Fern Gleanings

I have had encounters with several interesting ferns over the last two months. Here is a selection.

Last Thursday (September 28) I was on a mushroom walk (I'll try to post on it, too) near Lion's Head on the Bruce Peninsula. At the beginning of the walk, we came across a large northern holly fern (Polystichum lonchitis). We repeatedly found other though less spectacular specimens later on the walk. This species occurs in a number of locations on the Niagara escarpment in Grey county and on the Bruce.

Boughton Cobb in A Field Guide to the Ferns and Their Related Families of Northwestern and Central North America has the following "helpful" note on p. 55:

"P. Lonchitis, the Northern Holly Fern, found extremely locally in our most northerly and middle-western area, is not illustrated. This species is found locally only on cliffs of our Canadian border."

Right, we don't exist and, therefore, there is no point in illustrating this species. He could have at least put United States instead of North America in the title to warn us. Fortunately, I own a copy of the Ferns of Grey and Bruce Counties, Ontario by the Bruce-Grey Plant Committee (Owen Sound Field Naturalists), a splendid little guide to the ferns in my area. It gives this beautiful plant its due.

This is a large fern with some of the fronds of the specimen pictured measuring almost 70 cm. It forms a bright green patch in the forest as it assumes its bright fall colours and essentially turns towards its wintery shades of brown. Like the closely related Christmas fern and polypody, it is evergreen.

I encountered another interesting fern a month earlier when I was camping and canoeing in Algonquin Park. This one is a leathery grape fern (Botrychium multifidium) that was growing on the abandoned Mew Lake airfield, a large open area in the Highway 60 corridor. Among the grass, lichens, shrubs and slowly invading trees, it formed a small patch of a few individuals. It's an odd fern that is closely related to the rattlesnake fern I wrote about a while back. In a way I was surprised to find it in such a disturbed habitat as the old airfield. However, Cobb writes that it likes drier, more acid and sandy locations, so the airfield is a good match (p. 190). By contrast, the rattlesnake fern likes "rich, moist or dry woodlands" (p. 192).

While canoeing on Rock Lake on the saame trip, we stopped near some cliffs for a lunch break. On one of the boulders I saw this colony of common polypody or rock cap ferns (Polypodium virginianum). The rhizomes of this species form a thick tangle across the rock surface where the plant must be able to withstand dry conditions. By counting the "footprints" on the rhizome, the tiny scars left behind where dead fronds have fallen off, it is possible to estimate a colony's age and it has been found that some have sustained themselves for several decades. Apart from the habitat, it is easily told by the shape of the fronds and their relative small size from its relatives, the northern holly and Christmas fern.

Another find on this trip was this spinulose woodfern (Dryopteris spinulosa). This fern is nothing unusual in a sense, it is a common woodland fern, but with its classical upright fern shape it still is a sight that gladdens my heart every time I see it -- a kind of reassurance that some things in the world are still right. This specimen was found in the upper parts of the Mizzy Lake Trail near Wolfhowl Lake.

A week later, my wife found another interesting fern on a canoe trip near Temagami. The picture is a bit blurry but I think it is clearly recognizable as an alpine woodsia (Woodsia alpina). This is a high altitude and northerly species that doesn't even occur in Bruce and Grey counties and it was my local guide's turn to draw a blank. Well, at least this one made it into Cobb because it occurs in several New England states. I guess it's worthwhile having more than one guide. It's typically a small plant, as a comparison with the pine needles quickly shows, so it's a combination of good luck and observation that it was noticed.

That's it for this posting. I'll try to write in more detail about the Algonquin Park trip some other time.

A Walk in Woods and Fields

I was out walking for about an hour this morning. The weather is very overcast and windy but dry. The temperature is just below 10 degrees Celsius. The wind makes some of the songs a bit difficult to hear but it also keeps the blackflies away.

