Hiking Fanshawe Lake

I went for a hike this morning at Fanshawe Lake, just northeast of London.  These trails (and the river), which I've hiked/biked (canoed) a thousand times are owned and managed by the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority.  If I had to point to something instrumental in sparking my interest in the natural world, the Thames River between St. Marys and London would be it. 

I was in search of open water today and hoping to get some feathered material to post here.  Well, before I got my camera mounted to the tripod the lone Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens) which was loafing at the edge of the open water among 800 or so other waterfowl flew off (Fanshawe Lake is immediately below the flight path of airplanes coming and going from London International Airport so birds tends to scare up regularly).  The result, a crappy digi-scoped shot.

As I was scanning the water, I heard a rattle to my left which turned out to be Bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia).  This shrub is fairly common along the Thames River, and it tends to form thickets as a result of its clonal growth.  Below are a few of the dried seed capsules which contain one to several seeds.  This shrub could be confused with Hop-tree (Ptelea trifoliata) but Bladdernut has opposite leaves and finely serrated margins on the leaves.  The fruits are also quite different, the bladder-like capsules versus planar, wafer-thin seeds of Hop-tree.

The seeds of Bladdernut are extremely hard, kind of like popcorn kernels.  I'm sure they could remain dormant in the soil for decades before germinating.  I tried propagating a handful of seeds once and gave them a rough sanding before burying them.  No results to report thus far, I'll keep you posted.

The buds are relatively large, and the mature stems tend to get dark/light lines which are fairly distinct among other forest understory shrubs and tree saplings.

I also spotted this Northern Short-tailed Shrew (Blarina brevicauda) sleeping on the trail.  The latin brevis and cauda translates to short-tail.  They have poisonous saliva which they use to paralyze prey (including prey notably larger than themselves) and store it for later consumption.  They feed primarily on earthworms, which is good, given that research is suggesting that earthworms are destroying the organic layer of forest floors.