Swan Tagging in Burlington, Ontario    Tuesday January 3/11
 

At short notice, on the coldest day of the year, 3 of us from ONC
( Joan Rosebush, Leonore Wiancko and Nancy Ironside), joined the Twin Lakes Conservation Club
on a bus trip to Burlington to see the tagging of the trumpeter swans.
 There are other places in Ontario (eg. Wye Marsh) where tagging is done, but this bay has the
largest concentration of Trumpeters in the winter –about 200.

LaSalle Park is beautiful, and the bay is full of swans and other waterfowl.
2 Tundras flew in just as we were leaving.  It was cold but interesting experience for all of us.

View of the bay with waterfowl coming in to be fed.

A large swan ( up to 35 lbs) has been caught.

The young scientists are examining the swan for sex, type
of feathers, stool and a blood test. These girls are volunteers,
 who come to the bay after finishing their day jobs.
 

Tagging and recording.

The first caught swan is happy to be released.

The second swan that was caught while we were
 there is released.
 It had no previous tags -a wild bird.
 

Dorothy and Donald Macdonald had a great Yukon and Alaska Adventure in June /11
 

The summer solstice is a great day to be in Dawson City.  We went up to the Midnight Dome which overlooks the city/town and the mighty Yukon River. 
The summer solstice is just another day here in the south but it is of major significance in the north.  From then on there will be less and less light until the
winter solstice and the longing for the return of the light. 
We were fortunate to be able to pan for gold just like the fortune seekers did during the gold rush.  Needless to say, our pans were laced with bits of gold
so everyone felt like a winner.  It was backbreaking business, in cold water no less.  I don't know how they stood it day in and day out.  Later we toured a
dredge that dug deeper in the streams for gold. 
The scenery was magnificent where ever we went.  The weather was perfect for our trip through the Denali National Park so we had great views of
Mt. McKinley from a variety of angles. We also saw all manner of wildlife.  I think the total number of grizzly bears was six. 
My favourite was the Dahl sheep with its snow white coat and massive horns. 
There is an area around Anchorage where the soil is rich and good for crops.  Many people have their own gardens with gigantic cauliflower
 and cabbage and turnips that weigh up to 90 lb.!  The flowers in the area look like they are on steroids they are so big. 
 The city centre is festooned with flower gardens, and planters of all types, a treat for the eyes. 
Crossing Prince William Sound we were fortunate to see just about all the marine animals that inhabit the Sound. 
Humpback whales leapt and played ahead of us while orcas did the same off to the side.  Rafts of sea otters floated by.
  On one large buoy two stellar sea lions took a rest.  
As we returned to Whitehorse a huge cinnamon grizzly ran across the road in front of us.  
Distance takes an a whole new dimension when you travel in the north.
  It is beautiful part of our country and the USA and I am so glad to have seen it.  
 

 Buoy with two resting Stellar sea lions

Harlequin Ducks at a salmon river near Anchorage Alaska

Bald eagle

Alaskan brown bears

Dahl sheep - photo taken through bus window

Grizzly bear

LEANORE WIANCKO AND MARGO HOLT WENT TO TEXAS
 

The Red Cockaded Woodpecker
is in these trees

A group of birders looking at a dripping taps  where birds came
 to drink and bathe

Indian blanket flower

 the aftermath of a still smoldering forest fire

spot the alligator waiting for baby egrets
(the tail shows on the shore, in the middle)

Barb and Warren Ryckman, Margo Holt, Nancy Ironside, 2 dogs -Scoter and Marley, and
3 fishermen, including B and W's son David visited Manitoulin Island, and stayed at Twilight Isle.
 This is a selection of photos, by Barb and Margo  -  June 2011.
 

Marley and Nancy perched on a Puddingstone at Misery Bay.
This is conglomerate rock made up of a mixture of different, irregular sized grains and pebbles held together by a finer matrix.
  Its name is said to derive from a resemblance to Christmas pudding.
 

This algae, found on the wet rocks below an escarpment ( as well as on the escarpment) is known as Trentepohlia  .
The strong orange colour of the filaments, which masks the green of the chlorophyll, is caused by the presence of large quantities of carotenoid pigments.
This was found on a trail on the north shore  along Cook's Bay.
 

Jutta Arctic. Since 1997,this is our 7th time to find a colony of
this butterfly, in the same location- in the Cedar swamp, with
 fallen trees, adjacent to the Misery Bay Bog.
This northern butterfly only flies ( adulthood) every 2 years in our area..
 