The fields are green with new grass and have lots of dandelions. I heard several sparrow species. Song sparrows were the most common, followed by savannah sparrows. There were also a number of field and chipping sparrows and I heard at least one clay-coloured sparrow. Also, red-winged blackbirds, brown thrashers and goldfinches were seen and heard. Seagulls flew overhead and a turkey was heard gobbling to the south.

I eventually came to the wood lot on the Mill Creek ravine. The tree leaves are out to varying degrees. Basswood trees already have very large leaves while they are still relatively small on maple trees. Varous ferns are appearing in the woods, most of which have already unfurled beyong the fiddlehead stage. There I heard robins, blue jays, probably a hairy woodpecker, and a grouse drumming. However, the highlight were two rose-breasted grosbeaks singing high up in the maple trees. The colours were difficult to see today because of the weather but their songs were loud and clear. This is a spectacular bird with its black upper parts and brilliant reddish breast.

Finally, after returning through the old orchard, I think I heard an indigo bunting.

Frogs at the Pond

I promised I'd report on frog calls when I posted my treefrog message. The main observation point is a pond a few hundred meters from our house and the surrounding ditches and wet spots. So far I have heard four frog species this year.

The first sign of amphibians were the green frog tadpoles that appeared on the first nights with above 0 degrees Celsius. They came to the edge of the pond and the surface where there is some dead vegetation. When you approach the pond they all wiggle away into the pond weed.

The first frogs to call were the spring peepers a few weeks ago. They have been calling at varying strength, loud when the nights are warm, quietly when they have been cold.

The tree frogs started at the same time but their number issmaller and their call has less force, so you only hear them when you are really close or the peepers have stopped momentarily.

A clump of eggs appeared in the pond about 1.5 weeks ago, it is gone now.

Last week (May 3) the toads started calling. There only seem to be 2-3.

Also, some frogs that may be young green frogs have appeared at the pond.

Shortly after the green frog tadpoles some red-spotted newts showed up in the pond.

Also, I found a red-backed salamander in the gully behind the house.

Reptiles have been a bit more scarce. The only exception is a painted turtle that has been around the pond for several weeks.

A Weekend for the Birds: Touring Forests, Bogs and Marshes in Ontario

Algonquin Park

Last weekend (April 22 & 23), I went on a birdwatching trip with an old university pal. We met at 6 am in Barrie and drove to the west entrance of Algonquin Park where we joined an OFO trip guided by Ron Tozer. It was overcast with a steady drizzle coming down. At least there was no wind. A group of passerines had gathered around the entrance's feeder: chipping sparrow, white-throated sparrow, white-breasted nuthatch, purple finch, black-capped chickadee and junco. A kingfisher flew overhead and a yellow-rumped warbler was seen and heard in the trees.

Our first stop was the Spruce Bog, a peat bog towards the east of the park road surrounded by black spruce and other conifers. Ron played a tape of female spruce grouse calls. This will attract other grouse of either sex because the females, who are territorial, will come to defend their patch while males will come in the hope of finding a mate. We had no luck with the grouse but there were a number of golden-crowned kinglets in the trees and we spotted a greater yellowlegs near some open water in the bog.

We drove on to the Opeongo Rd. The road is closed off by a gate this time of year but our guide had a key. The surrounding habitat consists of a mixed conifer-hardwood forest. Again he tried the trick with the tape and this time it worked. A female grouse responded. It was right by the road and easy to see though it mostly stayed under some low conifer branches. It wasn't much disturbed by the crowd of people who were bending down and crouching to get a better look. I have noticed the apparent lack of shyness of this bird before. When I visited the Parc Grand Jardins in the Charlebois region of Quebec with my family, we came across a female spruce grouse. We noticed it when it flew up right beside us. It settled on a branch a few feet away and then just watched us. We could have touched it with a stick.

