Rondeau Ric

Downy woodpeckers, Rondeau Provincial Park, June 25, 2022. Dryobates pubescens The Downy Woodpecker eats foods that larger woodpeckers cannot reach, such as insects living on or in the stems of weeds. You may see them hammering at goldenrod galls to extract the fly larvae inside. source - Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Place cat in direct sunlight on window sill. Let broil for 15 minutes, turn over and wait 15 minutes or until done. Oz loves sitting in the sun but overdoes it a bit. He is usually panting when he drags himself onto the floor. In case you didn't know, cats are odd.

Male rose-breasted grosbeak, Rondeau Provincial Park, June 21, 2022. Pheucticus ludovicianus During the breeding season Rose-breasted Grosbeaks eat a lot of insects, as well as wild fruit and seeds. They mostly feed on berries during fall migration, and on their wintering grounds they have a varied diet of invertebrates and plant material. Grosbeaks usually glean their food from dense foliage and branches. They also snag food while hovering, and sometimes fly out to hawk for insects in midair. The animal portion of their diet includes beetles, bees, ants, sawflies, bugs, butterflies, and moths. Their vegetarian fare includes elderberries, blackberries, raspberries, mulberries, juneberries, and seeds of smartweed, pigweed, foxtail, milkweed, plus sunflower seeds, garden peas, oats, wheat, tree flowers, tree buds, and cultivated fruit. source - Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Cedar Waxwings with orange instead of yellow tail tips began appearing in the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada in the 1960s. The orange color is the result of a red pigment picked up from the berries of an introduced species of honeysuckle. If a waxwing eats enough of the berries while it is growing a tail feather, the tip of the feather will be orange. Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, June 19, 2022.

12 spotted skimmer, Rondeau Provincial Park, June 18, 2022. Seen in the front yard this afternoon Libellula pulchella The twelve-spotted skimmer is a common North American skimmer dragonfly, found in southern Canada and in all 48 of the contiguous U.S. states. It is a large species, at 50 mm long. Each wing has three brown spots. source wikipedia

Rondeau Bay, June 7, 2022. Spotted quit a few turtles on a log on the way to see the pelican, this Blanding's was one of them. Emydoidea blandingii The Blanding’s Turtle is a medium-sized turtle easily identified by its bright yellow throat and chin. Unlike most Ontario turtles that have wide, flatter shells, the Blanding’s Turtle has a domed shell that resembles an army helmet. Its shell is black to brown with yellow flecks and streaks and can reach 27 centimetres long. Its head and limbs are black-grey and the bottom shell is rich yellow.