Spring in Ontario

Ring-necked Snake

  What can beat a long weekend camping with a bunch of friends... Not much but throwing a bunch of amazing animals into the mix definitely helps! An annual May long weekend tradition is to go to the National Park and in exchange for giving them valuable data on reptile and amphibian abundance/locations we are allowed to stay in the park before it opens for the season! 

Eastern Milksnake

 Despite temperatures going to -3 C and having a few patches of rain go over, every day was great for finding reptiles! They were eager to catch the sun when it was out and it saved us the trouble of getting up really early because it was too cold for the things we wanted to see anyways. The earliest reptile out in the morning was a basking Rattlesnake at 9am.

Massasauga Rattlesnake

 My favorite sighting for the weekend was a juvenile Eastern Hognose Snake. Just found on the side of a path the little tyke did his full 'puff adder' display for us trying to make his tiny self as big as possible. These snakes will rarely bite but are quite the actors! If flattening their heads and giving the traditional 'cobra look' doesn't scare a predator (or interested humans) off then the snake will play dead with such enthusiasm that it will move it's body back into it's dead pose.

Eastern Hognose Snake

Although we did hear my favorite amphibian (Gray Treefrog) on the trip we couldn't locate one. We did however manage to find two Four-toed Salamanders which are usually quite restricted to vernal pools with mossy edges. At the base of the tail you can see a constriction that can help identify these salamanders from Red-backed Salamanders in the gray phase without needing to get a look at their very tiny feet. You can also tell them apart by their very white belly with black spots.

Four-toed Salamander

We are never in time to see the mass congregations of breeding Spotted or Blue-spotted Salamanders in these vernal pools but we do frequently find these egg masses clinging to sticks or other debris.

All in all a great weekend with some great friends. Can't wait for the next trip!

Delta Marsh

 The drive from Winnipeg to Delta Beach is probably the flattest I have ever seen in this world. Patches of trees by the farmers houses or rows used to block wind from the farmlands are the only breaks in the horizon. Even these are few and pretty far between... BUT when you arrive at Delta Marsh the scenery changes from flat agricultural lands to gorgeous expanses of cattail marsh as far as the eye can see. 

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Volunteering at the Delta Marsh Banding Station was a great experience despite the weather being cold and cloudy most of the time. A lot of birds were using the marsh close to the edges (because the parts further out were still frozen) and scrubby forests in between giving a great view of many species. The lifers I got were ridiculously common species in Manitoba but I had actually had never seen a Yellow-headed Blackbird or White Pelican before!

Yellow-headed Blackbird

The cold weather also kept a lot of species which would normally have passed through in the area. It was great to see Rough-legged Hawks along the roadsides. These gorgeous birds are one of my favorites.