Ron then tried to attract gray jays (I prefer calling them Canada jays) with owl and other calls. A jay eventually showed up, approaching the group in stages. I am always amazed at the beauty of these birds and how alert they look and act. One member scattered some treats on the ground, which the jay picked up and then took to a nearby tree to store. The jay came back and eventually took a treat from the person's hand. The storing behaviour is typical of gray jays and they depend on it in winter. Apparently, they relocate their stashes by memory, not just by stumbling on them in winter. In Algonquin park, these birds are declining in numbers. The presumed reason is that their winter stashes are deteriorating faster because of the warmer winters.

From the Opeongo Rd., we went to the Visitor Information Centre and saw a broad-winged hawk on the way. We had our lunch at the Centre and watched the birds at the feeder. Again, there were lots of juncos, purple finches and black-capped chickadees. The view of the purple finches from the elevated terrace at tree tip height was far better than at the entrance and, as far as I am concerned, the males with their bright reddish colours are stunning. There also was a chipmunk that packed its cheeks to the point that they almost seemed to burst. Someone in our group saw a fox sparrow and my pal saw an evening grosbeak but I missed both. The bookstore has a nice collection of field guides. I bought a copy of Edwards Lam's Damselflies of the Northeast.

The next stop was the Arrowhon road. This is an unpaved road that leads to a large lodge. I remember how disappointed my friend and I were by Canoe Lake with its cottages and boats on our first canoe trip to Algonquin Park. We believed we had reached the wilderness when we crossed the portage to Joe Lake. Our blissful delusion was shattered when we paddled around the bend at the end of the lake and were confronted with this big lump of civilization. We landed, played a brief game of table tennis and talked to some of the guests. They didn't seem to be much interested in a close encounter with nature. Their loss.

In any case, this time we didn't see the lodge, which is closed this early in the year, but went on to an abandoned railway dam. The rain was lighter and, as we walked along the dam through stretches of mixed conifer and hardwood forest and more open, boggy country, it occasionally stopped. Along the way we found moose tracks, wolf scats and old turtle egg shells. The eggs had probably been dug up and eaten by raccoons. We saw black ducks and common mergansers along the way.

On the way back we saw a moose. It ran off into the woods but stopped behind a tree and stood there, at most 10 yards from the dam. Sometimes it looked ahead with its ears back and sometimes at us with its ears up, as if it couldn't decide whether to be curious or flee. Perhaps this is an example of what Konrad Lorenz called Uebersprungshandlung. Our guide remarked on the good state of the anuimal's fur but some large ticks were visible near the animal's back end and on its ears. Eventually, we ended the impasse by walking on. Moose are one of my favorite animals. With their big noses and long gangling legs they have a primeval look as if they come from another age.

Next we stopped at the starting point of one of the backpacking trails, which is located in a riverside mixed forest. Nothing much of note appeared there but, at least, the rain stopped. The final location was Long Lake, where we saw a snipe.

I had noticed the lichens growing everywhere -- on rocks, trees, rotting wood and the forest floor -- in the park on previous trips but I hadn't paid much attention to them. However, my two visits to Grand Jardin introduced me to an amazing lichen-dominated habitat and kindled my interest. The lichen cushions on the ground sometimes almost came up to my knees. The lichens in Algonquin are less spectacular but still very beautiful. I wish I had brought along my copy of Brodo, Sharnoff and Sharnoff, Lichens of North America, which my wife gave me as a present in February. I haven't used the book much yet but its pictures, which were taken by the late Sylvia Sharnoff, are works of art. This book is big and heavy, not the type of material you take along when you expect to go hiking. In that way it is more a coffee table book than a field guide. While I wasn't able to identify the lichens I saw this time, I was able to enjoy them. The only exception is a bearded oak moss (Evernaria mesomorpha), of which I took a specimen home.

At the end of the trip our guide felt somewhat disappointed because the weather was bad and the count appeared low but, in my opinion, the trip was a splended success. But the trip list was 46 species which isn't bad considering the weather. My pal and I saw about 30 species, some of which we can't see closer to home. We certainly would never have found the spruce grouse and gray jay without the guide's help. The entire group had a good time exploring the different habitats we walked and drove through.

