Being Watched by Song Sparrows.

This little song sparrow is keeping quiet as she sits on her nest in the long grass just a few steps from a path. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, the previous day I was surprised by her rising from immediately below my feet. Fortunately I didn't step on her nest with four small eggs in it so the next day I came back and took her photograph. A couple of days later when I passed by there was at least one baby chick in the nest, but I just caught a glimpse as I didn't want to unnecessarily perturb the mom. I don't know what happened to the chicks but a week later the nest is empty except for a broken shell.

Below is another song sparrow (or perhaps the same one with a new nest) keeping a watchful eye as I pass in the vicinity of her nest. Hopefully, it is well hidden. She and her mate keep a continuous chirp going as long as I am in sight but it is so brief it is hard to pin point which direction the chirp is coming from.

Roadside Cleanup

Well it is spring again and I went out and picked up some garbage along the bike path and berm. It is interesting what sort of things you find. My impression is that there are fewer grocery bags than there were 6-7 years ago. It used to be I figured you could always find enough bags amongst the garbage to clean-up the garbage itself but now I mostly rely on bags I get from the city's Clean up the Capital program. It's good exercise, and feels more productive than just going for a walk or a bike ride.

It is daffodil time now. Spring started quite early in March with midges out the weekend before Easter and mostly bare ground for Easter but then we got some more snow in the first half of April to cover the bare ground. The bloodroot was out last weekend which is a bit earlier than previous years, but the past few days have been coolish so spring blooms are probably right on schedule now.

Winter Storm

There was a record snowfall on Tuesday. Trudging out to the trees yesterday the fluffy snow was up to my knees and it was hard work just to go a few hundred meters to take this picture. The rabbit below was having a hard time getting through the snow as well. Here he is at the entrance to his bolt hole.

I heard a chickadee announce that "tea's ready" yesterday, a sure sign that spring is coming. Winter started quite late this year (there were dandelions blooming on Christmas Day). I wonder how much more of it we have to see.

Dog Strangling Vine

I found an isolated clump of Dog Strangling Vine on the berm just south of the end of Newhaven St. last spring. From the size of it and the evidence of prior year's vines it looked like it had been quietly expanding for the past 3-5 years. There is more Dog Strangling Vine a few hundred meters to the west but it has only expanded about 50m eastward in the past couple of years. Dog Strangling Vine is a terribly invasive plant. The Fletcher Wildlife Garden is practically covered in the stuff. They have a group of volunteers that fights it, and from their descriptions it is very hard to control.

I thought I would give it a go by carefully taking out this small clump with hand pulling. The clump had about 100-200 plants in it, and it only took a few minutes to pull up the bulk of them. I came back two times over the summer to make sure that I hadn't missed any and each time found a few more to pull. I didn't attempt any careful destruction of the pulled plants but just left them to dry out on the grass. In my judgement that was just fine as the plants were not in contact with the soil and quickly dried out. According to the Fletcher Wildlife Garden's instructions you should black bag them.

The plant likes the forest edge environment although it can also tolerate the full shade of the interior as well. As an invasive, there is little that eats it and I expect eventually the dog strangling vine close to Ben Franklin park will travel along the berm to the renaturalization area. I have been fitfully pulling it up to knock it back, but there is so much of it in that area I can never get all of it. This experiment with this isolated clump is to see what it really takes to eradicate it.

Typical clump of Dog Strangling Vine. Note previous year's vines

Before the flower buds open, it can be easily pulled.

Young Plant. Note opposite, dark green shiny leaves

With moist soil you can taking a portion of the roots as well.

It likes to climb bushes and trees

It has small dull flowers

Closer inspection shows the flowers have a purple hew with a yellow center.

They produce long narrow seed pods, that turn yellow over summer.

In early fall the pods dry out and open up.

They produce fluffy seeds similar to those of the related milkweed.

The seeds are prolific and seedlings can be found in clumps close to the mother plant.

False Dandelion

I've never noticed this flower in November. Here are False Dandelions doing a good job of looking like dandelions. There are also a few dandelions flowering out as well. Usually false dandelions are a summer flower and are much taller than dandelions but at this time of year they both are just poking their heads up above the lawn. I believe fine days like today encourage the plants to see if it is spring yet.

Both Dandelions and false dandelions are supposed to be "edible". I've never tried false dandelions, but if dandelions are anything to go by, "edible" is a very loose term. In the interests of science I suppose I should give them a try.

Hundreds of crows were flying overhead yesterday at dusk, heading east. I've been noticing these flocks for years. It never looks like a lot of birds at any one time because they are so high up and spread out, but the silent stream of birds lasts for quite a few minutes.

Black locusts

There is a black locust along the fence line behind Kirkstall that is throwing suckers out into the long grass. Yesterday I transplanted another black locust sucker to the naturalization area. Black locusts are natives to North America but are at the very northern limit of their range in Ottawa. They have thorns and vigorously sucker so aren't a good backyard tree but they have sweet smelling flowers in spring and fix nitrogen for the soil.

While lugging the sucker back to the naturalization area I saw a few relatively uncommon animals: a pretty monarch butterfly fluttering along the edge of the forest, a group of swallows taking insects on the wing and a turkey vulture soaring high above.

Syrphid

This looks like Toxomerus marginatus, a common type of hoverfly. It is feeding on a wild parsnip flower. The wild parsnip has not spread far from the location of the single plant that was there in 2013. There are a couple of smaller flowering plants but no large 6 foot tall plant like in 2013.