We awoke to a chilly foggy day last Friday so we got out to see the last of the mist rising off of the Still River and to see some dewy blossoms. On a sunny Saturday we went down Hwy 529 to see a variety of insects feeding at the bunches of milkweeds.   Some samples:

Still River near Jane Steet:

Wrights Marina:

Wrights Black Eyed Susan:

Amy’s flock:

These juveniles have their flight feathers now:

Monarch caterpillar and tachinid(?) fly, one eating leaves the other getting nectar:

Great Golden Digger Wasp is a beneficial wasp, known to gardeners:

Hummingbird clearwing moth never lands to collect nectar but hovers, like a hummingbird.

Great spangled fritillary, mentioned in the butterfly section of Setting up a Wildlife Garden, a useful resource, especially for Ontarians.

It is sharing its space with an orange belted bumblebee:

Bee and hoverfly sharing:

This rattlesnake was purposely killed by an ignoramus who misinterpreted the roadside signs that say, “Brake for snakes.”

http://www.massasauga.ca/html/stewardship/

Ok, which fritillary is this one?

Bees, foraging:

Grasshopper pauses before launch:

European Paper Wasp (?):

Judging by its nice new wings this might be a first local generation Monarch.  I hope so as I have seen very few migrants this year.

Bombus getting nectar while the sun shines ….

ditto:

Hairstreak.   You chose which one:  Edwards or  Banded  or Hickory

http://home.cogeco.ca/~lunker/distributionbf.htm

Ontario has recently lost three butterflies to the influences of habitat destruction; the Karner Blue (last seen in Ontario in 1991), Frosted Elfin and the Persius Duskywing. All three of these butterflies are closely connected to lupines which are virtually non existent in Ontario now due primarily to habitat destruction. Interestingly enough a contributing factor to the habitat destruction, aside from the obvious urbanization, is man’s ability to control and arrest wildfires……an accomplishment in which we take great pride and rightfully so. Wildfires, however menacing to humans, are an essential element to the continuance of lupine ecology. Wildfires are responsible for suppressing competing growths which take over and choke the lupines out of their preferred environment. Since southern Ontario is one of Canada’s most rapidly developing areas it is probably only a matter of time before other butterflies such as the Wild Indigo Duskywing, Sleepy Duskywing, Mottled Duskywing, Scalloped Sootywing, Duke’s Skipper, Dusted Skipper and the Garita Skipper (all of which are on the endangered list) succumb to the pressure unless dramatic steps are taken.

Duskywing having lunch with milkweed bug and wasp:

and now with an ant …

Ornate checkered Beetle with a Skipper in the background:

beetle with tachinid(?) fly:

A break from all of these bugs….

Great Black Wasp in the shade …

White Admiral, head-on:

Whoever did the trimming here seems to be a lot smarter than the person who trimmed the roads in the Britt area!

A big patch of pickerel weed at Big Lake:

Another species of wild rose is blooming now, a nice way to end this lonnnng post.

Uh, oh!

We visited with kith and kin on July 12/13 and enjoyed some wonderful hospitality and conversations.  Made some pix also.   A sampling:

Gaily decorated pine tree on the road to Willisville.  The little rectangle, bottom right, is a solar collector so this must be quite interesting at night.

White quartzite of the La Cloche Mountains ….

“With an estimated age of 3.5 billion years, the La Cloche Mountains are one of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth. The hills comprising the La Cloche Mountains are believed to have once been higher than today’s Rocky Mountains. They remain among the highest altitudes in Ontario.”

Frood Lake from Willisville …

Lake Manitou on a windy afternoon from Bass Creek Resort …

Sunset at Bass Creek Resort …

July 13th sunrises along Bidwell Road towards Manitouwaning …

Sandhill Crane poses for photo.

High Falls picnic site on Highway 6 between Manitowaning and Sheguiandah, about 9 m high …

Morning mists off of Pike and Bass Lakes as seen from Bidwell Road …

Iconic garage at Bass Creek Resort …

Bass Creek …

Some birdies in the Irish Line roadside thickets:

Cedar Waxwing ,  quite different (white forehead, yellowish underbody, white undertail) from the Bohemian Waxwing, which we see here during the winter.

This Yellow Warbler was busy flitting from branch to branch while feeding on flying insects.

A glimpse of an American Redstart …

One of the little Monet-like creeks under Irish Line.

