Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Anglewing

Sorry, too many photos! Once I have finished photos from Day 2, I still have another 9 days to work on. I would love to know how other people manage to upload their photos from a trip so quickly :) Part of it might just be that I am not used to going on holidays like this, so I'm not used to this kind of volume of images. This afternoon, I added 10 more photos from our trip to Pt. Pelee, Ontario, and Tadoussac, Quebec, in May 2018. I am trying to add any images in roughly the order in which they were taken. These photos were all taken at Rondeau Provincial Park on 8 May 2018. Formed in 1894, this is Ontario’s second oldest Provincial Park. A delightful place! We were at the Visitor's Centre over lunchtime and an absolutey delicious curry soup was available. As for marking my photos on my map, I have no idea exactly where we saw what, so I will place all the Rondeau photos in one general location, mainly to show where Rondeau Provincial Park actually is. Also, a few of the photos may have been taken while driving to and from the park, back to our hotel in Leamington. "Rondeau protects one of the last remaining stands of old growth Carolinian Forest in Ontario. Apart from protecting 3254 ha of Oak Savannah, Carolinian Forest, Dune habitat, and Coastal wetland, Rondeau is one of North America’s best examples of a Cuspate Sandspit. Formed by the erosion and deposition of sand and gravel, the Rondeau peninsula extends into Lake Erie, and forms a protected bay which is important habitat for a variety of species at risk as well as providing many recreational opportunities. The peninsula, combined with the open bay, attracts migrating birds throughout the spring and fall, resulting in some of the best bird watching in Ontario." From Rondeau Park website. rondeauprovincialpark.ca/about-rondeau-park/ Four friends (four of the six friends with whom I went to Trinidad & Tobago in March 2017) and I left Calgary airport on 6 May 2018 and flew to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. There, we rented a van and did the long drive to Point Pelee for four whole days of birding. We stayed at the Best Western Hotel in Leamington, which is close to Point Pelee National Park. It fills up very quickly (with birders) and our rooms were booked months ahead of time. Our four days walking at Point Pelee or places not too far away were very interesting and I, for sure, saw various things I had never seen before, including my very first Raccoon : ) Various friends had told me that the Warblers at Pelee were fantastic - so many and numerous species, and so close. Have to disagree with the "closeness" when we were there! I don't have binoculars as cameras are enough for me to carry around, so I know I missed all sorts of birds. Though my Warbler count was lower than my friends' counts, I was happy to at least get a few distant photos of some species. So many of my shots are awful, but I will still post some of them, just for the record of seeing them. Some photos are so bad that I doubt anyone can ID them. We covered several different trails at Pelee, and also drove to a few places somewhat further afield, such as Hillman Marsh. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the magnificent barn at this Conservation Area! I was in so much pain that I wasn't sure if I would be able to walk across a grassy area to take a few photos. However, it was so unusual and beautiful, that I reckoned I could try and move forward inch by inch - or crawl (ha, ha) if necessary. Another place we enjoyed was Rondeau National Park. One amazing and totally unexpected sighting just outside Pelee was a very distant male Snowy Owl sitting in a fieldl!! We walked every single day that we were at Pelee and the areas mentioned above, seeing not just birds, but a frog/toad, snakes that we suspect were mating, several Painted turtles, a few plants (including both white and red Triliums, that I had never seen growing wild before, and a couple of Jack in the Pulpit plants). The Friends of Point Pelee have food available at lunch time that one can buy. They also have a shuttle bus that one can take from the Visitor Centre all the way to the southern tip of Pelee, which is the most southern part of Canada. They have birding walks with a guide each day (there is a charge), but we walked the trails on our own, except for one morning. On 9 May, we spent the morning from 6:00 am to 11:00 am on a birding walk at Pelee with guide, Tom Hince, whom we had contacted while we were still in Calgary. At the end of our stay at Point Pelee, we had to drive all the way back to Toronto, from where we flew to Quebec airport. From there, we had a four-hour drive to Tadoussac on the coast of the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is such a delightful, small place and in a beautiful setting. One of our friends, Anne B, and her husband have a summer cabin further along the cliff from the few stores and port. She had invited the four of us to go with her from Pelee to spend a week at her beautiful home. What an absolute treat this was! We were able to meet some of her relatives, too, who also have built cabins out there. We were looked after so well, and we were able to see and photograph all sorts of birds and other things. We made several trips to see different places, including the Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Area, where we were able to see endless thousands of Snow Geese. Breathtaking! We also had two boat trips from Tadoussac - one was a whaling trip in a Zodiac, where we saw very, very distant Beluga and Minke Whales. The Belugas looked almost like the white wave crests - but they were Belugas. The other boat trip was to the Brandy Pot Islands, inhabited by thousands of Razorbills and Common Murres, which were new birds for us, and Double-crested Cormorants that were nesting in tree tops. That long boat trip (in a tiny boat named Juno) started off in the rain and dark clouds and it was soooo cold! Thermal underwear, layers of fleece and toque and gloves were needed. This day was arranged through a contact of Anne's and it was so much enjoyed! Of course, we anchored a distance away from the island and sat there and ate our sandwiches and took endless photos. It is forbidden to land on the island at nesting time. Anne B, I can't thank you enough for organizing this holiday for us all and for inviting us to spend a week at your cabin. You worked so hard and it was so much appreciated by each and every one of us. Thank you for doing all the many hours of driving, too! Janet and Anne, thank you so much for compiling the lists of birds seen each day at various locations, and posted to ebird. These entries will be a huge help while I try and sort out where we were and when, and what species we saw. Miss your cookies and muffins, Janet, that you kindly made for us in Tadoussac, to go along with the wonderful meals that Anne planned and made for us : )

