I only had my cellphone with me as we were out for a bike ride in an area where we don't see much "photo attracting"đ nature. I quickly wished I had brought my "real" camera...
(The western end of the trail is officially the Prescott-Russell Trail Link. The full trail goes all the way to Montreal, some 200km)Â
The beaver had been busy in a large marsh adjacent to the trail. The drain from under the road had been well protected with a large cage, but the beavers had done their best to cover the cage with logs. A longer pipe with caging that couldn't be "plugged" was installed to prevent flooding of the trail
There was lots of coltsfoot blooming along the sides of the trai. Some of it had gone to seed. When that happens the plant "shoots" up 3-6Â inches (7-15cm) and produces a very dense seed head. If you don't know what you are looking at, you can be fooled into thinking it is a dandelion.Â
The trail in many places was lined with tall reed grass that towered up to 9 feet/3 metres in height. A few stems had bent down to let me get a photo.
The cinnamon fern fiddleheads were well advanced along the ditches adjacent to the rail trail. (I must admit I prefer the look of the "cleaner" ostrich fern.)
While we sometimes see painted turtles in the marshes, I only saw one tiny one (last year's hatchling) but it was too far away to manage a cellphone shot