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Piping plover

Charadrius melodus

Nonesuch River, ME

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Bucksport, Maine

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Cambodia, August

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Malaysia

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Came out of the woods in the blackness of the early hibernal morning, losing feeling to the cold. Woke up by the beach to an owl hooting at me. He then (upon realising that I could not be reasoned with) took off into the night. Later, I was propped up under the incandescent lights of a hideous fast food joint pretending to eat a pancake, and an old guy sat across from me, asked if I'm an immigrant and then started going on about GMOs. There was a pause, and I realised that I ought to say something. I asked myself, what would Dasha say.

"It's the seed oils that get you"

A moment of tension. And then he nodded sagely. I left the town at daybreak, on the first bus. I hate that bloody podcast.

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It was already dark when I reached the centre of Pinery Provincial Park, and it was silent except for the chatter of southern flying squirrels (Glaucomys volans), the deep calls of great horned owls, and the piercing screams of screech-owls. I could see the pale forms of the flushed squirrels in the beam of my torch silently gliding away into the oaks.

A few km further, past the edge of the woods, I found open sand dunes along the shore of Lake Huron.

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Actually kicking myself I had my DSLR with me and took a beautiful photo of a cave mouth with ferns, except for some reason I used my smartphone camera so the details are irreversibly blown out

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Yellow Warbler Setophaga petechia

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Yellow-rumped Warbler Setophaga coronata

There is a swarm of these calling from the streamside cherry and willow trees. Most of them are just stopping over during their migrations, and will be gone in a few days, until the fall. A few will probably stay.

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Yellow Warbler Setophaga petechia

Every April, the New World (Parulid) warblers migrate north from the tropics in a unified wave, with individuals dispersing into their breeding grounds along the way. The wavefront is currently passing over the Great Lakes region, and this thicket was filled with calling migrants like this male yellow warbler.

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Eastern meadowlark Sturnella magna

Found off in the distance while owl-watching (no owls). There's a really nice variety of open-country birds here.

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American Kestrel Falco sparverius ♂

This area is right on the urban-rural boundary, which either results in more birds of prey or more observations of them. This is probably my favourite species, they're so colourful! They're our smallest raptor (sparverius means sparrowlike) and they like to eat bugs.

In other news, I'm training my dog to find woodcocks and I've bought a trailcam, so hopefully there will be some fun photos to share!

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Wolf's-milk Lycogala epidendrum

This picture is from last autumn. I think I've finally figured it out, these things like expansive woodlands with lots of dead wood and thick leaf litter. I'll try to find more now that I have a macro lens.

I don't think there will be much good bird photography this spring due to the warm winter and lack of migration, but at least there will be wildflowers. This summer I'm going to go to Québec or New England to get some more interesting photos and do some painting/collecting. I am so fed up of this winter.

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Early blue cohosh leaves

Bloodroot rhizome

Bloodroot stem

Bloodroot petal

Interestingly, the blue cohosh, formerly a black-indigo colour, became green when placed in ethanol.

All of these are toxic, and you can run the extracts out on a silica (diatomaceous earth) plate to separate the different toxins.

The glowing orange spot is bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) extract under an ultraviolet torch. If the separation worked, we'd be able to see multiple spots for each toxin in the extract. But it didn't, so we can't.

The main toxin here is probably sanguinarine anyway. It's red under visible light, and presumably it's orange under ultraviolet. It's an alkaloid like morphine and codeine, which makes sense given that bloodroot is in the poppy family (Papaveraceae).

Most alkaloids glow. Quinine (e.g. tonic water) is a sort of sky blue.