Diario de jlpolgar

Time and Date: 03/11/12 15:00
Duration: 60 minutes
Location: Waterloo, ON
Weather: Sunny, 10 degrees, 20% cloud cover
Habitat: Suburban temperate area as well as in a park next to a small man-made lake.

On this unusually warm day, the most notable wildlife I saw was a turtle walking across the field between columbia lake and one of the smaller lakes. As turtles are cold blooded, you wouldn't expect to see one out on a November day, but the day was warm. The turtle could have been going from one lake to the next, potentially to forage. When I approached the turtle it retracted its head slightly into it's shell, so I let it be. This is likely a defence mechanism to make it less vulnerable to predators.

It is always interesting to see the same species in multiple locations. In my last observation I saw a lady bug on the side of a cliff in harsh conditions in Lions Head, this time, the beetle was again on the side of a structure (on the side of a silo). I do not know if lady bugs have any preference for being on vertical surfaces, I do spend a lot of time looking on such surfaces, so this is likely my own bias - also they would be more visible - this would make these ladybugs more easily seen to predators.

The sugar maple was interesting as the leaves in the shaded part of the tree had not yet started changing colours. I do not know why this is, potentially the radiation from the sun speeds up the loss of pigment in leaves. I took a picture of the spruce to note that the needles do not change colour. I unfortunately lost the picture of the tamarack turning yellow, this softwood tree is interesting because it is the only softwood to change colours in the fall.