Arethusa orchid photographed in the
Misery Bay Bog

Sunset from Twilight Isle looking at the Scott's Bluff escarpment

Panama – All Birds Great and Small    By Ron Reid    February 2011

For the past two decades, one of the best-known birding hot-spots has been Costa Rica. But now its tropical neighbour, Panama, is coming into the limelight, with good reason.
In late February, Janet and I spent two weeks there on a birding trip led by James Kamstra, an Ontario biologist. As it turned out, the rest of our group of eight were all members of
the Durham Field Naturalists. We were joined in Panama by a personable young guide named Roberto, who provided his perspectives on the country’s history and culture as well as its wildlife.

Panama is a relatively small country – the famous Panama Canal is only about 80 km long – but quite diverse. It is also very confusing for the first while,
 since the Canal runs north-south, with the capital, Panama City, located at its southern end on the Pacific coast. So Costa Rica abuts the country’s western border,
 and Columbia and the rest of South America are to the east.

The other surprise is its topography. I had somehow assumed that a country with a world-famous canal would be flat. In fact, most of it is hilly, often with very steep slopes,
 and our birding hikes inevitably seemed to feature multiple ups and downs that tested our stamina. In the lowland areas, especially in the central Canal Zone, the weather was
invariably hot and humid. But in the western highlands, where we also spent several days, the elevation was over 6000 feet, and the temperatures blissfully “cool”, about like June in Ontario.

Because of the high temperatures, we went a couple of days early to acclimatize, and booked in at a fabulous eco-lodge called Canopy Tower. This old radar tower, built by the
 Americans, sits atop a hill overlooking the Canal, with four stories topped by a fibreglass dome like a giant soccer ball. From our rooms on the second floor, each morning
 about 6:15 we would climb to the outdoor platform surrounding the dome, where the staff would have coffee and orange juice waiting. The lodge guides would be there with
 their spotting scopes, and we spent our first hour of the day watching Toucans, Parrots, Tanagers and other birds of the tree-tops, right at eye-level.
 After breakfast, served on the third floor with windows all round, we could have our choice of guided hikes to local destinations.

Canopy Tower was a great introduction to the bird life that would consume us for the next two weeks, and is still one of our favourite spots in the country.
Every morning we would be greeted by Keel-billed Toucans, crow-sized fruit-eaters with massive and colourful bills – the Fruit Loops bird. Right beside the Tower,
 a tree in flower attracted a half-dozen kinds of hummingbirds, so you could sit with your coffee and watch the squabbles of White-necked Jacobins and Violet-bellied Hummingbirds.
 In fact, over the course of the next two weeks, we would see an incredible 23 species of hummers, nearly every one of them a challenge to identify!

Birding in the tropics almost always seems to be a challenge – many of the birds flit about high in the leafy canopy, inducing severe cases of “warbler neck”,
 or they sneak about in the dense plant life of the forest floor. Even in the mid-levels, the profusion of vines and bromeliads provides birds with lots of places to hide.
 And tropical birds don’t sing as much as our Canadian birds on their breeding territories. To top it all off, Panama has more than 900 resident bird species,
 including whole families that were new to us, and a seemingly endless supply of “little brown jobs” that can be frustratingly difficult to figure out.

Panama birds seem to specialize in double-barreled names, as if the people who classified them couldn’t quite figure out where they belonged.
So we saw Antshrikes and Antwrens and Antthrushes (but missed out on the Antpittas), and Shrike-vireos and Quail-doves and Nightingale-thrushes.
 And many of the other names are wonderful too – who wouldn’t want to search for a Beautiful Treerunner, or a Buff-throated Foliage Gleaner, or even a Rufous Mourner?

But that’s why we went. In the end, we listed 323 species, most of them new to us. We did have 15 “Canadian” warblers in winter plumage; of course these species spend
 most of their year in Panama, and only visit us briefly to breed. A few other families stood out in our list – 11 species of wrens, for example, and 25 kinds of tanagers which
feed on fruiting trees. And the flycatcher family is amazingly prolific – we logged 31 kinds of flycatchers alone, which seemed strange because flying insects seemed relatively rare.
 The only biting insects we encountered were ticks and a larval flea called chiggers, although ants were abundant, and some of them do bite as well.

We did see many of the outrageously coloured “trophy birds” that grace the tourist brochures – Blue-crowned Mot-mots, and Violaceous Trogons, and best of all,
 Resplendent Quetzals with their flowing tail plumes and contrasting red bellies and emerald green backs. And we stayed in some amazing places – a coffee plantation
called Finca Lerida with birding trails through its remaining cloud forest; Burbayar eco-lodge where we stayed in cabins with thatch roofs and were served meals by
three sisters of the Cuna tribe, and the Gamboa resort where we could watch a family of pig-like mammals called Capybaras from our balcony.

