Beginning of October 2025 - Pleasant Days

It has been unseasonably warm with temperatures at 28c and lots of sunshine.  Everything is very dry with drought conditions.  Hardly any rain in September.  I have been to some wetlands and they are very dry.  Here are some photos from around London.

Great Blue Heron

Palm Warbler

Merlin

Rusty Blackbird

Bald Eagle (immature)

Eastern Phoebe

Northern Leopard Frog

American Bullfrog

Painted Turtles

Roaming Around London Area

London Area - Week of July 16-22, 2023

Some different wildlife I saw this past week.  A nice variety of things.

Midland Painted Turtle

Northern Leopard Frog

Grasshopper and Bee

Great Blue Heron

Monarch

American Goldfinch

Butterfly Milkweed

Monarch

Monarch

Willow Flycatcher

Midland Painted Turtles

Northern Leopard Frog

Mid-July Wildlife

We've had some warm, sunny days recently.  Friday and Saturday were overcast though with some heavy rain.  

The birds have been quiet, busy feeding their young.  So I have not seen too many birds lately but a lot of other variety of wildlife.  

It was nice to see Monarchs flying among the flowers.  I never get tired of Monarchs.  

Wild Indigo Duskywing

There are lots of immature Robins.  

Northern Flickers

I think the turtle below is a young Northern Map Turtle.  This is a far away shot.  I find them on rocks in the middle of the river.

Powdered Dancer

This Eastern Kingbird was battling a dragonfly.  

House Finches

Searching for Butterflies

I was able to get some 'first of the year' butterflies this week.  I'm not finding many butterflies around right now but hopefully it will pick up soon.  This week the Common Ringlets were the most common.  I also saw a Viceroy and Eastern Tailed-Blues.  

Common Ringlet

I looked for turtles, too.  I saw many Midland Painted Turtles and some Northern Map Turtles.  The Map Turtle below was huge.

Northern Map Turtle

This was the only Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtle I saw.  It was very small.  I'm hoping later, I can find some bigger ones.  This turtle is Species at Risk in Ontario - threatened.

Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtle

There were lots of small fish in the Thames River in the shallow parts along the banks.  I think these are a species of minnows.

European Skipper

It was interesting watching the Eastern Kingbird eating a dragonfly.

Elegant Great Egret

July 25, 2020 - Uplands North Wetland, London, Ontario

It's always nice to see a Great Egret!  I was at the wetland for about 15 minutes when the egret flew in from behind me and landed low on a dead tree.  It stayed there the whole time looking around and preening.

The Great Blue Heron is at the top of the photo looking down at the Great Egret.  For a short time, they were croaking at each other.

As I was heading back to the car, a heron was fishing close by.  It caught a fish and a few times dropped it.

July 25, 2020 - Hyde Park, London, Ontario

I didn't see too many butterflies but saw this beauty.

Black Swallowtail

I'm now seeing some baby frogs - Northern Leopard Frogs.

There are 3 of them in the photo below.