violets

violets

Originally uploaded by parrishka

on the trail of the monarch part 1

Things have been pretty soggy here, a whole big box of rain through April and May, and that’s slowed spring down almost to a halt. The Lilacs are only just beginning to bloom. And the milkweed is barely out of the ground.

Impatient to start rearing this year’s brood, I thought I’d take matters into my own hands, drive south and see what I could see. The Journey North website listed a few sitings in the Niagara Region, my old stomping grounds, and I did distinctly remember gathering eggs in May for a science project wayyy back in time, so I figured it was a safe bet. And It was a beautiful day, and I was long overdue for a roadtrip.

But, as the bard says:

Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.

Someone thought it was a good idea to do construction on the Gardiner Expressway on a holiday weekend. It took me about an hour to get out of the city, and two accidents on the QEW meant that my 1 1/4 journey to Ball’s Falls took closer to three hours, and took a lot of the wind out of my as well. When I finally did get into the woods, I was in a foul mood, and had lost my sense of Thoreau-vian wanderlust. I was impatient to find exactly what I was seeking, and that never makes for a good nature romp.

I’m not sure how Ball’s Falls entered my mind as the premium destination- a google search of monarch sightings in Niagara listed it as a prime location for the migration, and I think in the fall this might be true. But there’s no meadow land there- at least none that I could find. Still, I had gone there once as a child, and figured it would make a nice romp. It is a beautiful walk, no mistake. But my impatience didn’t mesh well with the families and strollers, yes, strollers, on the trail. And the trail to the upper falls was over before I began it. I thought that maybe the physical exertion of hiking would get my serotonin going. But there was barely enough to break a sweat, let alone experience any kind of emotional cleansing. I did not take any pictures of the falls. Beautiful as they are- I leave that kind of thing to the experts. The trail was, however, dotted with violets, and I have a soft spot for violets in the spring.

Frustrated, I decided to move on to some familiar milkweed patches, and began heading back to the car. I took the paths less and less traveled by, and I may have stepped over some branches that were perhaps maybe left there intentionally to prevent trespassers from leaving the public grounds into the private. I was drawn by the sight of an open field.  And then the sound of many, many birds. And then the sight of birds diving into a small copse of trees in such a way that made it seem like this was THE place to be.

So I went forth. And came across a naturalist’s paradise. There was a small pond, surrounded all around by thickets and trees- with just a small enough opening for a person to hunker down close to the edge and watch. As I approached, a frog jumped off the side of the pond, emitting exactly the “yikes” sound that Annie Dillard describes in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I knelt down by the edge, and saw hundreds, if not thousands of tadpoles. The picture does not do it justice at all at all. I was immediately flooded with happiness. I don’t think I’ve seen any tadpoles since I was a child. I haven’t gone out of my way to find them, but whenever I’ve been near a pond that seemed to have the right conditions, I’ve looked. How many hours did I spend as a child mucking about near creeks and ponds? How many jars of pond water with tadpoles did I collect? Not a single one ever produced a frog. They all died before they got that far. These days, I would have the internet to use as a guide to learn how to do it right. I need to find a pond close by. I miss ponds.

I communed with the tadpoles for a good long time, well aware that there were all kinds of interesting birds in the surrounding thicket. Tiny warbler-y things. But I hadn’t brought my binoculars- didn’t feel like working so hard this time. And the day was getting on. And I was still really in search of Monarchs.

my first viceroy

So.

I have been following Monarch Butterflies for as long as I can remember. And I have always been aware of the Viceroy- the butterfly that cashes in on the Monarch’s toxicity by mimicking its colour and appearance, but not going through the bother of developing toxins for itself. Most birds don’t know the difference, and avoid them both. Once bitten, etc.

But I know the difference. The black band across the lower wings. Yet I had never seen one, until this past week. I went up to the Rouge after the heat wave broke to see if I could surprise the great grouping of Pearly Eyes we’d seen on the Canada Day count. I had just parked my car, hadn’t even got out, when I looked to my right, and lo and behold. There it was. My First Viceroy.

