What with the cool temperatures and rain I hadn't been for a bike ride yet this year. So with a sunny warm day I hopped on the bike and headed down the South Rail Trail. The north part of the trail is along the LRT and new with not much nature for a good part of it. At the end of the LRT, the trail continues on. This part of the trail was a rail right-of-way, that has been a bike/walking trail for years and full of nature. The trail is 25km long.
I didn't make much progress as I stopped to look at/photograph, with my cellphone, frequently along the way. I went back the next day with my "real" camera and visited the most productive area for about 2 hours.
What really caught my eye were the trilliums, white trilliums were everywhere on one section of the trail. But the jackpot, was in a ditch - a mass of trilliums.
I looked for an anomaly and finally spotted one. A red trillium in amongst the white. It was fading fast, but still showed some red
Not far away was a clump of mature, tall red trilliums in the tangle of the vines. I couldn't get close as there were fallen branches everywhere with openings to catch a foot.
A second anomaly was single jack-in-the-pulpit under the trilliums
Most of the blooms were still in good shape (left photo), but a few were starting to show the pink colour meaning their time has come and gone.
After climbing out of the ditch I carried on
Wild strawberry, field penny-cress, garlic mustard, red baneberry, foam flower (2x)
White wasn't the only colour of the flowers, a "huge" area was covered with marsh marigolds. I wanted to get down to them, but the slope of the ditch was too steep
Bitter wintercress, dandelion, yellow violet
Blue violets too
Wild sarsaparilla in bud
The young ash trees were putting on a growth spurt
In one stretch a lot of late blooming coltsfoot had gone to seed. Not sure what the mosquito found of interest on it.
A large Dryad's Saddle growing on a dead tree
A very co-operative toad
A cottontail rabbit was enjoying a snack until he spotted me
The day before a coyote was in the grass 30 yards away from me. By the time I got the cellphone out he had moved away. But I tried a video anway (The turkey moved on quickly when the coyote was heading its way😊)
