Exploring Lady Eaton Drumlin

Passing by the nest again this morning. I brought my DSLR but no bird was on the nest.


On the way to campus, there were several Buffleheads on the Otonabee River.

Nowadays, I am just sorting out my data from the first field season and presenting them to my supervisors and committee members, and figuring out what to do the next field season. In addition to that, I have to buy my flights, field equipments, etc. Basically, life has been super busy lately.

Meanwhile, the weather has been very nice and I always feel antsy whenever I looked outside and saw the blue sky. In the afternoon, I decided to go walk up to the drumlin where I took the Plant Ecology students to last semester (almost 6 months ago).

Still leafless.


Looking out at one of the viewpoints.

This is the new DNA building, where my office and lab are at.

Sporophytes of moss.

Originally I thought it was going to be a pretty boring day, because it was very windy and not very warm (so, not birds and insects). But then I spotted these pretty flowers on the forest floor.

There are white and bluish flowers, but I think they are the same species - Round-lobed Hepatica. They would be easy to tell apart if the leaves are present, but only the flowers are flourishing at the moment.










These flowers were growing on the northeast side of the drumlin and the only plants flowering at the moment.




Besides the flowers and some insects flying by, this chickadee was the only wildlife I was able to photograph.

Snail shell on moss.

Towards the end of the day, while biking home, I saw a medium-sized mammal (about beaver-sized) rolling on the high school field. At first I thought it was a muskrat, but when the animal saw me, it darted into this hole in the ground! It took me awhile before realizing that it was a ground squirrel. Amazing! I am not sure what species it is, perhaps Marmota marmax? I waited for a few more minutes to see if it will reappear or not, but it didn't.

Overall, a great day to be outside.