst the flooded vegetation searching for food, while the songbirds hop around on bushes and logs above the water, picking out insects. In spring 2008 I twice saw a Fox Sparrow there. I've never found that species at any other time or place.
This spring, though, I fear my gold mine will run dry. Literally. There's no flood. There was not enough melting snow, not nearly enough, to create a flood. And throughout Ottawa the story is similar, fields and waterways that flood and attract water-loving migrants will not do so this year. That's the price we pay for our mild winter and early spring.
I almost hope for one more big snowfall to come and fix us up.....almost.
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