William J. Bagnall Wilderness Park is named after Mountain View County’s first reeve, who served in the position from 1961 to 1981 and also served as a councillor until 1985. The William J. Bagnall Wilderness Park (34.7 acres) is located seven kilometres west of Water Valley just off Highway 579. "Remediation efforts for the wilderness park were undertaken after the area was made inaccessible following the flood of 2005. Included in the upgrades is a new entry and parking lot on the south side (just off Highway 579); two walking trails that will form a 1.2-kilometre loop; a historical sign detailing the history of the site as a coal mining area; a small picnic area, including outhouses, tables and pest-proof containers; along with several stairways for steep-grade accessibility." From an article in the Mountainview Gazette on 14 June 2011. www.mountainviewgazette.ca/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201... Yesterday, 18 April 2016, I went NW of Calgary with a small group of friends to explore the William J. Bagnall WIldness Park. This was actually my very first visit to this wilderness park. A couple of friends had mentioned it recently and two weeks ago, on 5 April 2016, I finally decided to go and explore the area. That day, I drove through some beautiful scenery, but discovered after I got home that, in fact, I had not even been in the park itself. Instead, I had kept driving past the entrance way along what I think is the Harold Creek Rd. William J. Bagnall Wilderness Park is only small, with a fairly short trail that loops back to the parking lot. It leads through the forest, down the forested hillside to the creek which still has a layer of old snow and ice on it, and then back up the slope to where the cars were parked. It was still too early for plants and fungi to be growing, but the friends I went with are specialists in mosses, lichens and fungi, with most impressive knowledge of every kind of nature, including birds. The second photo I posted this morning shows one of the rather attractive lichens that we saw on a rocky outdrop that was covered in these circular patterns. As far as photography goes, there was not very much to photograph, though I did catch this little Red Squirrel near the parking lot. I also stood listening to the call of a Varied Thrush and, when I was ahead of the rest of the group, I suddenly saw a bird fly into a distant tree. Couldn't find it in my viewfinder, but I could tell exactly where the call was coming from. Then the bird flew and I got a tiny glimpse of its colour. A tiny Comma butterfly gave me a chance to use my camera, too. We stopped and ate our lunch at the small picnic area that has an outhouse. Always a welcome sight! Once back at the cars, we then returned to the city via Highway 22. Thanks so much for driving, Peter - much appreciated. It was pure luxury to travel my usual owling route with someone else driving! A great day in glorious weather and in great company. Nothing like having summer weather in mid-April. It's supposed to get up to 27C this afternoon, which is crazy. A week from today, though, the forecast is for 3C and snow, lol!

LOL, a more accurate view of this small Anglewing butterfly, of it sitting on friend David's finger! For some reason, butterflies seem to like being on his hands : ) Seen on 22nd August in West Bragg Creek Provincial Park. Not sure if it's a Green Comma.

These beautiful, small butterflies prefer mud and sap to flowers (and sometimes dung, aphid honeydew or spoiled fruit). This is one of my favourite kinds of butterfly, because of the unusual shape of the wing edges and the brilliant orange colour. I found this one in the gravel parking lot at Maclean Pond, Kananaskis.

I'm having problems uploading again, so am trying again to get my other two shots to work, one at a time. Photographed this beautiful Comma butterfly on 27 September 2012, in the parking lot at Forgetmenot Pond, Elbow Falls Trail, Kananaskis. In most of Alberta, the Gray and the Green Commas are the two common Commas. These are one of my favourite butterflies - love the shape of their wings.

Oops, not in time to say that this is just a small butterfly perched on my finger, taken using macro setting on my camera. Sorry, it does look huge : ) Not completely sure of the ID, other than that it is an Anglewing, maybe a Gray or a Green Comma? If it is a Gray Comma, then the wingspan is only 40-50 mm. If it's a Green Comma, wingspan is 45-55 mm. This one landed on a friend's jeans and then climbed on to another friend's finger and then finally came on to my own finger. Seen a couple of days ago at the west end of Bragg Creek Provincial Park.

Was happy to spot this gorgeous butterfly while I was on a walk in the Weaselhead Natural Area yesterday morning. I like the shape of the wings of these Anglewings.

Not a very spectacular photo, but I just love to see these Anglewings, with their beautifully shaped wings.