Wye Marsh

From Algonquin Park we drove to Wye Marsh just west of Midland. It is the third member in the local attractions with St. Marie Among the Hurons and the Martyr's Shrine. It is a large marsh area with reeds, canals and much open water. Woodlands and fields occupy the higher ground. There is a trumpeter swan rehabilitation center there, so some of the birds are quite tame. We went out into the swamp on the boardwalk. Canada geese had staked out nests in many spots, while swamp sparrows were singing among the reeds and song sparrows on the embankments. Some tree swallows fly overhead. Hooded mergansers were swimming at the end of one canal, in the reeds a great bittern called and, out in the distance, we heard sandhill cranes.

Tiny Marsh

Tiny Marsh is only a short distance away from Wye Marsh on the other side of the Penetang peninsula. As a habitat it is similar to Wye Marsh but because dykes were built into the marsh to control water levels, it is possible to walk almost to its center. When we got there, it was almost night. We walked along one of the woodland paths to an observation tower in the hope of hearing an owl. We didn't hear an owl but were treated to a wonderful concert of frogs (spring peepers and tree frogs). We spent the night nearby and were up bright and early in the morning.

Our walk took us out on the Trotter Dyke, until we made a right hand turn onto the Carolina Dyke and finally walked back on a canal embankment to our starting point. The dykes are for most part just a bare earth embankments surrounded by open water with reeds in the distance. The weather was overcast and cool but not unpleasant when we started. However, a wind came up when we were half way or more out the Trotter Dyke. We saw a female gadwall, Ccanada geese, trumpeter swans, blue-winged teals, greater scaups, buffleheads and ring-necked ducks. Towards the end of the Trotter Dyke, a pair of Caspian terns flew by, one holding something in its beak. Bitterns were frequently heard. From the North Carolina Dyke we saw a harrier and ospreys on their nest. In the hedges around the embankment we had a splendid view of a ruby-crowned kinglet with its glowing crest and heard a sapsucker.

After we finished the route, we joined an OFO group led by Ron Fleming. We repeated the dyke walk and added redhead, widgeon, pied-blled grebe, mute swan, lesser scaup, sharp-shinned hawk, merlin and loon to our list. We also saw the ospreys and Caspian terns again and heard sandhill cranes. On the canal embankment we found a savannah sparrow and heard brown creepers sing. I only heard a bittern call very briefly and most people missed it this time around. The wind let up towards the end of the walk.

After lunch we walked through the woodlot to the east of the information center where we heard brown creeprs and golden-crwned kinglets. From the observation point at the end of the pathway we saw coots, pintails, a wood duck and a red-tailed hawk. We found a spot by the path where a ruffed grouse had been killed. The feathers were still in good shape though the bones were pretty white.

Minnesing

The Minesing swamp (not to be confused with Minnesing in Algonquin Park) is a wetland of the Nottawasage river. Once a colony of passenger pigeons roosted there. Much of it has been drained but sections still exist as swamp or is seasonally flooded. We visited it the year before in the company of David Milsom and saw quite a number of interesting water birds. This year some of the areas that had been flooded last year were dry but fortunately not all. Herring gulls, green-winged teals, a red-breasted merganser, a wood duck, pintails and lots of shovelers were seen.

At Tiny, Wye and Minesing we did well on our own because of the nature of the habitat (large open water areas). Also, the birds come out in the open and are relatively large. Still, having a guide and the knowledge and alertness of an OFO group was helpful in identifying songs and birds that were only seen briefly. In Algonquin Park the guide was indispensible because of his knowledge of the area and the animals' habits.

