Category: <span>News</span>

Species of the Day: Eastern Hog-nosed Snake

The Eastern Hog-nosed snake is known for its distinctive upturned snout that gives the species its name and makes it easy to identify. Their habitat includes fields, forests, beaches and old dunes.  When a Hog-nosed Snake is threatened it puts on a very unique display. It will flatten its head giving itself a cobra-like appearance and strike at you with its mouth closed. If that doesn’t work it will throw up on itself and roll around in it. Then it flips onto its back and sticks out its tongue and pretends to be dead. If you flip the snake over while this is occurring, it will flip back over again as if to convince you that it really is dead.

Hog-nosed Snakes mainly eat toads such as the American Toad and the Fowler’s Toad, but also eats frogs on occasion. It is believed that the elongated teeth that are present in the back of the snake’s mouth are used to puncture the toads who inflate their lungs in order to make themselves harder to swallow.

The hog-nosed locates its prey primarily by scent which is shown by the fact that they can locate buried toads and then use their shovel shaped head to uncover them.

Predators of the hog-nosed’s nest include foxes, raccoons, and other mammals and the adults are eaten by raptors and wild turkeys.

Much of the habitat of the Hog-nosed Snake has been destroyed and turned into waterfront recreational areas and agricultural fields. Humans are also a threat as they kill hognose snakes when they put on their defensive display as they are perceived as dangerous.  

– V. Nolan (2014) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Species of the Day: Coyote

Except for parts of Alaska, the tundra of northern Canada and extreme southeastern USA, coyotes are found virtually everywhere in North America. They have greatly expanded their range due to declining grey wolf numbers. Grey wolves are larger and more powerful and tend to exclude coyotes from their territory.

Coyotes are most commonly found in open forests and grasslands where they hunt small animals such as mice, vole, squirrels and birds. Coyotes generally form family-groups and tend to hunt in these packs. This allows them to split up with some chasing the prey towards others who are waiting to ambush it.

Coyotes have become so comfortable with human developments that most rural areas have become home to coyote populations. Coyotes can also breed with dogs and this makes them less afraid of humans which can often become a problem because they can kill domestic livestock. However, they seem to be able to live closely with humans without becoming a threat as they are shy animals who would prefer to avoid a confrontation with humans as wolves and humans are their only natural predator.

The success of coyote populations is due to their varied diet, early age of first breeding, flexible living requirements and high reproductive output as they can have a litter of three to ten pups in the spring.

– V. Nolan (2014)

 

*Gregg McLachlan is a nature photographer and entrepreneur from Norfolk County, Ontario. If you would like to see more of his amazing work, please click on the image above to be redirected to his site.

Species of the Day: Virginia Opossum

The Virginia Opossum is North America’s only marsupial which means that it carries its babies in a pouch like a kangaroo. Opossums are about the size of a house cat and use their tails to wrap around tree limbs and to help them balance. It is a common misconception that opossums hang from their tails, however their tails aren’t strong enough to hold them for a long period of time.

The opossum can have up to 25 babies which are the size of a honeybee when they are born, but only about 13 survive. The babies stay in their mom’s pouch for about 60 days before they move out of the pouch and spend four to six weeks on their mother’s back.

Opossums have very small brains so when they get too stressed out they become unconscious. When this happens they look dead so predators tend to avoid them. While this defense mechanism can be very beneficial against predators such as owls, hawks and foxes, it is not very beneficial when it occurs on the road. This causes many opossums to get hit by cars.

Opossums are omnivores and are nocturnal and use their keen sense of smell to eat things such as insects, small mammals, invertebrates, birds, fruit and carrion.

– V. Nolan (2014)

Species of the Day: The Monarch

 

The Monarch is one of the most well-known butterflies in North America and maybe even the world. The bright colours of their delicate wings are commonly seen on all sorts of wildflowers but mainly milkweed. These butterflies reside along roadsides, float in open fields and concentrate near riversides where the larval foodplant milkweed, is abundant. The adult female monarch will lay her eggs usually on the bottom of milkweed leaves to avoid detection from birds.

