Odonates Abounding

I went to the Sackville Waterfowl Park on Sunday morning for a walk.  It is definitely a favourite spot for me to take a walk, immerse myself in nature, and enjoy some quiet time.  I also like to take the camera along to record any interesting birds, bees or butterflies, and any other critters I see.  This time, it was definitely a day for odonates, meaning dragonflies (darners, meadowhawks, etc.) and damselflies (bluets, spreadwings, and others).  I spent quite a lot of time watching them and snapping pictures when I could.  Many of them don't settle for long, so it can be really difficult to take their pictures.  I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took. It's a bit of a picture-heavy post, but they really are beautiful creatures.

There was a lot of odonate love in the air....they really do contort into amazing positions for procreation.  I believe these are familiar bluets (Enallagma civile).

See how they make a sort of sideways heart shape?  I think that's kind of cute.

This is another bluet, but I'm not sure which species.  They can be very tricky to identify because they have very similar markings.  There are tiny differences in the tail appendages but this shot isn't clear enough to show those.

This is a band-winged meadowhawk (Sympetrum semicinctum).  It is easier to identify because of the brown tinge in the wings.

Here, just for some variety, is a tri-coloured bumble bee (Bombus ternarius) on goldenrod. 

This is another meadowhawk, but I can't identify it because there are several that look similar to this.  It is probably either the cherry-faced or white-faced meadowhawk (S. internum or S. obtrusum).  I love this picture because of the shadows of the wings - it makes it look like it has 8 wings instead of 4.

Here are a couple more bluets, but these are less acrobatic at this point.  They fly around stuck to each other like this.  Fascinating.

This is one of the big dragonfly species - a darner.  I can't tell which one because I couldn't get a side view shot of it, and the side markings are how you identify these critters.  Still, I love this shot of its eyes.  They are simply amazing to look at.

This is almost certainly a white-faced meadowhawk (Sympetrum obtrusum).

This bluet posed nicely for me.  Probably a familiar bluet.

This is a male slender spreadwing (Lestes rectangularis).  Look at those blue eyes!

This is a spotted spreadwing (Lestes congener), which an expert helpfully identified for me.  I post many of my sightings to iNaturalist, which is a great place for citizen science.  Experts can help identify all forms of life that are posted there.  You can post pictures of plants, insects, animals and birds, even fungi and lichen!

The white-faced meadowhawks were busy ensuring the future survival of their species as well. 

They look like a two-headed creature in this shot!  Who does the driving?!

I took some other insect pictures, including this mud dauber wasp.  What a weird conformation - look at how the abdomen is connected to the thorax with such a thin strip.  I love the stripey legs!

Here's a regular ol' two-striped grasshopper, hopping in the grass.

And here, one of the strangest things I saw on my walk, is what I initially thought was an interesting fungus growing on a branch.  Turns out that it isn't fungus at all.  It's a species of aphid called the cottony alder psyllid (Psylla floccosa).  The nymph stage produces this weird-looking cottony "fluff" on alder branches.  Definitely a new find for me.  You just never know what you'll see on a walk in the park.

Saturday Morning Walk

My second "couch to 5K" session on Thursday wasn't too bad.  I didn't get drenched with rain, which was the best part.  I'm still the second slowest of the group, but that's OK I guess.  We did walk-one-minute-jog-20-seconds for the full length of our trail, which wasn't too bad, although by the end of it, my chest was feeling a bit tight and I was definitely out of breath.  I hope that will improve.

This morning I went for a more leisurely walk in the Sackville Waterfowl Park, which is one of my favourite places to be.  It's a beautiful park and so many birds make it their home - I feel really lucky to be so close to it.  This morning there were vast numbers of Yellow-rumped Warblers (formerly named Myrtle Warblers) all over the park.  They're so cute and quite bold, so I can get relatively close to them.  I took a lot of photos, but they just captivate me.  I really liked this shot with the cattails from last year, even though he's not looking my way. 

The perfect little models, they are!

Imagine this one with a Scottish accent, saying "Och...the wind's blowin' up me kilt!"

 
Lady, can I have a little modesty here?  Please?

There are also Palm Warblers around - it's so good to see them again now that spring is finally here.

I love their little rusty coloured "hats."

A good number of sparrows are also out and about.  Some are bold and others are more shy. Here's a song sparrow—and they do have a lovely song!

This is the back end of a swamp sparrow who was being really reticent about having his picture taken, so I had to take him in two halves!

Peek-a-boo!  The front end of the swamp sparrow.

This one is a Savannah sparrow.

Of course, none of those birds are waterfowl.  Here's an actual waterfowl—a green-winged teal.

I'll leave you with a whole series of tree swallow photographs, because I couldn't decide which ones to share.  They were being especially helpful with posing today! 

 
This one sat for a while just a few feet from me on the boardwalk railing.

There are houses on posts in the lake that they prefer for their nest boxes.

 

Some of them have a more distinct dark chest spot.

I think this one is my favourite shot - it's a swallow pretending to be a small, grumpy penguin.

A visit from my parents

It was lovely to have my parents visit me for a few days earlier this month.  My work schedule allowed me to spend most of the time with them rather than worrying about work commitments, and we had some great weather during their visit which allowed for outdoor pursuits.

