Olympia Marble Butterfly, and two Elfin Species @ The Pinery

This morning - I figured I would try to find the elusive Olympia Marble at the Pinery (and the Ipperwash Beach area). I had went to the Pinery a few times over the years during May only to dip on finding this fantastic species. I had also wanted to get the three Elfin Species that occur at the Pinery at this time of year as well (Hoary Elfin, Brown Elfin, and Pine Elfin).

The Olympia Marble at a distance just looks like another common Cabbage White, but if you wait for it to land and nectar on a flower, you are treated to a beautiful marbling of metalic gold colour on its lower hind-wing. It also had a pinkish tinge on its forewing.

The Elfins are basically small brown hairstreak-like butterflies. If you can find a fresh one, and good lighting, they have some wonderful iridescent blue scales in their wings. Pine Elphins use Pine Trees as their foodplant. The two other Elfins use Bearberry plants - which are quite common around Ipperwash, Port Franks and the Pinery.

I also went to the Port Franks Conservation area for a walk around that trail. One highlight from that walk was to recognize and hear Hooded Warblers and Black billed Cuckoos.

I was hoping to see or hear Prairie Warblers at the Pinery but that was not the case this time around. I got to see some nice Eastern Bluebirds, Eastern Phoebes, Pine Warblers among others.

Good birding and butterfly watching!

Spotted Wintergreen at Ojibway

Spotted Wintergreen at Ojibway Park (Chimaphila maculata)

A few days ago, I was walking briskly along a path at Ojibway, and this plant caught my eye. I kept walking then perhaps 30 seconds later, I backtracked and went back to find and photograph this plant. For some reason, I wanted to followup on what it was. So later on Flickr, I was looking up Slender bush Clover when I stumbled accross a photo of this plant that I was wanting to identify. Oddly enough, the photographer called this plant "Striped Prince's Pine" - but after doing some research --- it dawned on me that this is a very rare plant rated N1/S1 in Canada and Ontario [link]. More amazingly, I used google to look up this plant at Ojibway Park and realized that it was only discovered at Ojibway during the 2014 Bioblitz! Its so newly discovered that most of the documentation does not even acknowledge it being in Essex County. Its stronghold in the province is in Haldimand Norfolk County near Long Point / St Williams Forest Tract. An amazing, self discovered botanical rarity. I would love to see this plant flowering so next summer, I will try to make an effort to see these guys in flower.

I will end off this posting with images from Ojibway & some backtracking botany...


Late Summer Flowering Plants of Ojibway ~

Backtrack Botany

Heliborine Orchid (Non Native) .  I took this picture at a local ERCA natural area while looking for Purple Twayblade. I didn't know what it was when I saw it but it looked a little different. I slowly figured it out from my recently given field guide (thanks Irene), Flickr, Google Images as well as the excellent botany blogs I read! 

Good Botanizing!
Dwayne