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    • Blog

    East Coast Roadtrip: Day 1

    The route for Day 1: Mississauga -> Toronto -> Plattsburgh, NY

    We were supposed to be staying in VT, but an error through hotels.com ended up having me in NY! It wasn’t totally their fault, but I’ve since written them about their website design (usually when you show hotel options outside of the city that was searched, it specifies it more clearly. I’ll take a 50/50 blame on this one. That seems fair.) Anyway, it wasn’t the end of the world, we decided to take the ferry across Lake Champlain the next day to VT to continue on our way.

    It was some pretty nice scenery through NY:

    Introducing… Violet!

    Well, the (what we though was) impossible happened! Flower, my female scarlet badis, and the male (who remains unnamed) had a baby! We’d just finished hearing from someone all the intricate details about how to simulate the monsoon rains etc. so that they might breed, got home, and there she was! We’re assuming she’s a female because she’s a few weeks old and still white, just like her mother. We could be wrong, but we’ll see how things go! She’s been out and about a fair bit the past couple of weeks, even swimming in the open tank with the rest of the fish. We’ve named her Violet, in keeping with the floral name of her Mother, Flower.

    Without further ado, here’s Violet! (she’s about 0.75cm long)

     

    This is Flower, she’s about 1.5cm long:

     

    Also, a sad goodbye to “Pinecone”. He was the older/duller of the two male scarlet badis, and came down with dropsy, a condition that makes them bloat up so their scales stick out like a pinecone. (Violet’s Father is the younger, brighter, smaller male so we may get more babies yet)

    Chickadees at the cottage

    The chickadees were eager to be friends this weekend. We were watched by a white nuthatch, a chipmunk and a bunch of blue jays.

    He kept a close eye on us, a whole circle of them actually, it was kind of creepy.

    Spot the chipmunk! Trying to sneak over…

    Peeking from behind a tree…

    Can’t decide if he’s coming or going….

    Would have been neat to have him come closer, but he was shy.

    This guy was like a bluejay, picked up the seed and shook it. If it failed his standard’s he tossed it aside!

    We also saw a couple of deer on the way back from our rained-out algonquin trip… bonus points for getting buttertarts though!

    New in the tank

    The new Angelfish decided to lay eggs! It was their first attempt and they ate them within 48 hours, but they’ll probably try again.

    (air bubble on a leaf)

    (ottocat)

    (mosquito rasboras)

    (“flower”, my female scarlet badis looking at me hoping I’ll feed her brine shrimp)

    (Finally got a shot of the lampeyes, they move around really quickly. Turns out they look bored when they’re still…)

    May in Haliburton

    Amazing weekend for wildlife!
    Totals: Too many birds to count, 1 huge black bear running away (hence no photo), 3 moose, 3 deer, salamanders and bugs! Also caught the first fish of the season (catch and release of course), two nice little largemouth bass!
    (P.S. this weekend has me definitely thinking about getting a telephoto lens!)

    Saw a woodcock on the side of the road during a night drive down a back road through the woods. I’d never seen one before, very neat little bird, and it seemed pretty unafraid of my hanging out the car window snapping shots of it in the beam of the headlights!

    We saw 3 moose this weekend! Two were later in the evening (a mother and calf), wouldn’t have gotten a clear shot, but this guy was just chilling in the forest flicking his ears (the blackflies are out!)

    Saw tons of tracks around the area where we saw the moose the previous evening:

    On our way back, we figured we’d been incredibly lucky to have seen the moose – we weren’t expecting to see these two deer! Saw another deer on the night drive too.

    This bug was so cool, but after much google-ing we were happy we hadn’t touched it. Apparently it can cause a chemical burn on your skin. It’s called an Oil Beetle. Clearly we’ve got a male and a female here!

    We can’t pass up checking under stumps/logs to see what’s under there: