Last week of June, it was a heavily clouded, dull morning, but we decided to head down to Petrie to see what we could see.
There was an odd ripple following a kayak in the marshy bay on the west side of the road coming down towards the culverts. It almost looked like the kayak was towing something. The kayak turned and the ripple kept going straight. Turned out is was Canada Goose swimming quickly with its head and neck right down in the water. Never seen that before.
While checking out the goose we almost missed a great blue heron 20 feet away from us standing absolutely still. It was one two herons we saw that morning.
Twenty-five years ago when I first starting exploring Petrie, there was never a Canada goose in sight, these days is a different story....
At one spot I saw two adult geese; as I came closer two fuzzy fully fledged juveniles came out of the grass,. All headed to the water and left me behind.
Out in the river were two families. One with 14 goslings that I would class as teenagers, a second family with 2 pre-teen goslings.
It looked like FOPI had hired a goose family, 2 adults and 13 goslings, to cut, and likely fertilize, the grass
A catbird flew in low and landed on the trail just ahead of us, while a yellow warbler stayed up in a bush
A northern flicker was pummeling the ground with his beak, obviously after a grub or something
There were a number of other birds around that my Merline App detected but I didn't see.
(The ones in yellow happened to be the ones calling/singing when I took the screen grab)
A good variety of wildflowers were in bloom. Scroll over for ID
Bird's foot trefoil
Stonecrop
Anemone
Ninebark
White waterlily
Carrion flower
Fleabane
Joe Pye weed
Crown vetch
Showy tick trefoil
Goats rue
grass
grass
The milkweed was in bloom, and on close inspection there was a crane fly on it.
(Click photo to enlarge)
An eastern pondhawk dragonfly stopped in the middle of the trail, not a very picturesque spot!
The Basswood Trail was full of deer flies. For whatever reason they weren't biting though.
Some bullfrogs were easier to spot than others....
A chipmunk didn't hang around to say hello
Spider webs were grabbing hold of bits of fluff in the air
I've always been surprised at the size of a grape(?) vine that has been there for years. Although it doesn't seem to have grown recently
Either a few turtles were late laying, or the raccoons were slow to find the nests. There were three nests that looked very freshly dug up.
Three kayaks headed out for a paddle around the island (in the rain showers)
