James Bay Shorebird Project 2017 - page 5 of 6

 

Mammals and more - 30 July to 14 August 2017

Just about every year we see a beached Beluga on Longridge. We hypothesize that when the tide goes out, Belugas get stranded on the ridge, which extends about 5 km north into James Bay.1 August 2017.

 

Anne and Mark look sadly at the Beluga, which may have been giving birth when it got into difficulties.

 

It appears that the female was giving birth to a baby Beluga.

 

American (Pine) Marten frequently seen around camp. 30 July 2017.

 

Bronze Copper butterfly has undergone a range expansion into James Bay since we started going there in 2009. It was the most common butterfly on 9 August.

VIDEO: Click photo above or this link

 

Unidentified caterpillars on Yarrow on 4 August 2017. VIDEO: caterpillar eating the flower.

 

The colourful Hudson Bay Toad is always a delight to see. This year the number of toadlets was down considerably from the hundreds we usually saw daily. Marsh dried up this year.

 

Predacious Diving Beetle walking in search of water. We found several dead, probably lack of water. 10 August 2017.

 

Unlike southern Ontario and elsewhere in Ontario, it's a very dry year on the James Bay Coast. Coastal ponds and marshes were dry, small dead fish were on the dry mud, and our creek where we get water was still flowing, but less every day.

 

I love the fossils at Longridge. David Rudkin at the Royal Ontario Museum identified them: "the compact domal form is small corallite favositid ("honeycomb")colony - can't nail it down precisely, but it's most similar to things known in the older literature as Favosites hemisphericus 'minutus'. It almost certainly derives from the Lower Devonian Stooping River Formation, which is the only rock unit that is surficially exposed in that area."

 

Squirrel-tail Grass in the marsh at Longridge. 13 August 2017. VIDEO: Click photo above or this link.

 

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