Lakeville Corner Almanac

We get beavers . Open lakes and rivers aren't the best beaver habitat but their numbers keep growing and well, everybody needs a place to sleep. Generally they like a smaller stream they can dam-up completely. When they den on a lake or river the yearly spring freshet wreaks havoc and floods them out of their home and then they become a real nuisance as they swim around gnawing on anything that looks tasty including large trees next to peoples homes and cottages. Trappers used to step in years ago and control the numbers but with the anti-fur movement, the price of pelts makes it unprofitable. So we get more beavers. As you see below they don't really welcome visitors even when they aren't trappers.

  This was an Eastern Painted Turtle . As you can see from the crack in his shell he fell victim to a vehicle of some sort. Probably run over by a truck during recent development of abandoned farmland. Part of the development was a combination of sandy beach (good for laying eggs), stream and swamp that was perfect turtle habitat. As children we always went over to check on these guys and watch them bask on a rotting log in the swamp. There was something timeless about them. Whenever we visited, year after year on any sunny day, there the turtles were in the same location basking away.

  Seeing a Great Horned Owl is a rare treat. They are so quiet that they can fly directly over you and you have no clue. I saw this guy on the channel between two lakes which is known as the Thoroughfare. Most times in summer this is busy with boat traffic. If you happen to visit during "quiet hours" then you can see plenty of wild things besides the weekend drunks.

Birds aren't the only hunters found along the beach. This is a fishing spider . They are the largest spider I have found in my travels. It seems the BBQ cover is the perfect habitat for these guys as I seem to find one every time I pull it off. Perhaps though they are simply attracted to the smell of grilled meat.

One of my earlier childhood memories was standing on the beach watching while an Osprey dove for a fish. They are fascinating to watch and so common these days that I can watch them from my office window. In the 70's, the few that remained were the apex predators but now they have to compete with a re-surging raptor population. They have become a nuisance now by nesting on power poles and routinely knocking out power as they drop wet sticks to build up their nest.

Late in the summer you can see these freshwater sponges growing all over the lake bottom. They attach themselves to just about anything and can grow quite big. There is alot of microscopic life for them to feed on.

I'm pretty sure that's a fox skull, but I suppose it could have been a small dog. I'm  not really sure how to tell the difference. I used to to see foxes occasionally close-by, in an overgrown farmer's field. There would have been plenty of small rodents there to eat. That old farm was a fantastic habitat that was flush with wildlife; foxes, turtles, snakes, deer, coyotes, bears, etc. But as usually happens with these things, a developer bought it and subdivided it. Now it is just many acres of putting green. Boy those new neighbours sure seem to enjoy mowing.

  This flower is is known as a Blue Flag but we just call it a fleur-di-lis because of the obvious resemblance. Turns out it's an iris and not a lily, so we have been miss-naming it. They are rare enough that you are lucky to see one in a season. They grow on the beach near the eel grass and so they are routinely destroyed by the ice and spring flooding.

On the cottage infested side of the lake much of the wildlife seems to know the human wildlife's habits. So you will rarely see ducks on the shore during the weekend. During the week however when the cottagers are away you can see lots of interesting visitors, like these mergansers . Looks like momma is giving the babies fishing lessons. This happened to be a weekday when I was there early by myself to do some deck repairs. About 2 minutes into the video I accidentally make a noise and momma sounds the alarm. Fishing lesson over.

Kingfishers can be hard to get a good picture of. They are always on the move, from perch to perch along the water's edge. They stop briefly check for a fish and move on down the shoreline. This female however stopped and posed nicely on top of my mast. Kingfishers are one of those species whose numbers appear to have rebounded in recent years. At least I see more of them and again this is likely because of the DDT ban.

    Every year we look forward to the return of the baby catfish . They spawn nearby and a large school will patrol the shallows for a month or so where it is relatively safe from predators. They can be mesmerizing to watch as the school moves fluidly back and forth scouring the shore for for food.

We see a large number of Great Blue Herons . Or maybe we see the same guy over and over again. Hard to say as they are very solitary and skittish. Certainly there are more around than when I was younger. As a child in the 70's they were an exceptional thing, now thanks to the DDT ban they are an everyday sight. Of course before there was DDT, they were hunted for their blue feathers and that explains why they don't like people. The local frogs are not as happy as I am to see them.

There are alot of clams (AKA river mussels) in the lakes and rivers around Lakeville Corner. The shallow silt lake bottoms seem to provide the perfect home for them. They are so plentiful and well fed that they can grow to 6 inches or more. The clams are a favourite food for the local racoons who will return night after night to the same spot to feed on them. Racoons aren't really good at cleaning up after their meal as you can see in the photo. Somewhere in that pile will be a rock or two, just the right size that the racoon uses to help open stubborn clams.

Running into Monarch Butterflys while sailing on the lake can be a common occurrence during late summer. I guess at that point, they are on their way south to Mexico or Florida. The lake is near the northernmost limit of their migration range. We don't have a great amount of milkweed around the lake but it seems to be enough for them to occasionally be found in caterpillar form. This appears to be the fifth and final caterpillar form that they pass through on their long journey.

This was a rare find. The Shortnose Sturgeon almost never comes into the shallow lakes like French Lake. They mainly live in the St. John River and Grand Lake. These guys like deep, cold waters and so they are not often seen by human eyes. This unfortunate one likely came into the lake with the spring freshet , when the water was much colder and deeper. In June, the lake empties and heats up quickly. That would have meant the end was near for this fellow as he would not be able to tolerate the "bath water" temperatures of the lake by the time I found him in July.

These gelatinous things are called Bryozoa or Bryozoids . They are about the strangest life form you will encounter in the lake. They are actually a colony of microscopic Zooids (animal, not plant) that filter the water to extract their lunch. Finding these in the lake usually means that the water quality is quite good.  I remember finding them in the weirdest places as child; like inside an old leather shoe trapped in the silt of the lake bottom. We had no idea back then (B.G. : Before Google) what these things were. They reminded me of some alien life form from an episode of Star Trek. All we really knew was that they were great fun for creeping-out your friends and of course, for chucking at each other.

These meadows and ponds are part of the Portobello Creek National Wildlife Area . Earlier in the summer the pond would be over-run with nesting duck pairs. This footage is from the end of August and all the ducklings are fledged and gone. Here is a a shot from a prior year from a kayak. Every direction you turn, you can flush out a nesting pair.

We were visited by this cormorant for a couple of days. The fact that he tolerated having his photo taken at all suggests he was not in good health. Sick or injured, he remained nearby and then left and died shortly afterward. There has been a noticeable decline in the cormorant population in recent years.