The List

Common loon, Pied-billed grebe, Double-crested cormorant, Great blue heron, American bittern, Canada goose, Trumpeter swan, Mute swan, Wood duck, Green-winged duck, Black duck, Mallard, Pintail, Blue-winged teal, Shoveler, Gadwall, Wigeon, Redhead, Ring-necked duck, Greater Scaup, Lesser Scaup, Bufflehead, Hooded Merganser, Common Merganser, Red-breasted merganser, Turkey vulture, Osprey, Northern harrier, Sharp-shinned hawk, Broad-winged hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Merlin, Ruffed grouse, Ring-necked pheasant, Spruce grouse,
Coot, Sandhill crane, Greater yellowlegs, Common snipe, Killdeer, Ring-billed gull, Herring gull,
Caspian tern, Rock dove, Mourning dove, Kingfisher, Sapsucker, Downey woodpecker, Hairy woodpecker, Flicker, Phoebe, Horned lark, Tree swallow, Gray jay, Blue jay, Raven, Crow, Black-capped chickadee, White-breasted nuthatch, Brown creeper, Winter wren, Golden-crowned kinglet, Ruby-crowned kinglet, Robin, Starling, Yellow-rumped warblers, Chipping sparrow, Savannah sparrow, Song Sparrow, Swamp sparrow, White-throated sparrow, Junco, Redwing, Eastern meadowlark, Grackle, Brown-headed cowbird, Purple finch, Goldfinch,
Evening grosbeak, House sparrow

Aghios Nikolaos III

Back again with more pictures of paintings in the church of Aghios Nikolaos, Mystras, Greece. To the left is what appears to be an angel with flowing robes dipected at the top of a pillar.



















These two images of saints or apostles are also found on pillars. I already published the head of the saint on the right in my first post on Aghios Nikolaos.











I still don't know much about Aghios Nikolaos.

Finally, a shot through a window of Aghios Nikolaos. Mystras is located on a foothill of the Taygetos mountains and offers a splendid view of the Lacedemonian plain. It was once the core of ancient Sparta's territory when it competed with Athens for the hegemony of Greece and eventually won. Mystras superceeded Sparta during the Middle Ages. Sparta was abandoned but when it was refounded after the Greek War of Independence, it was turned the tables on its upland rival.

Aghios Nikolaos II

OK, I promised a while ago that I'd try to get more pictures of the church of St. Nicholas in Mystras up. Here we go.

The pictures that follow are from the sequence that includes the prison scene, which you saw in my earlier posting. They consist of four panels from left to right, with the prison scene being the third one.

The first panel (to the right) shows three men in a bed and a king kneeling in a supplicant position before a saint.













The next panel shows the saint surrounded by soldiers

















The third panel is the prison scene.























And, finally, the fourth panel. A bed again.


















I know this is a scene from hagiography but I still have no idea what the paintings are about or, for that matter, in what context they were created.

Mystras has seven other major churches and twenty or so "chapels." The major churches are well described in the guidebook and elsewhere but St. Nicholas/Aghios Nikolaos is not for some unknown reason. Hence my curiosity.

Review of Marriott, The Plague Race

Edward Marriott, The Plague Race: A Story of Fear, Science and Heroism. Picador: Basingstoke, 2002

The Plague Race is a short and very readable account of the 1894 race between the French microbiologist Alexandre Yersin and his Japanese colleague and competitor Shibasaburo Kitasato to discover the organism responsible for the bubonic plague.

In the summer of 1894, Hong Kong was in the grips of the third worldwide epidemic (or pandemic) of the bubonic plague, which was devastating the island's notorious slum quarter. The local health authorities were unable to cope with the rising death toll and the colonial government issued a call for help. Two of the finest microbiologists of the day responded: Shibasaburo Kitasato arrived on 12 July and Alexandre Yersin a few days later on 15 July.

Yersin rose from a humble background in Switzerland to a promising career at the Pasteur Institute in France. But suddenly he dropped out and left for the French colony of Indochina. When the call reached him, he was active as an explorer and a microbiologist in Vietnam.

