Canoeing Bell's Lake

Last Friday I had the chance to canoe into Bell's Lake, a small undeveloped lake near here that seems like northern wilderness when you get in there.  It's not very large, but completely surrounded by forest (except for two old boathouses), mostly with a swampy shoreline and dead trees falling into the water, and beautiful scenery, at least on the bright sunny day we enjoyed.

Parts of the route were narrow channels like this, and parts widened out into actual lakes or large inlets.  We were followed along the shore by both kingfishers and kingbirds, and saw at least one kingfisher dive into the water to catch a tiny fish, though usually they quickly flew away, squawking their raucous call.  In the second picture below you can clearly see the white band across the bottom of the tail that marks the kingbird; it's an insect eater, catching them on the wing while swooping out over the water.  The first picture is the kingfisher, with its distinctive dark and reddish bands across its breast.

 

 

You have no idea how hard it is to hold a canoe steady in the water, trying to get a picture like this one.  I was in my single person canoe, in which I use a kayak paddle, and there didn't seem to be any breeze blowing, but as soon as I got in position the canoe seemed to instantly slip out of position.  I tried several time to get this patch of water lilies in the foreground of this picture, and even then ended up with a blurry background!
 

My partner in crime spotted these flowers on the shore of an island, and thought I should venture in among the dead branches to get a picture, so I ducked my head and did my best to appease him.  I believe this is actually a swamp rose.

There were lots of reflections too,sometimes of the entire horizon, and sometimes of the dead trees along the shoreline or in the water. Made for lots of photo opportunities.

We only paddled for two and a bit hours, but this is clearly one place I'm going to come back to.  A fascinating shoreline, wildlife, and an easy paddle, only 15 minutes from home.  Thanks Steve.

Places, #1 - Petrel Point

I started this blog to make note of things I observed over the passing seasons in the rural landscape here in the Beaver Valley in southern Ontario.  But I have often thought of writing about other things.  The most common is simply other places, so starting now, I'll occasionally be posting a few photos and observations about other places we visit.  (The other story I'd like to share is about 'The Making of a Garden', our garden, but that will have to wait awhile).

When we visited Georgian Bay the other day, we carried on west to the Lake Huron shoreline, and the nature reserve owned by Ontario Nature at Petrel Point.  This is one of the most fascinating little bits of habitat in southern Ontario.  A shoreline 'fen', it's best known for its orchids, including this Grass Pink, or Calopogon, above.  In my mind it's one of the most beautiful pink colours of any pink flower.

Another orchid species that grows here and a few other places along the sandy flat Lake Huron shore is the paler pink Rose Pogonia.  Neither of these are fabulous pictures, but there is a boardwalk to protect the sensitive habitat from trampling, and we carefully stayed on it, getting what pictures we could from there.

This Tall White Bog Orchid is a distance away, but with some heavy cropping you get the idea - growing in the wet sand, surrounded mostly not by what looks like grass, but by wetland sedges and rushes.

The fen habitat is unique.  Although Hudson's Bay is bordered by thousands of square kilometres of it, this far south in Ontario it is very rare.  It occupies the wet band behind the shoreline edge, often marked by a low dune or ice ridge, and the first rise to higher sandy ground where the taller trees grow (on the left above).  Especially in the spring, it is usually 3-4" deep in water, and it is a very harsh alkaline environment for plants. It's easily subject to trampling, so all access to this fen is by the boardwalk.

Orchids my be the plants that draw people to visit, but there are a number of unusual other plants too.  Above is the very unusual flower of the Indian Plantain, composed of little five-ridged capsules, held vertically at the top of a 3 foot stalk.

And finally there are the insectivorous plants - here the Linear-Leaved Sundew, and the Pitcher Plant, both of which gain nourishment in part by capturing small insects and dissolving them.  The 3 or 4 dozen vertical Sundew leaves in this picture all have tiny hairs which wrap around their victims; the reddish 'pitchers' of the Pitcher Plants have downward pointing hairs that trap their victims.  Both very unusual plants to see - here growing in profusion.

The Fen

A couple of weeks ago I finally got a chance to walk through a Bruce Trail property in the valley that has a small 'fen'.  A fen is an unusual type of wetland, much more typical of the Hudson Bay Lowlands.  Basically it is open or semi-open wetland, typically ankle deep in water, with a lot of grasses and sedges, and sometimes as in this case, shrubs and a few trees.  So this would properly be termed a 'shrub fen'.

I could only walk to the edge of it, because of the water.  But even there you could find some of the interesting species that make a fen unique.  This is the blue flag, or wild iris, growing along the edge of the fen.  A bright splash of colour in an otherwise green picture.

Some ferns are typical of fens too.  This is a royal fern, also found along the edge of the wetland.  Without rubber boots I couldn't get far beyond the edge anyway.

The royal fern is one of those ferns that carries its spores on a separate fertile part of the frond.  Although this emerges green, it quickly turns grown, and will eventually release the spores inside the brown spore cases or 'sori'.

I hope that someday we can develop a side trail from the Bruce Trail that will enable people to have a look at this unique fen in the Beaver Valley.  In the meantime, I'm cross-listing this post to Alphabe-Thursday.

Reflections

The wetland we walked around was beautiful in its own right, not just for its bright yellow water lilies and bullfrogs.  I particularly like the reflections, even though the water was not glassy still. 

Even shooting into the sun from a shaded spot, you get quite a nice effect, though a little dark.

Fallen logs lining the edges of ponds like this are ideal for turtles, which need to sun themselves to build up their body temperature.

Frogs in the Wetland

Frog Habitat

I promised some pictures of the frogs we saw Friday at the Flesherton Hills wetland, so here they are.  The large beaver pond was circled with reflections, dotted with lily pad rafts, and lined with scattered fallen logs.  Ideal frog habitat, and frogs were there by the dozen - at this time of year it's the big bullfrogs that are out and about most, calling their deep chug-o-rum - sitting on logs, on the mud, or in the water, just their head above the surface.

A closer look begins to reveal the individual frogs.  We didn't look for long, they were so obvious.  I'm sure if we'd hunted we have found hundreds.  This one was sunning on a log looking over the lily pads, and presumably waiting for a fat fly to buzz by - or for a mate.

A closer look

Those in the water were harder to spot unless they were close like this one, but you could see scatted little 'bumps' out on the water here and there - probably similar frogs just above the surface.

This one kept it's nose in the shade of the wetland sedges, but you can see the large round 'tympani' or eardrum, just behind the eye.  Significantly larger than the eye itself, this marks this frog as a male.

I was very surprised to read in this month's Canadian Geographic that while bullfrogs are native to eastern North America, they are a very serious invasive species in British Columbia.  Their huge tadpoles (compared to other species), eat the other tadpoles, and take over wetlands, driving out native species.  There are active eradication programs in place to try and stop the takeover!

Flesherton Hills Wetland

Went on an interesting organized walk at Flesherton Hills wetlands yesterday, a place I had never been to.  But I'll be going back, 'cause it's a gem of a natural area right on the edge of Flesherton.  Easy trails, and it's accessible from the two schools in town.

It's partly old fields and some reforested pine, but in the middle of this are several large ponds, some of which are active beaver ponds.  And decorating the surface of the water were large rafts of bright yellow water lilies, all out in bloom.

There were lots of other things to see, like dozens of large croaking bullfrogs; perhaps I'll post their pictures tomorrow.  But the yellow water lilies were definitely the bright spot in these wetlands.