M'Chigeeng

More by accident than by design, I celebrated the end of my first year as a blogger away from the internet. Églantine and I are just back from a five-day art experience on Manitoulin Island which is the home of seven different aboriginal reserves on islands in Lake Huron. Last Sunday we spent our morning in M'Chigeeng, one of the villages on Ojibwe land. We were treated to a demonstration of drumming and dancing by some of the Medicine Star Drummers. The so-called "calendar boy" in the following photos demonstrated several dances that he uses in Pow Wow competitions. He has on the special regalia which he uses for the dances.





Here is one of my "artistic" shots of him in action. (More art from our course will follow in the next few days.)

Mystery, Mystery, Mystery?

Wayne, Bev, Somebody? Please help. I have some mystery grub/insects larvae or something that I cannot identify. The first larva is currently eating on our goldenrods. I suspect that it is eating both Tall Goldenrod (Solidago altissima) and Canada Goldenrods (Solidago canadensis). That it is eating goldenrod does not bother me too much, but I would like to know what it is.
You can judge the size by the left part of the photo where I left my thumb and finger in the picture. I have not seen any of the tens of thousands of the larva at a much larger size.



The second larva/thing I have no clue about other than it appears to have 6 legs or maybe something with 6 legs is eating something else? I found it on a blade of grass all by itself. No other examples were around. (I put in on a Milkweed simply to have something large enough for my camera to focus upon.) The beast is about the size of a small bean or very large pea. The yellow part moved up and down a bit but there was no other movement even though I picked the blade of grass and moved it across the field to a milkweed for photography.



OK, I have found a photo in Caterpillars of Eastern North America that seems to fit this third caterpillar fairly well. With it I would just like some second opinion. I think it is a Fall Armyworm caterpillar (Spodoptera frugiperda). It was chewing on White Sweet Clover.

Flying Things

Here is a quick post about one moth and one butterfly. I hope I have identified them correctly. The first, I believe, is an Eight-spotted Forester moth (Alypia octomaculata). Églantine took the photo about two weeks ago on one of our flower walks and one of the participants has been waiting ever since for the photo to come up. Sorry it took so long!



The butterfly is an Easter Comma (Polgonia comma) that Églantine and I found this past Sunday on a walk near the Grand River. It looks rough which makes us think it might be one that overwintered as an adult.



I got a photo when its wings were closed. Both open and closed wings are useful in making the ID for this butterfly.

Goatsbeard

Goatsbeards, on our property, comes in two flavours. There is Meadow Goatsbeard (Tragopogon pratensis ssp.pratensis) which is bright yellow and has florets that are longer than its eight bracts and Yellow Goatsbeard (Tragopogon dubius) which is more lemon yellow with ten or more bracts that are longer than the florets.

Below are two photos from about 9:00 in the morning. One can see that the flower is having difficulty opening due to a spider's web.





When Églantine and I came back at 10:30 a.m., the plant had forced the spider web to almost give up. We probably should have gone back at noon to see what had happened by then as normally the Goatsbeards close up again by then.

Tree Adventure

Nothing too unusual about an American Robin in a tree.



But what is Ontario Wanderer doing up in a tree?



Oh, babies and one egg . . .