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Sandhill Crane Close-ups: June 2021

After spending the night in Chapleau, I started the 400 km drive to Terrace Bay early on this cloudy morning.

MYSTERY BIRD

I will identify the species at the end of the post.

The Trans Canada Highway in the north of Ontario doesn’t have a tremendous amount of traffic but there is enough to make it a little dangerous to pull off to the side.

For this reason I always take the highway that runs between Chapleau and Wawa. It is full of gorgeous scenery and, today, there was perhaps one vehicle every fifteen minutes. Perfect for regular stops. I was rewarded with very close views of a Sandhill Crane.

Sandhill Crane
Sandhill Crane
Sandhill Crane
Sandhill Crane
Sandhill Crane
Sandhill Crane
Sandhill Crane
Sandhill Crane
Sandhill Crane
Sandhill Crane

I saw a few of these but this is the best I could do for a photograph:

Moose (photo taken through smeared car windscreen)
Moose (photo taken through smeared car windscreen)

Other birds:

Common Goldeneye (females)
Common Goldeneye (females)
Common Goldeneye (male)
Eastern Kingbird
Cedar Waxwing
Eastern Phoebe

a few insects:

immature Chalk-fronted Corporal:
Tiger Swallowtail
Northern Petrophora:
immature Chalk-fronted Corporal:

Some botany:

Bracken Fern fiddlehead
emerging Bracken Fern
Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis)
Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum)
Winter Cress (Barbarea)
Birch polypore
Sedge
Goat’s beard (Tragopogon)
Pussy-toes (Antennaria)
Bebb’s Willow (Salix bebbiana)
Reindeer Lichen
Black Spruce (Picea mariana)
Blueberry (Vaccinium)
Goat’s beard (Tragopogon)

MYSTERY BIRDS

They took off as soon as they saw me – Ring-necked Ducks

MAILBOX

Forced to share her nesting platform with two muskrats and a turtle that seems to be sunning himself on the only convenient “rock.”

Birds – Scott Rykken (smugmug.com)

NATURE POETRY

Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.   – Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94)

Miles Hearn

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