We had a perfect day for our beach walk at Port Albert on Thursday. I noticed a plant I was unfamiliar with, and as usual by using iNaturalist I found out it was American searocket. On that part of the beach, South of Port Albert, there was not much garbage, except for three deflated helium balloons. Balloons look great at a birthday party, but unfortunately too many end up littering our forests and beaches, and fish and birds can get tangled in the streamers.

The Tuesday Tromp was on the Black Hole loop trail. At the large flat rocky area there were some small flowered leafcup flowers and an Ironwood (also known as Eastern Hophornbeam) which had some fruit hanging down where they were easily visible.

There are many fungi visible at this time of year, but often, even with the help of iNaturalist it is often impossible to positively identify them.  I have much better luck with plants and butterflies, even when the butterfly has part of its wings missing, which seems to happen quite often, including the Pearly Northern-Eye I saw on the Lobb trail.

This is the time of year when I love to hike the Wawanosh Nature Centre Trails, because there is a magnificent patch of wild flowers in bloom including wild bergamot, vervain and varieties of sunflowers and, coneflowers.  This means that butterflies are usually there, especially when it is sunny.  On Wednesday August 9th we saw two monarchs, a Canadian tiger swallowtail and a few other butterflies too far away to identify. This is less than the numbers seen in previous years.

There were not too many mosquitoes at Wawanosh , however when we went on the nearby Rodger Tract trails at Hoover Line we were met by swarms of mosquitoes. We decided it would be much better to visit there in early spring or winter!

Notes.

Saturday August 19th 9 am Hike the Maitland trail at the Auburn end. Meet at the end of Bridge road for a level hike of about 1 1 /2 hours

Saturday August 26th 9-12.30 Cycle MacGregor Provincial Park trails with  Don Andrew  519-530-9019

Sunday August 27th 9am- 2 pm Hike the Maitland trail from river Line to Cherrydale road. Meet at Cherrydale road and carpool to River Line. This section has many hills. To preregister contact Patrick Capper at pcapper99@gmail.com

Thursday August 31st 1pm to 4 pm Turtle release by ABCA at Morrison dam

Saturday September 16th and Sunday September 17th Maitland Trail El Camino hikes Register through the Maitland Trail website maitlandtrail.ca You can sign up to hike the whole 50.3 km in two days or opt for shorter hikes.

Tuesday Trompers meet at 9 a.m. on Tuesday to hike for about an hour. If you wish to be on this email list, send an email to mta@maitlandtrail.ca

Uneven Hikers hike for 1 ½ to 2 hours on Wednesdays or Thursdays, contact Patrick Capper.

Both groups meet at 9 a.m. and are open to non-members provided they sign the MTA On-line waiver.

If you have questions or something of interest for Trail Talk email me Patrick Capper at pcapper99@gmail.com.