PhotoStories - Big Gull Lake Visit, July 2023

In mid-July we rented a cottage at Big Gull Lake near Kaladar. While the others did cottage-type activities, I went out with my camera in search of Nature.

One of my favourite plants are Indian Pipes (a.k.a. Indian Pipe Stems). While they are often mistaken for a mushroom or fungus, they are in fact perennial flowering plant - one flower per stem.

I usually look for them in August, but I found four clumps right by the cottage.

The main clump was a few days old, still quite white, with the flower heads pointed downwards.

Five days later, they were still looking fresh, but a few more black spots were starting to appear and a few of the flower heads were starting to turn up slightly. (In time all the flowers will turn up, and the plant will go brown and stiffly dry.)

With the flower on the far upper right turning up, I could look inside and see the internal structure.

But then I noticed the green insect on the flower.... (See below)

I looked it up when I got home - it was a Tanytarsini midge.

With very few cottages in view, it was dark enough to try photographing star trails. The resultant picture was an exposure of about 3 hours. There were 4-5 satellites crossing the sky as well as 2-3 airplanes.

The "test" still picture.

The result is not as good as I had hoped as the lines are a little jiggly - likely caused by the breeze moving the camera slightly as well as the tripod being on a wood deck, not solid ground.

Some of the flowers photographed during the week. (Scroll over a picture for the name of the flower.)

The first row is a wild orchid - Helleborine

Helleborine

Fireweed

Tufted Vetch

Heal All

St John's Wort

Hop Trefoil

Mullein

Stonecrop

Hawkweed

White Meadowsweet

Common Yarrow

European Frog-bit (Invasive)

White Water Lily

Yellow Water Lily

False Solomon Seal

Dogwood

White (?) Trillium (gone to seed)

Viburnum

Wild Sarsaparilla

Canada Mayflower (?)

In addition to the above, there were a great many Clintonia plants around. Clintonia is a spring wildflower with yellow blossoms. The blossoms turn into berries that become very blue. One plant in particular caught my eye - one of the leaves was ensnarled by a dead leaf. This is not uncommon, but I always wonder about the tenacity of the dead leaf....

Going for a walk down the road to check out possible flowers in a wetlands area, I heard a crashing sound and a deer rushed across the road in front of me. I managed to get one blurry photo.

I continued walking along the road, hoping to see the deer around the bend somewhere on the side of the wetlands, but well back from the road. I checked the edge of the trees along the side of the marsh, nothing. Then I looked 20 feet in front of me....

She bounded across the water and stopped to look back before going into the woods. The second picture was taken on my way back with my spotting her again, but this time her face was covered with flies.

There were signs of beaver activity (teeth cut tree branches) and muskrats (muskrat lodge made from bull rushes.0 The muskrat was seen only from a great distance. One of the grandsons saw the beaver.

The waterfowl/shorebirds were less than expected but I suspect many were hidden by the reeds.

Obtaining photos means having your camera with you, but most of the time the birds didn't appear when I had the camera!!

Seen but not photographed:

Green herons, bittern, red-winged blackbirds, sparrows etc

Heard, but not seen, as it was pitch black at night:

Whippoorwill ( a first for me)

A pair of ruby-throated humming birds kept us all entertained at the feeder outside the window. I also located two perches they regularly used.

In the third photo, he's sticking his tongue out at me. The tongue is as long as the beak.

Photographed at a great distance. First two shots: Mallard mom and two teenagers. Second two, wood duck family, mom and 5 kids.

I did manage to get some relatively close loons (with two juveniles) calling (over the noise of the boat's motor).

Also photographed at a long distance - great blue heron. These were the only times we saw him standing, usually he was flying over us after being startled as we passed by.

One afternoon we heard a light thump at one of the windows. Turned out a female downy woodpecker glanced off it. She was stunned, blinked her eye at me, but flew off about 15 minutes later.