Kitasato was born in 1852 on Japan's southern island of Kyushu. He distinguished himself first as a dedicated student and then a scientist. He was chosen to study under the brilliant microbiologist Robert Koch in Berlin, where he discovered the organism responsible for tetanus. After 6 years in Germany, he returned to Japan in 1892.

From there a tale of a battle on a far from even playing field unfolds. Kitasato arrived in Hong Kong with a team of specialists and a large cargo of equipment, was received with all honours by James Lowson, the Superintendant of the Chief General Hospital and a member of the colonial elite. Lowson provided Kitasato with work space in the hospital and access to bodies for sampling and autopsies (though this had to be kept secret because of Chinese religious concerns). The professor was quartered in a comfortable hotel.

By contrast, Yersin only had two servants in his company and a mere suitcase full of equipment. He was virtually ignored by Lowson and eventually decided to build a grass hut that served as his home and research facility. To obtain specimens, he bribed the British sailors who carried and guarded the bodies. Kitasato and Yersin met briefly but once. They did not hit it off and then worked separately from each other.

Yersin quickly becomes the underdog in Marriott's narrative and one cannot help but root for him. Marriott skews the perspective early in the book by introducing the somewhat ambivalent character of Lowson, a gifted man in his own right but aslo given to colonial snobbery. To the extent that this tale can have a villain, Lowson fits the bill. Kitasato's official stature and appearance suited Lowson's taste, the loner Yersin obviously did not. From there, the tale moves towards Yersin's triumph as the discoverer of the plague. His acclamation was only delayed by Kitasato's posturing and Lowson's connivance.

The main story of the book is interspersed with a fictional account of the 1994 plague epidemic in Surat, India, current WHO plague control efforts in Madagascar (presently the country with the highest plague mortality in the world), the arrival of the plague in San Francisco after 1900 during the same pandemic that had visited Hong Kong, and attempts at rat control in present day New York.

Each of these subsidiary strands has an interest of its own and they certainly are a grim reminder that the plague is still with us in large parts of the world. It colonized western North America in the early 20th century where it found a ready reservoir in the ground squirrel and prairie dog populations. It did not reach the east but in New York and other large cities a large potential reservoir exists in the form of huge rat populations that can at best be checked but not exterminated by the piecemeal efforts employed against them.

Undoubtedly, these strands add value for readers to whom the topic of epidemics is less familiar and implicitly make the case that functional public health systems remain an essential public service in the face of emerging and re-emerging diseases. However, I found they somewhat distracted from the main story.

A more serious concern with the book is that despite the topic, the actual microbiological content is quite thin. There is little to tell what the problem with Kitasato's culture was. A suggestion early in the story is that Kitasato and his allies did not sample from the bubos of plague victims (p. 99) and that they did not extract a pure strain (pp. 99-100):

...invited by Kitasato to look through the microscope, he [Yersin] saw not only the typhoid bacilli that Kitasato had claimed were there but smaller, scarcer bacteria.

The issue of Kitasato's culture is never resolved because Marriott almost loses sight of Kitasato as he follows Yersin to his discovery and victory. That Yersin was denied full credit for his discovery is attributed to Kitasato and Lowson's skilfull manipulation of publicity through their dispatches to the Lancet. Kitasato's supposed discreditation is handled in equally sketchy terms with only vague references rather than a proper and probably illuminating account of this part of the story.

More importantly, the case for Yersin's victory is far less clear cut than Marriott makes out. He would have done well to consider the arguments of David J. Bibel and T. H. Chen, "Diagnosis of the Plague: an Analysis of the Yersin-Kitasato Controversy," Bacteriological Reviews 40: 633-651, 1976 in his book (available at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=413974&blobtype=pdf). Bibel and Chen carefully compare the available evidence. They conclude that the differences in the early descriptions of Yersin and Kitasato's cultures were minor and within the range of variance one might expect between teh descriptions of independent researchers. They also believe that Kitasato's methods were mostly sound given the state-of-the-art in the 1890s. Many methods, even the common Gram stain, were far from standardized at that time, which could lead to confusion in classifying a bacterium as gram positive, negative or variable. Sampling blood for the bacterium, Kitasato's preferred method, was recommended practice at the time when Bibel and Chen wrote. Also, plague bacilli are notoriously pleomorphic, i.e., they appear in a number of shapes. All this adds up to a degree of uncertainty both for researchers in the 1890s and later authors when trying to interpret the writings of their predecessors.

