Water levels were high both in the Ottawa River and Mud Lake in early May. By the end of the month the river was back to normal, but the beavers had managed to keep the lake about 6" above normal. In the first few weeks of the month Cassells Street was lined with cars, and the ridge lined with birders looking at the warblers migrating through.
Turkey feathers glisten in the sun.
If quick enough, one does get a portrait shot...
Turkeys glower at you when you are taking up most of the trail between them and their hen...
An unexpected arrival - I had never seen northern shoveler ducks in Canada before. I had seen them in the southern USA. They hung around all month. The male's colouring is unique, the female not so. But what is noticeably different is their very large bills/beaks. They seem to feed by sieving the tiny plants floating on the water surface.
While many of the females wood ducks were on nest, there were one or two females keeping the males company. The male in the last photo was either starting to moult (a little early?) or might be not healthy (one wonders about avian flu). I saw photos of a wood duck and MANY ducklings that had hatched in late May, but they never appeared for me.😒
One pair were sleeping on a turtle log
The male mallards seemed to be taking a relaxed approach waiting for the hens to finish sitting on the nests.
One male mallard came close enough to allow me to get a nice portrait
I did manage to find one mallard family out for a swim
Other people had been in the right place at the right time to see a merganser family floating down the river, but I had to settle for few single females. The first seemed to be having a bad hair day
My Merlin Bird App on my phone continually detected many different warblers, and other birds. Most were so flitty that getting a photo of them was beyond my patience level. Although a yellow-rumped warbler, an eastern wood-pewee (loudly singing) and a yellow warbler stayed still long enough for me to manage a picture
With practice, birds in flight images are getting better......
The black-crowned night herons seem to be resting in the same secluded cove on each visit
While one great blue heron didn't mind standing around on a branch quite close to the trail.
Later in the month a great blue was playing "king of the castle" standing atop a wind blown over tree. Eventually it flew off coming quite close
It's gosling time at the Lake!
At the end of last month I posted about a red-winged blackbird trying to mate with itself in our car mirror. For the full month of May, he continued the same behaviour. Different cars, but the same spot and presumably the same bird going at it
Thanks to Merlin (the phone app), I was able to identify two less obvious birds. A distant, well camouflaged behind branches, great crested flycatcher and a catbird
An egret was in sight for a few minutes, presumably visiting from the nesting area on the north side of the river.
With late spring come the flying insects. Dragonflies to the rescue!. There were a surprising, but welcoming, number of hatched dragonfly nymphs including nine on this waterlily (Click on photo for larger view). Most I suspect were norther bluets as there were "flocks" of them.
Not all the nymphs were bluets however as I spotted (in looking at the pictures afterwards) one large nymph at the feet of the yellow warbler (above)
A first time seen for us - two snapping turtles, on two separate visits, were seemingly try to mate in the open water. In the photo on the left, one turtle is on the other's back, in the right hand photo, the shell of the second turtle is on edge in front of the first turtle.
We were all smiles when we spotted a raccoon flaked out on a branch of a tree where the raccoon family have been seen from time to time.
A black squirrel was gathering leaves presumably for a nest in advance of a family arriving
At the start of the month the serviceberry was about to bloom, the plum trees were in full bloom. The violets were blooming in yellow and blue varieties, the ferns were unfurling from fiddleheads and the poison ivy was growing vigorously
By the end of the month many more wildflowers had appeared. Although the periwinkle, forget-me-nots, and lily of the valley might have been neighbourhood garden escapees. Scroll over for ID
white dame's rocket
blue dame's rocket
forget-me-not
anemone
highbush cranberry
periwinkle
false solomon seal
dogwood
lily of the valley
white honeysuckle
red honeysuckle
Canada mayflower
Ground Ivy
With the recent showers, there were a few mushrooms showing, including a small group of deadman's fingers
The glacial erratic was cleaned of its graffiti late last fall. It has now been tagged with a stylized owl
As a dead tree deteriorates it is interesting to see that the branches grow from the centre of the tree.