Blue Vervain is blooming now …

We did a quick tour of Manitowaning …

and saw this lighthouse built in 1886:

… and Heritage Park showing the Norisle and Burns Mill:

On our way to Wikwemikong First Nation …

Holy Cross Mission, oldest Roman Catholic Church in Northern Ontario…

Ruins of the original church (immediately to the right of the current church above)

On the way back we stopped in Little Current to inspect the MV Victory I, tied up at the town docks.  It was commissioned from the St Laurent earlier this year.  Apparently she’ll be visiting Parry Sound on Aug 9th.

Looking towards Dreamer’s Rock, a good place to let the doggie have a drink and a run…

Trestle  remnants at a tributary of the Spanish River near Worthington:

A great trip!   Always something new to learn!

Save

Here is a collection of beasties photographed on Riverside Road, Britt on Sunday afternoon and on Monday on my way back from Parry Sound.

Clouded Sulphur Butterfly and a hoverfly …

Translucent wings …

On common vetch ..

One of the few local  “Canadian serviceberry, chuckleberry, currant-tree, Juneberry, Shadblow Serviceberry, Shadblow, Shadbush, Shadbush Serviceberry, Sugarplum, Thicket Serviceberry”  berries unaffected by some sort of blight.

This looks like one of the dauber wasps …

Hover fly:

Probably another hover fly …

Fritillary, perhaps Aphrodite

This Hummingbird Clearwing Moth visited for a few seconds, always hovering to take nectar …

Moving to another bloom with proboscis coiled …

Refuelling …

One of the few Monarchs I’ve seen this year, possibly laying eggs on the milkweed leaves …

Looks like an orange belted bumblebee …

Another one, the only one I’ve seen on wood …

“Who knows what danger lurks …..?” under the milkweed blossoms.

I just found a Peterson “Field Guide to Moths” to ID this one  and have narrowed it down to one of the Grass Veneer Moths.  The whiter ones I posted earlier are other GVMs.

I didn’t see these Small Eastern Milkweed Bugs until much later last summer.  Apparently a lack of observation!

And, finally, for a change of pace, a Pickerel Weed just starting to bloom …

The next post will feature our visit to Manitoulin Island on July 12/13.   We’ll get a break from all of those bugs!

Although we got out to make some pictures we haven’t been keeping up with processing them and getting them onto this blog.  So here is a big bunch taken last Friday and Saturday.

This year’s crop of Mallards are growing up quickly ….

“Common chicory is also known as blue daisy, blue dandelion, blue sailors, blue weed, bunk, coffeeweed, cornflower, hendibeh, horseweed, ragged sailors, succory, wild bachelor’s buttons, and wild endive.”

Here it attracts a variety of bees and hoverflies to its nectar:

I tried to ID this moth but couldn’t find it in my books or on the Internet.  This is usually an effective website, but not with this specimen.   Maybe it gets lost in the “selected moths of Ontario”.

This colourful Virginia Ctenuchid Moth was a lot easier to identify:

This is the unfortunate progress of those plum blossoms I wondered about earlier this year.  Some sort of blight, methinks.

Diana’s Mallows:

Cow Parsley going to seed along the roadsides …

Meadow Fritillary, I think.  I couldn’t get a photo of the underside or dorsal view as this butterfly briefly lit on a milkweed and quickly flitted off.

Stormy weather at Big Lake …  I have been experimenting with B&W, with the help of Andrew and Ray.   Interesting exercises for the (discerning(?)) eye.

Meadowsweet is starting to bloom now.  ( I know it as wild spirea.)

This (two-spotted (?)) bumblebee worked hard harvesting nectar from a milkweed plant …

Monarch Butterfly caterpillar on its only host,  Common Milkweed.

Hoverfly harvesting nectar on milkweed.

We had a couple days of stormy weather, providing some interesting skyscapes over our landscapes.

Big Lake, where I met Jonathan, a Ryerson photography graduate, now developing kids’ learning apps for TVO, on a motorcycle tour of Northern Ontario.   We had a good chat, while admiring these cloud formations…..

Pickerel weeds at Big Lake …

Bold sky,  looking west off of Hwy 69 at the old Dream Inn.

You’ll have a break from this blog for a few days as we’re off to Manitoulin to visit with kith and kin.   (I’ll probably take some pictures too.)

Save

We ventured forth early and used two cameras, the FZ1000 for distant wider views and the GH4 with Panasonic-Leica 100-400 mm lens for narrow views and close-ups.  This is some of what we saw:

Key River looking west from the Hwy 69 Bridge through the long lens.  The foreshortening on a cloudy day gives an interesting effect.  I will experiment further with foreshortening on cloudy days.

We did the Hwy 607 Loop, then went down Hartley Bay Road before having breakfast at the French River Inn.  Some photos have been converted to monochrome just for variety … as the colours were muted. This next bunch were made with the FZ1000.