Canada Day with the Bug People

So, this balmy Canada Day I headed out again with the TEA to the Rouge Valley. The leader of the count, Tom Mason, told us that he had just been told he needed a permit to do what we were doing. (He had obtained said permit.) But it did all leave us wondering- why should one need permission to count butterflies?

Our counts were generally low, and we really felt the impact of interference with habitat. The first field, normally chock-a-block with skippers, who love grasses, had been mowed for some inexplicable reason, and yielded precious little. The remaining fields had also been overrun by that viney weed that is choking everything to death these days- no, not loose strife. I can’t recall the name of it now, but you’d recognize it. It’s everywhere, and deeply invasive.

I was determined to learn the difference between the “three witches,”  a trio of brown-ish skippers, so called because “they’re very difficult to tell apart.” Ah, I replied. Unlike the other skippers. “Nah, skippers are easy” said Tom.  Ahem.

So, the three witches are as follows: The Northern Broken Dash, The Little Glassywing, and the Dun.  Based on the photos from THIS website, I would guess that this: is a Little Glassywing:

and I think that THIS is a Dun skipper:

I’m sticking to that.

We also saw a fair number of checkerspots, lovely things. I’m still getting the hang of this camera, so the great shot I got of them ain’t so good. But here tis:

questions about commas

I just saw a Question Mark or a Comma flittering around a bit of shubbery on Pearson, and I swear it was making all like it wanted to lay eggs on the bush.

But it didn’t seem to sit still long enough to leave anything of substance behind, and it moved so quickly and the bush had such small leaves that I couldn’t get a visual hold on where it had been each time it moved on.

But I grabbed a leaf to see if I could identify it to confirm.

The leaf resembles nothing like any of the question mark or comma’s host plants. I think it was confused. I know I am.

return to the rouge

I missed the TEA’s annual July 1st Rouge Butterfly count. The previous night was our Billirads Tournemant finals. I hand’t anticipated making it to the finals. I certainly didn’t anticipate winning the finals. I also didn’t anticipate the celebratory shooters that followed. when I woke, some healthy hours into the following morning, I knew that standing around in a hot open field what not what the doctor ordered.

So this weekend, I decided to make my own field trip to the rouge. Armed with my new butterfly net, the audubon’s field guide, and my fledgling knowledge, I struck out.

I began in the same place, by the Pearse House, but I decided to skip the small first field that last year had yielded only skippers.  Yes. I skipped the skippers. I find them tedious. My first non-skipper discovery was (I’m fairly certain) a Dark Wood Nymph. It only had eye spots on the top parts of its wings, and it really was beautifully, dusky dark.

I then followed the trail of a Tiger Swallowtail, all about the place, hoping it would lead me to some of its eggs or caterpillars, but I think I really need to learn my trees better before I have any hope there. Some kind of Fritillary or other began to tease me next. These things just don’t keep still even for a moment. Aptly named, I suppose. I’d wage I saw half a dozen Monarchs or so.

And then I caught this little thing that seemed like a cross between a skipper and a nymphy/satyr creature. I got out the book, while it patiently waited in the net, and I’ve decided it was a Prairie Ringlet.

The Frittilaries then lured me across another field, one of them pausing long enough for me to get within a hair’s breadth and be dazzled by the brightness of its orange.

I’m fairly certain that the rest of the nymphy/satyr things I found were Little Wood Nymphs- soft grey, with exactly four eye spots.

The Milkweed in one part of the field was covered in ladybug pupae, all hatching or about ready to hatch. I must have seen about 20 in these liminal states.

rear guard action

Rod  Parrott’s interest in butterflies began in his early childhood. “It was in England, in the 40s, you see, and all of us children were bored. So my father gave us some butterfly nets, and we’ go out with fruit jars, and collect them and bring them home and watch them. And then we’d let them go.”