Even though this was a birding trip, we were very lucky with mammals as well. Both Two-toed and Three-toed Sloths were fairly common;
 Howler Monkeys serenaded us from the tree-tops; we saw raccoon-like Coati and a small Rothschild's Porcupine. Best of all, we were to
 see two mammals that were new even to our Panamanian guide – a Puma bounding along a country road, and a Silky Anteater brought into Burbayar
Lodge by a local guide. The latter, also known as Pygmy Anteater, is only about the size of a Gerbil, with soft fur like a cat, and incredibly cute.
 (The guide did release him back where he was found before his nocturnal feeding time.)

Would we go again to Panama? Absolutely! The birds and other wildlife are great, the people are friendly and welcoming, there is very little crime,
 and even the water is safe to drink in most places. And there are still those 600 other species of birds that we haven’t seen yet – enough of a challenge to last a lifetime of visits.
 

RAY AND JANET KIFF VISITED CUBA IN FEBRUARY 2011

“The Best of Cuba” Quest Nature Tour, Feb 5-20, 2011

We took a 3 1/2 hour flight from Toronto to escape our Canadian winter,
 do some birding and absorb some of the culture and history of Cuba. It was
 a vigorous 16 days as we took a 2800km loop around the west half of Cuba
by coach, staying at 7 different hotels. From Havana we went west to the
 Sierra Del Rosario Mountains & Vinales. One night we had a bed with a
 mosquito net. (We should have used it) Next we looped back to Zapata Peninsula
 on the south coast, further east to Trinidad, before turning north to
Cayo las Brujas and back to Havana.
26 lifers were seen and over 127 species.

 As reported by Ray and Janet Kiff

Hotel Santa Clara, Old Havana ( like staying in a museum)

Cuban Peewee

Black- necked Stilt

White-crowned Pigeon

Cuban Pygmy Owl

Cuban Trogon

Yellow-headed Warbler

Snail Kite

Cuban Emerald

Cuban Flag at Che Guevera Square

STAN AND FERN SPLICHAL VISITED PANAMA IN FEBRUARY, 2011
 

The photos in this row were taken in an area in
Panama City.

The photos in the second row were taken in or near the Parque Internacional La Amistad, in the
 cloudforest area of Panama.
This area is near Costa Rica.

Blue-gray tanager

Variable Seedeater

Lineated woodpecker

Collared Redstart

Purple-throated Mountain-gem

Bridge in the National Park

Resplendent Quetzal

Nancy Ironside and Gord Michener attended the Crum Moss Workshop at Tobermory in September.
 

They collected in the Bruce National Park and the Fathom Five park at Flowerpot Island (all with permission of course).
The typical limestone alvar habitat was productive even though the flowering plants, including
 the endemics lakeside daisy and lake iris were over. The mosses can be collected at any time.
 The community centre was turned into a laboratory with many microscopes and half the day was spent there in identification.
The national and international experts such as Bill Buck of the New York Botanical Garden, Jennifer Doubt  and Linda Ley of
Canada’s Nature Museum,  were all very helpful to the new people. A spikemoss  (Selaginella eclipes), which had been named
by Bill Buck in 1977 was found (the identification was confirmed by the best expert – Bill Buck) .

 ( as told by Gord Michener)
 

On the right is a photo of Selaginella eclipes
( not a moss , not a fern, not a flowering plant ).

We head out to collect

On the boat to Flowerpot Island

collecting on an alvar

many people collected enough to fill a pillow case

working in the laboratory

The mosses are carefully recorded and after further study will be
 saved in  the herbarium of the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Linda Ley is seen working on the identifications.

Photos by Kieran Shepherd

Sep 22, 2010
Barb and Warren Ryckman visited  Balsam Lake
in Killarney Provincial Park
 
 

These lower photos show La Cloche Range, in Northern Ontario, along the northern shore of Lake Huron .
 The hills are located in the Canadian Shield, and are composed primarily of white quartzite. They are a significant feature of Killarney Park,
often painted by the Group of Seven artists.  The centre photo shows a Striped ( Moose) Maple growing from these rocks.

Kevin and Mary Binsted visited Newfoundland this summer ( 2010 ) and sent us these photos
 

East Coast Trail – LaManche Village

Highway 10  - The Irish Loop - Newfoundland Moose

Baccalieu Trail - Hearts Content – Butterfly
 ( Swallowtail sp.) on Wild Iris

East Coast Trail -Renews – Wild Iris

East Coast Trail - Read Head Cove 

Sea Kayaking at Cape Broyle –  exiting sea cave

Inside sea cave

East Coast Trail – Cape Spear –
Bake Apple Berry