Monarch Butterflies rarely ever actually make the round-trip from the high up Mexican mountains to Southern Canada and back down to Central America. It usually takes four generations for the monarchs to make their migration. The young of the monarchs that overwintered in Mexico take flight and head north in late spring laying eggs where they stop. The second and third generations keep reproducing at their stops until the offspring reach Southern Canada. Only monarchs born in late summer join the fourth generation flying back down south to Mexico. Although they don’t make the full trip by themselves, one individual may still fly up to 8000 km in one year!

This tip will help you to identify the gender of the monarch you are observing on a milkweed flower in your own backyard. Male monarchs are actually easy to identify from the females because they have a scent gland (black dot) on the hindwing near the abdomen.  If you want to really impress your friends the Latin name is Danaus plexippus.

A commonly confused species with the Monarch butterfly is the Viceroy. This butterfly only has a couple slight differences including the size and pattern on the hindwing. The Viceroy is smaller than the Monarch and also has a rounded black line across the hindwing.

– J. Pickering (2014)

Species of the Day: Blanding’s Turtle

 

The Blanding’s Turtle is very easily identified by its bright yellow throat. It is a medium sized turtle. This turtle also has a very unique shell because it is dome shaped and resembles an army helmet. The bottom of the shell also known as the plastron, is rich yellow and is concaved.

These turtles live in wetlands filled with lots of water plants and shallow water. Although they spend most of their time in water when it comes to finding a mate or a nesting site they can be found far away from the water’s edge. Hibernation occurs from late October until the end of April in the mud at the bottom of permanent bodies of water like a lake, bay or pond.

Did you know?

The size of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Blanding’s Turtle population is impossible to estimate accurately, as only limited data are available.

Did you know?

It can take a female Blanding’s Turtle up to 25 years to mature. This long-lived species can survive in the wild for more than 75 years.

Did you know?

Unlike other Ontario turtles, the bottom shell is hinged so that some Blanding’s Turtles can completely close their shell after pulling in their head and feet.

Did you know?

The Blanding’s Turtle is a poor swimmer and normally walks along the lake bottom in search of food – aquatic insects, crustaceans, molluscs and vegetation.

– J. Pickering (2014)

Species of the Day: Longnose Gar

This living fossil is one of two species of gar we have in Ontario and we’re lucky enough to have both here in Rondeau Bay. This is the much more common species, the longnose gar (Lepisosteus oseus). This Latin name refers to its bony scales that cover the whole length of the fish. The Spotted Gar is the other and is much rarer, being found in only about 6 bodies of water in Ontario, 1 being our shallow bay. Only 500 of these uncommon fish have ever been caught in Ontario.

This fish is most commonly mistaken for a pike, it is commonly called a gar pike but that would be in fact incorrect because gars and pikes are their own separate families.

The body length may be up to 5 feet but the common size is much smaller.

The gar is found in quiet large bodies of water usually seen floating at the surface of the water mimicking a stick. They use this form of behaviour to catch their prey, they will float slowly towards the minnow or yellow perch and strike too fast for the prey to escape.

The longnose gar spawns in late spring or in early summer. They spawn in large schools in close formation in order to ensure fertilization of the eggs. The spawn will be deposited in shallow bays that are filled with submerged aquatic vegetation.

The Longnose Gar ranges from Northern Mexico to Southern Quebec, most commonly found in the deep Southern U.S. and anywhere along the Mississippi river.

– J. Pickering (2014)

The Sword Master

 

There are bully birds that chase others away from feeders and birdbaths – Grackles and Blue Jays are repeat offenders – but there aren’t many that will take on a Red-bellied Woodpecker. His long, pointed bill makes him a master at fending off other birds.

This spring has been a great year for woodpeckers in general around Rondeau – especially the Red-bellied who has been seen at numerous feeders and backyards around the park!

You may occasionally see a Red-bellied Woodpecker flying quickly and erratically through the forest, abruptly changing directions, alighting for an instant and then immediately take off again – all while keeping up a quick chatter of calls. It’s thought that this is a type of play that probably helps young birds practice the evasive actions that they may one day need (Cornell Lab of Ornithology).

– Ric McArthur

We’ve got Babies… birds that is.

It’s nesting time, and with many birds that raise their young in the Rondeau area, we’ve been receiving many phone calls about baby birds who have fallen out of their nest. We love answering your questions, but here’s a key to let you know what to do if you find a baby bird on the ground: