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.

Tamarack Cones

The new year's tamarack cones are forming just now.  A bit like the spruce I profiled earlier, the young cones are a deep reddish-purple, embedded with the needles on young branches.  Some branches seem totally laden with them.

 

We've planted about 20 tamarack in a back corner of our property, just to enjoy the yellow needles in the late fall.  Tamarack are one of those unusual trees, both coniferous (producing cones), and deciduous (losing its needles over the winter).  But one of the small trees has young cones that are yellowy-green rather than reddish-purple.  I'm going to have to wait and see what the difference is.

Bracket Fungus - Dryad's Saddle

I've found several of these fungi recently, in various nearby different locations.  The patterns on the top as well as the pores on the underside are really quite beautiful.

This is a fungus that usually fruits in the spring, and favours dead elm trees, which is where I found these (below).  According to Wikipedia, 'Dryads' are small creatures in Greek mythology who could presumably use this mushroom as a saddle.  It's also known as 'Pheasant's back fungus', for the pattern of scales on the top.  In Latin, it's Polyporus squamosus, because it's a polypore fungus, and has these visible 'squamules' or scales on the upper side.

This dead elm was pretty well circled by them, and several were present on other nearby trees, at the entrance to the Massie Ski Trails where we held a fern hike two weeks ago.

All polypore fungi have pores on the underside rather than gills.  I was able to find one about 6 feet up on a dead elm where I could look upwards and get a picture from below.

The pores on this fungus are tiny tubes packed tightly together in an intricate pattern like this.  Young specimens are actually said to be edible, but I don't think it's one I'd try.

Hummingbird Moth

Ok now, all you expert macro photographers out there, don't laugh at these.  Having bought a macro lens, I've started to try and capture some images of insects like bugs, moths, butterflies, and such.  Keep in mind, these are just handheld while the beast in question is fluttering by and rarely stopping for more than a millisecond.  I have a lot to learn!

 

Never-the-less, I'm pleased with these.  The humming bird moth above was dashing around with his wings a blur from blossom to blossom on our lilac bushes (which have finally bloomed profusely after 10 years of waiting). Watching it, you'd just think it was a miniature humming bird, but as an insect buzzing past your head it seems pretty big.

These small butterflies are fluttering around here, there and everywhere these days.  This one actually landed on the driveway and sat still long enough for me to get a picture.  If I read my 'Photo Field Guide to the Butterflies of Southern Ontario' correctly, it's a Northern Crescent, one of the small size butterflies, but this one is bright coloured.

This photo actually looks at the underside of this butterfly, a very tiny one, at least I assume it's a butterfly.  I've seen several flitting in the grass the past few days.  But I can't match it up to any pictures in my little  guide.  Hopefully I'll get a better picture of the upper surface, and perhaps buy a better field guide, to identify it.  In the meantime, I'll keep practicing trying to capture pictures of insects, and then learning what they are!

Misty, Rainy Mornings

Back to something more my style - we've had a cool and wet June so far here, another day of rain yesterday, and another misty morning today.  The world is just drenched out there!

Trying to get a picture that captures the atmosphere of a day like this is harder than I thought.  After taking several I found that something in the foreground to provide a point of reference was what made the picture.  This is the cedar rail fence that frames our 'cultivated' garden, and separates it from the 'wild' meadow behind.

The huge elm tree across the road, somehow still alive and healthy, here just a faint shadow in the mist, is also a big marker looking out our back windows.

Close-ups of water droplets provide a totally different perspective on the wet world out there, here on a rose bush that's grown up all by itself in a corner of the garden.  Hard to get in focus if there's any breeze at all!