Bibel and Chen believe that Kitasato discovered the correct organism but that his culture eventually was contaminated by pneumococci. They believe that Kitasato did not admit his error publicly because he feared it would damage his career and conclude (p. 648):

From our analysis we are confident that Kitasato had examined the plague bacillus in Hong Kong during late June and early July 1894. For the most part, his report was an accurate description of teh bacterium, and the document alone was sufficient for Western scientific circles to give Kitasato a share in the discovery....It is only because of the similarity of the plague bacillus to the pneumococcus under specific but common conditions that Kitasato was lead to subsequent error and doubt....Nevertheless, the contribution of Kitasato to the diagnosis of the plague and its history is significant, and this work will endure.

According to their account, Kitasato's cultures were distributed and analysed by other researchers. It would be interresting to know what happened to them. It appears then that Marriott's attempt to award the victory to Yersin alone as the discoverer of the plague organism is unwarranted since he does not discuss the underlying microbiology.

Despite these reservations, I recommend Marriott's book because of its portrait of the enigmatic Alexandre Yersin, its account the field working conditions early epidemiologists laboured under, and the thrill of watching scientific research in action.

Treefrog

This fella is a gray treefrog (Hyla versicolor). We found it when it hopped across our kitchen window at night last summer (August 2005). It's not the first time that this has happened. One year one even hung out in one of our eaves troughs. Obviously, I should have cleaned it better in the fall before.

Note the yellow markings on the inside of the upper leg. They are essential for positive identification where the ranges of the bird-voiced (H. avivoca) and the gray treefrog overlap, but that's not an issue here in Canada.

These climbing frogs can even cling to glass with their toe pads but our star was trying to hop away from us, so he didn't grip as tightly as he could have and was slipping down the window for a while.

Gray treefrogs live in a variety of wooded to partially wooded habitats. They seem to stay relatively clear of ponds and larger bodies of water and supposedly even avoid large swamps. They breed in shallow water. Their food consists of assorted insects that they find on their travels.

A recording of their call (and those of other Canadian frogs) can be found at this site:
http://www.naturewatch.ca/english/frogwatch/learn_frogs.asp?Province=on.

If you live or vacation near a pond or other frog habitat, participate in Frog Watch:
http://www.naturewatch.ca/english/frogwatch/on/steps.html. I'll try to post my observations this spring.

Aghios Nikolaos, Mystras, Greece

This is the church of St. Nicholas in Mystras, Greece. Mystras was a fortified Byzantine town near Sparta in the very south of mainland Greece. It was founded in the 13th c. and abandoned in the 19th. Now it is a "Byzantine Pompeii" with beautiful churches of which some have splendid wall paintings. St. Nicholas is located above the Monemvasia gate on the path from the palace to the Pantanassa monastery. What is surprising about this particular church is that despite its well preserved architecture and paintings, I can't get much information on it. My guidebook Mystras: The Medieval City and the Castle, written by Manolis Chatzidakis, who has been involved with the archaeological and conservation work at Mystras for decades, though excellent otherwise, only shows the church on the map and makes no further mention of it. An Internet search also yielded nothing but a few pictures. So, I am not sure when the church was built, what it's function may have been, and what is shown in the pictures (though obviously there is some kind of programme). If you happen to have any answers or even sources that relate to these questions, please let me know.

View of the apse. It's paintings have suffered significant damage.

Wall paintings probably showing a saint's vita including a prison scene at the center.

Painting on a column, perhaps of an Evangelist.

I'll try to add more pictures over the next few days.

