Purple Crown-Vetch

Coronille Bigarrée

(Securigera varia)

            One of many flowers found last Friday along the Hamilton Waterfront Trail.

        This gourd served as a House Wren nesting spot for two or three summers but this year some Yellowjacket wasps took over. We debated, then left them alone. They have been buzzing in and out all summer and recently started adding on some decorations on the outside. We are hoping they keep minding their own business as Yellowjacket stings can be very painful. They are very close to where we have coffee on our east porch several mornings each week so we have been watching and being careful to not disturb them other than taking a few photos.

            I found a dead one on the table on the porch this morning.

            I took a photo of the Red-seeded Dandelion / Pissenlit à Graines Rouges / (Taraxicum erythrospermum) from next to our east porch. The "red" seeds really need to be compared to a regular Dandelion but I could not find one. I will add a photo when I can.

            Here is a close up of part of the flowering head of the Big Bluestem Grass / Barbon de Gérard / (Andropogon gerardi) that we have growing in a stump in our yard.

A Fly and a Flower and a Leaf Hopper

            I found this tiny fly on a Willow Herb. With help, I got the identification down to "a syrphid fly in the genus toxomerus."

            Here I am more confident. This is a very late flowering Red Raspberry / Framboisier rouge / (Rubus idaeus). Almost all of the other Red Raspberries have finished flowering, finished having berries, and have given up the berries to hungry animals, including me. For some reason, this plant decided to have another go at reproduction.

            I found this Leaf Hopper (Acanalonia conica) in a spider web this morning.

A Modest Walk

        Four years ago today, September 3, 2014, Fleur-Ange, her friend Pauline, and I started a 480 km walk from Montreal, Quebec, down the length of the state of Vermont, to the village of Deerfield, Massachusetts as an active, preformance art project by Fleur-Ange. Today, we did a much more modest 8 km along one shore of the Gordon Pittock Reservoir in Woodstock. (It did not take as long to do.)



        This morning, I took a photo of the road in front of our house showing all the Labour Day traffic. Yes, all of one car in the distance. Meanwhile there was a dawn chorus of one cardinal, one crow, one tree frog and a collection of crickets and other chirping, buzzing insects.