It is always good to vary the time when re-visiting a place. You will often see different things as animals have their own regular routines. We usually visit Mud Lake at 7;30am, at the end of June we were there at 6am and this visit we arrived at 10:30am.
The last thing we expected to see was a female white-tailed deer out in the open by the bridge at high noon. Deer normally are seen at sunrise and sunset and retreat to the deep woods by mid-morning. But there she was quietly feeding. She came within 20 feet of us, ears always at alert, very aware of us, but not afraid of us up on the bridge
A black-crowned night heron was quietly looking for breakfast by the entrance gate.
The two great blue herons we spotted must have had their breakfast as both were busy preening
Most of the male wood ducks had fully molted, not sure when the female molts
We provided some cracked corn for the ducks, they really enjoy it
A teenage wood duckling was out on its own
One family of three fully fledged males and mum were busy preening on a log. The fledged males look like fully molted adults males, except their eyes are black versus red eyes on the adults
The molting male mallards look quite splotchy
Many of the goslings have are nearly fully fledged, the adults were bathing in the river
The red-winged blackbirds are still around but no longer calling out as much to mark their territories
A catbird was squawking very loudly in a tree next to the trail. I could not get a clear photo of it so this photo is from Petrie Island
A kingbird had a nest in the same spot as last year. She brought in some food for her young. I difficulty getting a clear photo of her. The video shows her for a second and some young birds rustling behind the leaves in the nest
There were plenty of squirrels looking for handouts....
Only the chipmunks get fed however, although as you'll see in the video the larger squirrels do clean up afterwards
The dragonflies were still patrolling for mosquitos and a number of damselflies were in the mating mood. The dragonfly on the left is a dot-tailed whiteface dragonfly
It is early for mushrooms and fungus, but there were a good number around including a nice sized coral fungus
The deadman's fingers fungus have not grown much
With the lake water having warmed up, there is not a need for the turtles to bask to help their digestion, but there were two turtles enjoying the sun, One was difficult to see with the duckweed all over it
A garter snake turned around and decided not to cross the trail with us close by
A leopard frog posed for a moment and then hide in the undergrowth
A good sampling of flowers were blooming, or showing their berries, scroll over for ID
common eastern fleabane
common eastern fleabane
Queen Anne's Lace
Queen Anne's Lace
Tall meadow-rue
white sweet clover
white waterlily
white waterlily
yellow waterlily
creeping jenny
sweetclover
St John's wort
mullein
brown-eyed susans
bird's foot trefoil
goldenrod
spotted jewel weed (Touch-me-not)
wild rose
deptford pink
joe pye weed
staghorn sumac
harebell
pickerel weed
speedwell
vervain
healall / selfheal
forget-me-not
mallow
elderberry