And that’s how it started. 70 years later, Parrott now supplies  butterflies to three different conservatories, rearing them in a greenhouse he constructed in his backyard in Port Hope. I am visiting this lepidopetrists’ mecca on the first day of my summer vacation, on a field trip with the Toronto Entomological Society, and I am in heaven.

Rod’s wife June greets us and looks after the logistics of the visit.  Only a few of us can visit the greenhouse at a time, so we take the tour in shifts. While waiting, the others sit in the chairs provided, under the shade. Water is offered to whoever needs it. Clearly, the Parrotts are used to visitors.

Before we enter the greenhouse, Rod gives us an aboreal  lesson.

“Who knows their trees?”

We all confess  our ignorance.

He grabs a leaf from the tree nearest him and crushes it. “Smell that! It smells spicy!” It smells heavenly, but yes, in a spicy way. “That’s a Spicebush. The Spicebush Swallowtail likes that one.” I love it when bugs conform to type.

We then smell the shmushed  leaves of the Spiny Ash (lemony), favourite of the Giant Swallowtail, and the hop tree, which we are told is stinky, but compared to other stinks I have known, I’d only register it as pungent. And  finally we are shown the Dutchman’s  Pipe, which everyone recognizes immediately. Except me.

And then we are led into the greenhouse, and we all exclaim. We are surrounded. One gentleman, a photographer who has recently devoted his macro lens to shooting butterflies, is awestruck. “It’s so beautiful! I can’t stand it” he cries. The Pipevine and Spicebush Swallowtail butterflies are dusky exotic beauties, black and metallic blue, and they are everywhere.

A couple of years ago, I visited the Niagara Falls Butterfly  conservatory and was dazzled. But as I wandered through the jungle they’d created, I felt uneasy. Here were thousands of male and female butterflies in an enclosed space, but I could see no signs of larvae on any leaves. Did they perform micro-vasectomies? How could this be? I asked one of the staff, and she confirmed my suspicions. The conservatory doesn’t use any host plants for the larvae. So when the butterflies mate, and lay their eggs, the caterpillars have nothing to eat. While this was a morbid truth, I did understand the reason. Keeping up with the appetite of a caterpillar is no mean feat.

But yesterday, I learned that it is possible. What Parrott has built is really an ecosystem. Everywhere you look, you can see the full life cycle of each creature in its various stages. The host plants are remarkably healthy and full, despite the fact that on every leaf you find a cluster of eggs or a fat caterpillar. How does he do it? He just does.  He rears about a thousand Monarchs each year, and his yard is full of an array of buckets growing various types of Milkweed.

I also didn’t see any predators in this paradise. How does he deal with them? “You stomp ‘em, one at a time. Or you squish ‘em,” he gestures with his arthritic fingers.

Parrott is full of stories, and he is eager to pass on his knowledge. When he learns that I’m a teacher, he pulls me aside and says, “So tell me. How are the kids these days?” “Oh, the kids are alright,” I reply. “Good.”

In the cool of the carport, a table holds half a dozen trays, each full of cocoons. He takes one out and places it in my hand. Inside the woven clump of tawny hairs, I can feel a scrabbly sort of kicking. It’s the Polyphemous moth inside, getting ready to hatch.

• Silvery Blue
• Spicebush SwallowTail
• White Admiral
• Red Admiral
• Monarch
• Viceroy
• Black Swallowtail
• Tiger Swallowtail
• Giant Swallowtail
• Pipevine Swallowtail
• Red-Spotted Purple
• Polyphemous Moth
• Cecropia Moth (Cocoon only)

Algonquin August 2008

Back from a great Canoe Trip in Algonquin. I went with Wilderness Adventures, a company I would recommend highly- with one small caveat. The trip, as advertised, is a recreational experience, off the water by 3, time to swim, explore, etc. But ORCA training & certification is also advertized as an option for these trips. 4 of the 7 trippers had signed up looking to do this training, myself included. What this meant was that a lot of time was devoted to instruction, and we were never off the water by 3! That was fine for me, and the other 3, a father and his two sons, ended up joining us in the cert. course and also getting their certification. If I were booking with them and looking for only a recreational experience, I’d ask to be put on a trip with other people with similar intentions.

