September tricked us! It was going to be endless Summer!
Flat calm mornings and afternoons, plus 25° temperatures…lulling us into a false sense of a Summer forever! Ha! The leaves have started to come off the trees, cascades of green falling leaves, weird. I generally judge Fall by the exit of the juvenile hummingbirds, they didn’t hang around this year at all. The Trumpeter Swan pair arrived two weeks early…could it be a sign? Of what? Hey, our wood is in, we’re ready for Winter, sort of, I mean I’m never really ready, except to leave to go South. Maybe I was a migratory bird in a former life…screw this Winter crap! I’m outta here! Not this year…Just went to the GT Boutique and replaced my very sad, full of holes Winter jacket…now for the boots!
Now the cats…they say these days will never end…lolling, lying in the grass, watching the bugs fly by…it doesn’t get any better than this they say! Well, maybe the woodstove…Groot is enjoying his Fall camouflage! I blend in perfectly he says!
How is it they know, this pair of Trumpeter Swans, friend or foe? I called out to them when I went down the stairs to the dock, they quickly hopped off our neighbour’s swim platform and swam right over, male first. I held out my hand and he gently nibbled the sunflower seeds off it. I could barely feel his beak, so gentle. Then it was the Mrs. turn, she ate more. I promised the two of them cracked corn tomorrow. I explained that I wasn’t expecting them for another two weeks, they are early this year! Welcome back beautiful swans!
You have neighbours up on Long Lake road now with a kid! Ha! Never ceases to take my breath away:) I wonder just how old this pair is and for how long they have been making this lake a stopover point on their way South. Trumpeter Swans form pair bonds when they are three or four years old. The pair stays together throughout the year, moving together in migratory populations. Trumpeters are assumed to mate for life, but some individuals do switch mates over their lifetimes. Some males that lost their mates did not mate again.
Walking out to check the mail has become very quiet, with just an occasional chickadee peep, or the raucous squawk of a passing blue jay, an oak acorn in it’s beak, bellotas in Spanish, it always comes to mind:) This week I had a surprise, caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and stopped and watched for a bit. A Yellow-Billed Cuckoo! When I came back and told Mike after my walk, he didn’t believe me, cuckoo? Here? Yup, he knew who was cuckoo;) Ha! Unlike their European counterparts they don’t sound like the well known cuckoo clock…mostly just the “koo” with out the “cuck”! Ha! Listen here: Cuckoo sound.
I actually convinced Mike to stop at the Carleton Place Drainage ponds on our way to Ottawa last week. He was bribed by a trip to the “Little German Bakery” there in Carleton Place…yum!..and why the drainage ponds you might ask, it’s where all the cool birds hang out dude! There was a rare visitor from down South, a Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) took a wrong turn at Albuquerque ( said in a Bugs Bunny voice;) ha!) They are more of a Forida coastal bird, moving up the East coast during breeding season but rarely deciding a drainage pond is a place to call home. I came a day too late, it was gone, but I did see a beautiful Green Heron and some comedic Greater Yellow-Legs so well worth the trip around the pond and SO many grasshoppers and butterflies! Besides, those cream filled Berliners are delicious and working off a few calories with the stiff hips isn’t a bad thing!
I feel my life to be rather dominated by birds at times but hey, there is whole lot more on my daily, mostly, mail walks. The mosquitos no longer threaten to carry me away, while quiet from bird song the humming of European Honey and bumblebees and wasps on the late blooming asters and golden rod are a treat to watch. The number of furry and naked caterpillars we have seen is starting to increase, don’t tell the Yellow-billed Cuckoo! Some I know, a few new ones as well.
I had to gently coerce a Northern Water snake off the road, twice, as I walked out. Tried to convince him it was a dangerous place with crazy citiots roaring by at 100 km an hour, in rushing, to get to their cottage…to relax…WTF? One asshat ran over the Loon family this week in their Jetski…had a few locals fuming…where’s the gatling gun? Piano wire? Take out your earbuds jerkoff! You can blare your music anywhere, why is it you need to make noise wherever you go…as I said, giving me superpowers would result in too many human deaths…;) Anyway, back to the snake, I tried to usher him/her off the road with my foot, he latched on, with it’s mouth and I hopped to the side of the road to where the grass started before it let go, novel and comedic rescue effort… good thing I walk alone;)
There is a new slew of mushrooms popping up beside the road and on the dead stumps. We’ve had a record absence of rain this month so always surprised to see the fungi popping up where it can. The lichens are always a treat, those little cups, like a tea party for fairies on the rocks:) Best to see the magic there.
I get so excited when I find the Indigo Milk Cap (Lactarius indigo). The fruit body color ranges from dark blue in fresh specimens to pale blue-gray in older ones. The milk, or latex, that oozes when the mushroom tissue is cut or broken (a feature common to all members of the genus Lactarius) is also indigo blue, but slowly turns green upon exposure to air. In Mexico, individuals harvest the wild mushrooms for sale at farmers’ markets, typically from June to November; they are considered a “second class” species for consumption…0_0..I’ll pass!
The Indigo Milk Cap (Lactarius indigo) sprout/grow in the same place every year! I even came across a few edibles! Oyster Mushrooms and Chicken of the Woods!
I have a hard time keeping all the mushrooms names in my head! Ha! Yellow and spotted, probably amanita of some kind…do not eat Karen! Such a variety of living organisms in the forest! I find something new every time I set out! Bird, bug or plant life!
With so few blooming plants they tend to catch your eye, what is that? Off to iNaturalist to check it out:) Great resource, also, geez, how many of these guys are REALLY toxic…live and learn, no munching on that. My mother had a habit of popping berries into her mouth, unknown ones, freaked me out as a kid…she had nine lives, part cat no doubt!
The Traveling Mewberries have enjoyed their games of “Where’s that frog” or the “Chipmunk staredown” which involves staring at the last known location of a chipmunk, even if it left by the back door of the tree, or the other side of the kindling box…it just MIGHT come back out into their waiting jaws. The Chipmunks that have survived this long into the Summer are the Einstein’s of their genetic group. It’s tough world full of chipmunk eating creatures out there! So many predators, that walk, and fly and slither!
The small Gray tree frogs entertain the cats at night on the windows, chasing bugs bigger than them. They have such amazing camouflage I nearly smooshed one guy with my hand as I walked up from the lake. He was blended into the gray wood on the railing! Gamora found a beautiful Wood Frog and I steered her in the opposite direction! One of my favourites! Frogaphobes LOOK AWAY! You know who you are;) Ranidaphobia is the medical term for a phobia of frogs and toads:) Great big killer frogs with enormous teeth…hahahahaha! I barely survived my walk today without being eaten by one;)
With all this wonderful warm weather paddling is easy, but why is it every time I paddle down the lake, the wind is behind me, and when I turn around to come back, it’s against me? I did find a new flower to me off one of the small islands! The leaves are just starting to turn in the swamps, the reds and oranges among the green. Wondering what full colour will look like this year? If it’s on the swans timeline, it will be sooner than later. Even the morning sky has turned to Fall colours:) I’ll leave you with a glimpse. I’ll catch up on the dragonflies and bugs later this week! It’s turning into a novel!
Saludos amigos-I will try to embrace the incoming Fall season, the change, not always easy that change thing:)