We visited our favourite local walking spot - the Sackville Waterfowl Park.  The park is lovely at all times of the year.  This time of year, the water levels are a bit low, and the water is often heavy with duckweed and algae.  The ducks don't mind!  We saw some wee mallard ducklings - a late brood of 8 with their mom.  So cute!

My mother took some time to commune with a beautiful mature birch tree.  I am so thankful to her that I learned to love trees, and all of nature, at an early age.  She and my father are most definitely the reason that I, too, hug trees. 

I managed to snap a shot of a cedar waxwing while we were at the park.  They can be a bit difficult to photograph, being a bit flighty and elusive, but this one obliged me.

As always, my parents lent a hand to any task I had that needed doing.  My mother spent time weeding and helping me harvest from the vegetable beds.  She also did her usual (more than) fair share of the cooking.  She was so enthusiastic with weeding that she accidentally "weeded" one of my Rudbeckia "cherry brandy" plants.  Fortunately we were able to locate it in the compost pile and get it re-planted.  It has not suffered from its temporary uprooting!

My father, meanwhile, did a marathon job of sharpening a variety of my garden and kitchen tools.  He was able to do the work out in my screened porch, giving him lots of light and fresh air, but keeping the mosquitoes at bay.  He did an amazing job de-rusting, sharpening and oiling my pruners and snips. 

Some of these had been almost untouched since my move from Iowa 8 years ago, and the rust was dreadful.  I sprayed them with vinegar before their visit, to get the cleaning process started.  My father used sharpening stones to really sharpen the blades and get them into good working order.

He also took care of the sharpening of my loppers.

I have two large pairs of loppers and around here, with all our trees, they are well used.  I am so glad to have them sharpened and in good order.

I am so grateful that my parents are still able to visit me and that they are so willing to help with tasks that I can't always find the time to focus on.  

I've read about storing garden tools through the winter in a bucket of oiled sand.  This prevents rust and keeps the blades sharp.  I might give that a try this winter.

The Weekend Roundup: G

This weekend's prompts from Tom the Backroads Traveller are: Starts with G, Green, and Favourite.

Starts with G

Goldfinch starts with G.  This is a picture of an American Goldfinch at the feeder last week.  It is, obviously, wearing its winter plumage, not its bright yellow summer outfit!

I don't see them every day, but I do see them with some regularity.  In 2017, the finch populations of Atlantic  Canada were decimated by a very contagious infection called trichomoniasis, caused by a parasite.  People were advised to take down their feeders all summer because the parasite is spread easily between birds.  With the onset of winter, feeding could occur again because the parasite doesn't live very long in the cold, so it seems to have abated now.  I hope that the finch populations will rebound this coming spring and summer.

Favourite

Early this week we had a first egg from my cream legbar hen, Lady Charlotta.  She lays pale blue-green eggs.  The very first one was very thin-shelled and it broke when it was gently cleaning a bit of dirt from it.  She laid her second egg today and it seems to be a more solid shell.  I am sure you can see which egg is hers.  The blue-green coloured eggs are my favourites!  They taste the same but they are just so pretty.  I love all the different colours of eggs we get from our flock.  Today was also our first 6-egg day since having chickens here at our current home.  How eggciting!

Here's a "bonus" favourite shot.  Yesterday was a lovely day - much warmer than normal for February at 6 Celsius, or about 43 Fahrenheit.  I could not help but go for a quick walk in the middle of my day so I went to the local waterfowl park.  I didn't see many birds - just a few chickadees and a crow, but I did see beautiful blue sky and the lovely trunks of the birch trees.  This particular point on the boardwalk is one of my favourite spots with all the trees making a kind of living tunnel to walk through. It will be a while before anything begins to turn green, but it was still nice to be out on such a sunny day that was, comparatively speaking, warm(ish).

Green

Things remain mostly white (or brown) around here, but of course, the evergreens are still green, although a less vibrant green than they are in summer.  Here's a cone on one of the trees in our yard, with lots of green needles.

Friday's Hunt 3.25 (late!)

I'm late on Friday's Hunt today because I have been busy enjoying a visit from my parents on their way back from a holiday in Prince Edward Island.  However, I'm taking a few minutes to get this written with some pictures I took on our walk in the Sackville Waterfowl Park this morning.  It was such a lovely day for the walk and we saw lots of birds and other wildlife.

Our prompts from Eden Hills this week are:  Starts with Y, Week's Favourite, and Splash.

Starts with Y
Today I have a series of "Y is for yellow" photographs from our waterfowl park walk.  Here is a male mallard - he has a lovely yellow bill.

I also saw this dragonfly - I haven't had time to look up the species yet - but it has an interesting yellow triangle on its back.  I hope that will make it easy to identify.

This beautiful male ring-necked duck has a lovely yellow eye.

Bonus - not from the waterfowl park, but from the pile of sawdust on our driveway yesterday afternoon...this lovely yellow swallowtail butterfly.

Week's Favourite
I think my favourite picture today is this mother duck with her family of little ones.  They're probably considered "adolescents" now - they still have some down but they are quite big and growing fast.

Splash
There were lots of ducks splashing around in the water today but I didn't get any really good pictures of them splashing.  This one is about the best of the bunch - they were far away.  You can still see some water droplets spraying off the duck's wings.

We also saw lots of tiny fish in the water.  Sometimes when the ducks came close, they would be disturbed and would make little splashes on the water's surface.  I didn't get a picture of the splashing, but here are the little fish.