Hwy 69 near Henvey Inlet FN Reserve:

Hwy 607A:

Hwy 607:

Looking south at Hwy 607 bridge over Murdock River:

Abandoned farmhouse on Hartley Bay Rd:

Ham Lake from Hartley Bay Rd.:

On the way home after breakfast we visited Hwy 522, Jamot  Lumber Road, and the Ludgate Trail to the bridge.   The fog had lifted leaving lots of water droplets behind so I used the very long lens on the GH4 camera.

At the Hwy 522 pond between the Park and Pakesley crossing we saw these two unidentified insects …

The upper one might be a hover fly and the bottom one could be one of the hangingflies.

Some of the thistles were starting to bloom…

Nice drops …

Along Jamot Lumber Road, some Heal-all caught some water droplets:

… as did this Daisy Fleabane:

Even though it hadn’t rained, the few hours of morning fog helped with the moisture demand for all of the vegetation…

Thistles  blooming at the first Bailey Bridge.

New Tamarack cones are forming at the quarry…

Water drops on Fireweed …

A good crop of Elderberries this year …

Some leaves, like this Poplar, are more hydrophobic than others …

A beautiful wet fern on the Ludgate Trail…

I am looking forward to learning more about picture-making on cloudy days.  You might be interested in viewing some of the above images “up close and personal”, by clicking on them.

Soon we’ll be seeing some Dogbane Beetles emerging & mating.

Lots happening out there.

We went for a hour’s drive along Riverside Drive this afternoon to see what we could see.  Actually we spent 70 minutes, which included a few conversations along the way.  Here are some samples of what we saw:

Along the Riverside, above Mr Lachance’s Mill, there are several colonies of Staghorn Sumac.  A good place to look at both the male plants and the female plants.

From this very useful website:

http://www.isaontario.com/content/staghorn-sumac-rhus-typhina

“The pale yellowish-green flowering clusters of the male plants can reach about 30 cm long. They are much bigger, by half again, than the greener and more compact clusters of flowers of the female plants. Flowering starts in May and continues into June, and the fruits are ripe from July onwards. The flowers are highly attractive to a diverse array of insects that serve as pollinators. Many kinds of bees, wasps, flies and beetles can be found visiting the flowers. Staghorn sumac is a valued source of nectar for honey production. It is interesting that the flowers of the male plant provide both pollen and nectar to pollinators mostly in the morning, and the female flowers provide just nectar in the afternoon. Thus, the pollen is removed from the flowers of male plants in the morning, but after they stop secreting nectar, the insects switch their attention, and transfer pollen, to flowers of female plants when they secrete their nectar in the afternoon.”

Here is a female flower on the other side of the road:

Further information about the Staghorn Sumac, special to this part of the world is here.

A little nearby is a patch of wild rose, some in bloom, some with well developed rose hips …  (Many many years ago I made homemade wine from rose hips … a healthy source of Vitamin C.  In those days I was a fan of Linus Pauling and made sure that we got ample doses of Vitamin C during the winter!)

This much maligned plant is starting to bloom now.   Goldenrod pollen is NOT a cause of hayfever, ragweed’s pollen is.

A little further west we saw this fellow singing in the drowned tag alders along the shoreline.

It moved down into the Joe Pye weed, to keep an eye on the photographer sticking a lens out of a vehicle window.

Then a little bit closer, alternating its gaze from eye to eye …

After the above Yellow Warbler flew off, this Eastern Phoebe appeared and show us its rictal hairs … similar to that of the American Redstart that I photographed a month or so ago:

A little further on we stopped in front of Chuck and Shirleys to photograph this not unpleasant, Broadleaved Dock.

This Clouded Sulphur was hidden in the weeds …

Several European Skippers were  skipping.

Bumblebees were collecting nectar and pollen …

At the end of Riverside these bindweeds are still blooming …

And this waspy fellow was visiting the “Milkweed Patch”.  Lots of bees and other small insects.  Alas, no Monarchs.

Pretty flower near the Marina…

Prunus Serotina enlarging before ripening …

A few raspberries are still available for the taking …

Potentilla with visitor …

Two hazelnuts in their husks are maturing from those blossoms we saw in March /April.

Hollyhocks, reminding me of some that were planted on an Okanagan orchard almost 100 years ago.

Quite a rich environment, yielding lots to see/photograph in an hour!

I am having trouble with the technicalities of this post and an unable to provide links.   So you might want to google some of the terms above.

Here are some pix taken on trip to Parry Sound on American Independence Day …

Tall Meadow Rue, one of the many thalictrums in Ontario.

