Ragweed. Note green flower spikes at top
1. This morning was the first time I felt my hay fever symptoms, which means that Ragweed is now in bloom.
2. I had a report today of a Northern Goshawk hanging out near birdfeeders on Knox Street. The house backs onto Armour Hill. This hawk species is rarely seen in urban areas, which makes the sighting quite significant.
3. Cardinals are still singing loudly in our neighborhood every morning. This is probably because they often have a second or third brood of young in August, hence the need to broadcast ownership of territory.
4. We have yet to see a Monarch butterfly at our backyard perennial garden. This will be the first summer Monarchs have been totally absent. Province-wide, Monarch numbers have increased a little bit, but the situation is still quite bleak (Pers. comm. with Donald Davis, Monarch tagger)
Dog Stinkhorn
5. Phyllis King, who has a property near Bancroft, emailed me to say that her Stinkhorn fungi have appeared. She sees (and smells!) them every year at this time. She wrote: “we have one stink horn that has spent itself today and another one is just crowning….. they pop up so fast and then they are spent…. the first one really smells….they sure are showy!”