Fortunately, I wanted the training. And I learned so much from it. Because my physical strength puts some limits on what I can do, I was particularly interested to learn the different techniques that can give you a “mechanical advantage.” This was my favourite phrase of the trip. For carrying & lifting canoes, or hanging food, or making a rope more taught, and especially paddling techniques- I gained all kinds of mechanical advantages! So much so that now, not only do I feel confident to be a lead tripper on a trip, I’m ready to go solo.

And I got more experience with camp cooking gear. We had an outback oven which we used to make brownies, muffins, even bread! We ate like kings.

And this incongruous group of mixed ages and interests, and me the only chic among them, managed to gel in the ways that you do on a trip, when you’re constantly problem solving and learning to work together. John, our trip leader, was a scruffy bear of a man, complete with growls, and a kind heart beating beneath the bombast. You could see it in his eyes, which had a softness behind them, even as he was howling with laughter as he watched you struggle to perform some near impossible task that he had rigged so that it would yield more “entertainment value.” Perhaps we united more quickly because of our common oppressor?

The loop itself was beautiful- it was Algonquin, what more needs to be said- but a higher proportion of portage to paddle than I would like. I never got tired on the water. I do like to get to the point where a portage feels like a break.

The itinerary:

Day 1:

put in at access #4, Rain Lake.

310 m portage at the east end of the lake into Sawyer’s lake, where we camped.

Day 2:

portage 550 m out of Sawyers, into Jubilee.

portage 450 m out of Jubilee into Moccasin,

portage 440m out of Moccasin into Bandit.

We camped on the site on the Island in Bandit lake, but decided in the morning that the campsite nearer the portage is ncier, even if the thunderbox is very close to the tents. Still, the Bandit lake Campsite was my favourite.

Day 3 & 4

portage 540 into We no Na.

portage 370 into Muslim Lake. (we broke for lunch here to get ourselves good and ready for the big portage.)

portage 1030 into Misty Lake. Not a difficult portage. Just long.

We camped on Misty lake for 2 nights- at the first campsite west of the portage. Good rocks for swimming. Lots of space.

Day 5

portage 935 m out of Misty Lake. A trick of the eyes to find this portage, hidden back in the marsh. But it’s there. Raspberries towards the end of this portage fairly burst on the tongue with their sweet tang. It called to mind In the Skin of a Lion, Patrick’s memory of the summer days of his childhood:

“You put the smallest pellet of raspberry onto your tongue and opened it delicately with your teeth. You stood in a field on a hot day obsessed with this precise taste.”

All along the Petawawa for this one. Even with the amount of rain we’ve had this year, this was a narrow, shallow river. Two Beaver Dams, and we encountered one when I was soloing. This was the day BEFORE we had our soloing instructions. After about 10 attempts, I needed a pooosh to get over. I would love to try it again now that I know to get my paddle as close to the center of the boat as possible, so I get more forward moment and have to correct less. John’s most helpful comment to me for this was to try to “scratch my butt” with my paddle. When you do this, you really reach down under the boat and what a difference that makes. Also on this day we met a young woman who had been out on an 8 day solo trip. It was her first and I was anxious to pepper her with questions. She also had an instructive amount of gear with her- looked like next to nothing in her one pack.

We lunched at the campsite on the north side of the river. Wild open campsite with more raspberry bushes- slimmer pickings.

450 portage and then the 135 which was tricky to find- a few forks in the river leading nowhere. Well, they lead somewhere obviously. but not the where we had in mind. Waterslide at the east end of the 135 portage.

