We got a notice that the Ecology Department at the City of London was conducting a BioBlitz between October 16 to 22 at four of the environmentally significant areas (ESAs) in the city. A bioblitz is defined on the iNaturalist website as “a communal citizen-science effort to record as many species within a designated location and time period as possible”. Participants are asked to photograph plants, animals, fungi and insects to submit to the project through iNaturalist. These records will help the city ecologists with a census of the diversity of species present in the ESAs, and help to identify invasive species that need to be controlled and threatened or endangered species in need of protection.
We wanted to contribute to the BioBlitz and chose to go to Warbler Woods, an ESA we had not yet visited. During a week of rain and overcast skies, the weather forecast for the 18th was cloudy with sunny periods. As it turned out, the sun made only fleeting appearances.
Warbler Woods is a hilly, wooded corridor with steep ravines. We got a workout on the trails!
We captured some of the tree species. Some trees have distinctive bark that helps with identification.
Some trees and bushes have distinctive fruit that helps identify them.
Some trees have distinctive leaves that help with identification.
We saw and heard very few birds, but were able to identify four species by their calls – Blue Jay, White-breasted Nuthatch, Northern Cardinal, Golden-crowned Kinglet. We came across a small flock of Cedar Waxwings feeding on berries deep in the bushes, but they did not show themselves for photos.
The most frequent sounds we heard were the chirps of Eastern Chipmunks as the scurried along fallen logs and across the leaf litter. Eastern Gray Squirrels (black morph) were also busy gathering the fruit of Black Walnuts.
Susan found a number of interesting bugs still active on the remaining blossoms.
A few wildflowers were still in bloom: knapweed, Chicory, Common Yarrow, Wild Basil, Herb Robert, Annual Fleabane, Common Toadflax/Butter-and-Eggs, goldenrod, Common Blue Wood Aster.
Fall colours.
Music Video
The Analogues are a band that specializes in perform entire albums as faithfully as possible – live and with graphics projected behind them.
From Wikipedia:
“The Analogues are a Dutch tribute act to the Beatles. Founded in 2014, the Analogues’ ambition has been to perform live the Beatles’ music from their later studio years, using analogue and period-accurate instrumentation.[1] The Analogues distinguished themselves by performing songs and whole albums live, which the Beatles never played live. While the band does not attempt to look like the Beatles, they have been noted for accurately recreating and reproducing their music and sound.[2]“