These pictures were taken by the author of this blog on June 6, 2005. All rights are reserved. For profit use is strictly prohibited without explicit written permission. If you want to use these pictures for non-profit use, please credit them properly and let me know.

Rattlesnake Fern

This picture was taken on the Bruce Trail (Beaver Valley section) near Old Baldy in the summer of 2004. It shows a rattlesnake fern (Botrychium virginianum), one of eight species of grape fern (Botrychium) found in Bruce and Grey counties. This was the only specimen we found on this walk. The infertile leaf and the sporophyll, which rises above it, are clearly recognizable, though the lower stalk between the rootstock and the leaf is not. The spores were discharged in a little powdery cloud from the sporophyll when tapped.

The second picture shows two pixies (age 6) with the fern to allow for a size comparison.

The habitat in which this fern was found is a boulder-strewn deciduous forest with heavy undergrowth only few yards away from the cliff edge on top of the Niagara escarpment. The soil is rich but relatively shallow. The day was warm and sunny with partial cloud cover.

The identification is based on A Guide to the Ferns of Grey and Bruce Counties, Ontario, 2002, by the Bruce-Grey Plant Committee, with cross-referencing to B. Cobb, A Field Guide to the Ferns (Petersen Field Guides), 1963. However, all mistakes are the responsibility of this author.

The pictures were taken in July 2004 by the author of this blog. All rights are reserved. Use of the images for profit is strictly prohibited without explicit written permission. If you wish to use these images for non-profit purposes, please credit them properly and notify me.

A Walk in the Snow

Wow, I haven't been back to the blog for a while. Just too busy with work.

Today I went for a walk in the snow to look for animal tracks. The weather was warm (-1 Celsius), overcast with good visibility but poor contrast, and almost windstill. The snow was heavy and wet, so the tracks were very well defined.

The most common tracks were white-tailed deer and hare tracks. The deer tracks crossed the road at several spots, either as individuals or in small groups of about 2 - 4. The hare tracks criss-crossed the road and fields everywhere. Judging by their shape, they all belong to the field hare. I haven't seen a certain snowshoe hare this winter or the last. There were also some cottontail rabbit tracks but fewer than I expected.

Looking in at a neighbour's pond, I noticed the tracks of a dog (they seemed too large for a bush wolf). I followed them back to the road where they were briefly covered by deer tracks on either side. Following them further back, I saw that the animal had walked our fence line out from a gully. I didn't want to go into the shrub because I didn't have much time.

While following the dog's trail I came by an apple tree which still had some apples though they were all rotten. Still, the tree seemed to be a focus for hares and deer. I also noticed that a raccoon had been by to visit.

Further up the road, I noticed a fox track in a classical straight line pattern. I lost it once the fox moved more to the centre but it reappeared just before the corner, when the fox crossed to the other side of the road and entered a field. I decided to follow the trail back into the (harvested) soy bean field it had come from.

A number of fox tracks crossed the field. I lost my original trail in a cluster of deer tracks and decided to pick another set of fox tracks that aimed for a small pond and the field's highest spot. This fox crossed a number of vole tunnels that had been exposed by the thaw. They meandered aimlessly across a small space of the field, providing a strong contrast to the purposeful movement of the fox, who doesn't seem to have taken any note. After a short distance, the fox then changed its walk to a run briefly, for what purpose I do not know. The pond was another focus with a number of deer, hare and rabbit tracks. The fox then went to the high point and wandered on into the field but that is where I decided to turn back.

Another apple tree in the hedge row by the soy bean field is located right across from a woodlot. The squirrels have beaten a regular path across the road from the cedars to the apple tree. Even a mouse followed them there though it made its path from a log beside which the snow had opened at a distance of a few inches from the squirrel tracks to the apple tree. Like the vole, it also meandered somewhat.

I enjoy tracking as much as reading a good book, but with the added delight that I am physically active, breathe fresh outdoor air, and out of the reach of others.