Pickerel Weed in the little stream flowing into Big Lake…

Nice lighting on the White Water Lilies on the pond near Big Lake …

Having a rest for a bit  …

Unknown cultivar in a very nice patch on the Shebeshekong end of Woods Road.  It was in the company of day lilies and a patch of …

… Black Eyed Susans, the first seen this year:

Here is that spectacular lily at Lane Family Pharmacy Parry Sound again, 3 days later than the earlier photo …

Northern Bush Honeysuckle is blooming now.

As is the Winterberry  aka Black Alder Winterberry, Brook Alder, Canada holly, Coralberry, Deciduous Holly, Deciduous Winterberry, False alder, Fever bush, Inkberry, Michigan Holly, Possumhaw, Swamp Holly, Virginian Winterberry, or Winterberry Holly.

Blueberries are ripening …

This is a well-restored wetland after a CPR derailment of tank cars of ethylene about 12 years ago at the Shebeshekong crossing.

Who is Francis Pegahmagabow?

Hopefully this recently unveiled statue will inform residents and visitors of the famed WWI sniper.  In his later political life Pegahmagabow  became well known to the Department of Indian Affairs as he was reluctant to become subservient to the will of the local Indian Agent, John Daly.

The Wikipedia entry  has this background on the statue:

“A life-sized bronze statue of Pegahmagabow was erected in his honour on National Aboriginal Day, June 21, 2016, in Parry Sound, near Georgian Bay. The figure has an eagle on one arm, a Ross rifle slung from its shoulder, and a caribou at its feet, representing the Caribou Clan that Pegahmagabow belonged to. The Eagle was his spirit animal. The artist Tyler Fauvelle spent eight months sculpting the statue, which spent a further year in casting. Fauvelle chose to erect it in Parry Sound rather than Wasauksing to reach a larger public and educate them on the contributions of First Nations people to Canada.”

This photo was taken from the parking lot near the walking trail at the Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts.

This Kestrel  quickly left its distant perch after I stopped the car on Hwy 529, near Big Lake:

Here is a new, introduced pest, the Harmonia axyridis , [not to be confused with our native “Ladybug”].  The above article gives a very good summary of the introduction of this beetle into North American agriculture but neglects to say that the cause of the demise of the native ladybugs was due to huge applications of organophosphate and organochloride pesticides (eg parathion and DDT) in post WWII North America.  Now pesticides  for the control of these Asian beetles is on the market.

Some of the blueberries, especially the parched ones are starting to ripen.  We hope that the recent rainfall will keep them  going until the next rainfall.  We need another month of beneficent weather for a good crop.

Bluet Damselflies are still abundant.

And the watershields are blooming in different spots.  (influenced by water temperature and light?)

This year I’ll try to follow these to eventual seed production:

A fence post scene that I often photograph in the winter:

I thought that I’d document this work by the roadside “weed” mower in case I get into a discussion with the “officials” supervising his work.

[It might be easier to “relocate” some more plow markers to this corner … only to guide the snowplow of course!]

Those milkweeds are usually a good spot to see Monarchs and Clearwings.  Not so this year.  No Monarchs butterflies, one Monarch Caterpillar.  Lots of Clearwings for two days.  Now lots of bees and Asian beetles (confused with ladybugs).

We made a quick tip to PS to get meds and stopped a few times on the way back … in very variable weather.

First a beautiful lily starting to bloom at Lane Family Pharmacy in Parry Sound …

And then some newly irrigated flora along Skerryvore Road …

Pixie cups …  with an indication of how it spreads:

One of the Wood ferns:

Water droplets on Butter and Eggs.

A break in the storm clouds on Hwy 529…

Skerryvore Community Road pond …

Twin Rivers from bridge…

No Canada Day Fireworks as I wasn’t quite up to par to make it.  Next year!

We got up early to check out a possible site at Big Lake to photograph the Milky Way.  Some pix from the occasion:

Arrival about Sunrise + 40 minutes, with the long lens:

A little later with the Nokton 10.5mm f/0.95 lens, which I’m going to use for some night photography.

Back to the 100-400 mm fully extended:

The Damselfly Bluets were out in great profusion …

The first Monarch Caterpillar that I’ve seen this year.

A little further down Hwy 529, Twin Rivers was calm as the morning mist evaporated:

Later in the day we went to Sudbury to get some parts for my boat and chatted with Brad, a naturalist who knows a lot about Burwash.  He suspected that the nestlings that I showed in the previous post are Peregrine Falcon chicks.  The nesting box seems awfully low to the ground for Peregrins, though:

Happy Canada Day!

Save