We camped on the Petawawa on the north side just before it opens up into Daisy Lake. Nice site- open fire area, wooded tent sites. Blueberry bushes yielded enough for pancakes. Not so nice for swimming. Not that we did.

And Day 6

we head for home- paddle into Daisy Lake, swing north and portage 450 out of there into a creek which was full enough for us to be able to skip the 55 m portage into Hambone. Then West across Hambone where we negotiated the 135 portage with 32 folk beginning their Labour Day Weekend trip, all their bright new Mec dry sacks looking like so much “dangly shit” as John would mutter.

And a quick jaunt to the parking lot at access point 3 and home again, home again.

Our Canoe Route

Morning on Bandit Lake

Ta da! This was the only kind of loaf’n we did.

Sunset at Misty Lake

Who says this colour doesn’t exist in nature?

black swallowtail moult

black swallowtail moult

Originally uploaded by parrishka

This here is my gorgeous Black Swallow Tail just after having emerged from the 4th instar. You can see the old skin behind it, and the old head sticking on the other side of the stem.

It spend about 5 days in the 5th instar, and yesterday, I noticed it had climbed to the top of the container. I saw the little button it had woven and knew it was getting ready for “the change o’ life.” Sure enough, this morning I found a chrysalis. I wish I had taken more pictures of the lovely thing in its 5th instar. They abound online so if you’re never seen one, check these out. I think I was just too much in awe of it. So damn pretty.

field trip report

My second adventure with the bug people was a Spider Count that took place along an abandoned track alongside Blackwater Creek, about half an hour north of Whitby. Apparently, the field guide for Canadian Spiders numbers four volumes and is not comprehensive. I’ve decided not to get into spiders. I don’t need that kind of headache. But all kinds of wee crawly things appear when you look for them, and I knew that I would learn and see much. I was not disappointed.

I learned that I was in the company of a very experienced and knowledgeable rearer, Glenn, in fact the head of the board of the TEA, and he very graciously shared his knowledge with me. I saw my first Viceroy, a mimic of the Monarch who takes advantage of its bright colouring to warn off potential predators, even thought the Viceroy lacks the Monarch’s toxicity. The Viceroy has a band of black across its lower wings, and is slightly smaller, its top wings more rounded. It bears a Victorian, sloping-shouldered beauty next to the Monarch’s 80′s power suit. Hearing me chirp excitedly about the Viceroy, Glenn gave me some tips about finding the eggs and larvae. The Viceroy lays its eggs at the very tip of the leaf of its host plant- most commonly cherry, and aspen. He had barely finished this explanation when we came across an aspen who obliged us with a tiny egg, right at the tip of the leaf where he said it would be. He then explained that the larvae, mechanically efficient, begin eating where they hatch, and methodically work their way down the leaf, eating everything but the spine, and this leaves a very distinctive pattern. Further along the track, he pointed out a leaf with those tell-tale signs on a cherry tree, and sure enough, there was the wee caterpillar.

Another trick he showed me was how to find a Black Swallowtail caterpillar. Now, I had been spending the preceding weeks scoping any Queen Anne’s lace I’d passed without any luck at all. So when he casually gathered one up for Carol, I pounced. They tend to hide in the dead centre of the flowerhead. They start out black and smudgy, so they look much like the little dot of dark purply flower bits. And you have to be careful as you’re poking around in there not to sticky your fingers into an ambush bug, who like to use the same hidey holes. And unlike Monarchs, who will clusterbomb a small area of milkweed with their eggs, the Swallowtail spaces out its young, giving them a place to breathe and a place to grow, Ontari-ari-ari-o. So if you find one, you should walk a few paces before you look for another. Armed with this knowledge, I set off on my mission, and managed to find 3 more larvae- one for me to take home, one for Glenn and one that was too far along for any of us to risk.

And I’m happy to report that it’s doing very well indeed. It’s gone through two instars- changing from its bird poop mimickry stage to the emerald and black beauty I’ve been coveting.