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| The Singing Sands of Dorcas Bay |
On Friday we drove north again to visit the Bruce Peninsula National Park near Tobermory. On the way there we stopped at Crane River Park, where we had lunch on Wednesday, after finding out from another visitor that there were nodding trilliums there. Naturally, we explored this area a bit and found not only the nodding trilliums, but also ostrich ferns, tall meadow rue, horsetail club mosses, a currant and a clematis vine we weren't able to identify--a botanically rich spot by a small stream.
An aside here, I thought I'd seen nodding trilliums while hiking in Natural Bridge Park in Kentucky a couple of years ago, but I must have been mistaken--these nodding trilliums didn't look anything like the ones I'd seen there, these were really "nodding," with the flowers nearly hidden under the foliage!
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| Nodding trillium (Trillium cernuum) |
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| Tall meadow rue (Thalictrum pubescens) |
After this stop we drove into the Visitor Center at the park to watch a short nature video about this wonderful area and find out about parking permits at Singing Sands on Dorcas Bay. Singing Sands--what a wonderful name! The sands were silent today, but the name makes you wonder what the sands might sound like on blustery days...
It was getting to be lunchtime, so after parking, we made our way to some picnic tables by a building with restrooms. From here we could see the beach on one side, and a fen on the other side of the boardwalk--it was much chillier here with the breeze from the lake than at the Visitor Center the eastern side of the peninsula.
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| The fen behind the boardwalk |
After lunch we made our way down the boardwalk crossing the fen and began to look for the fascinating ram's head orchids (Cypripedium arietinum) that are unique to this site. The first ones we came across were just beyond the fen, amid some low-growing junipers. This curious flower is smaller than the yellow lady slipper orchid, with a slipper that has a pointed "beard" in the front resembling a goat's beard, with white fuzz on the upper part, thence the common name. The maroon markings on the slipper add to its surreal look.
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| Ram's head orchid (Cypripedium arietinum) |
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| Front view of the ram's head orchid |
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| Ram's head orchids growing with prostrate junipers. |
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| Ram's head orchid bud opening and a seed pod. |
We found a few more clumps of the ram's head orchids, generally growing among conifers, specially prostrate junipers. The flowers of most of them were just starting to open. Dwarf lake iris was blooming here too, interspersed with blooms of gaywings.
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| Dwarf lake iris (Iris lacustris) |
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| Dwarf lake iris and gaywings (Polygala paucifolia) |
It took me a while to get the shots of the ram's head orchid that I wanted, and by the time I looked up, the rest of the group had vanished. I continued on the trail looking for them, but despite walking at a very fast clip, I couldn't locate anyone--how could they possibly have gotten so far ahead? They must have taken a side trail, but which one? There were too many to choose from, so rather than getting lost, I went back towards the boardwalk. Here a few of the birders who had remained behind were watching some water snakes and some tiny fish swimming in a shallow creek.
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| Water snake in a creek with fingerlings. |
Later on one lady spotted a red-headed woodpecker on a far-away snag in the middle of a stand of trees in the fen. We watched the woodpecker dive and turn, always returning to "his" snag. After a while, a scarlet tanager showed up on another tree near the snag--incredibly bright--both were too far away for me to photograph. Thus we were entertained until the rest of the group returned--they had taken a trail towards the beach, no wonder I couldn't find them.
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| Yellow lady slippers and Indian paintbrush |
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| Yellow lady slippers and slender blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium mucronatum) |
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| Lots of yellow lady slippers. |
On the drive back from Singing Sands, we saw that the yellow lady slippers by the roadside were out in force among the Indian paintbrush, and stopped to get more photos of them--lovely! They do seem to grow like weeds here on the Bruce.
