{"id":6782,"date":"2021-04-23T23:53:57","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T23:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/?p=6782"},"modified":"2021-04-24T12:12:57","modified_gmt":"2021-04-24T12:12:57","slug":"a-few-early-spring-nature-notes-from-sandy-lake-environs-23apr2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/2021\/04\/23\/a-few-early-spring-nature-notes-from-sandy-lake-environs-23apr2021\/","title":{"rendered":"A few early spring nature notes from Sandy Lake & Environs 23Apr2021"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Loon on Sandy Lake at dusk<\/p><\/div>\n

On Monday April 19th, Ed G and I lowered a probe to the deepest part of Sandy Lake and found that the lake had “turned over” and was well oxygenated from top to bottom. View the limnological limnological profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That was normal for a “dimictic” lake<\/a>, but I had some concern<\/a> that rising salt inputs could at some point inhibit spring turnover.\u00a0 So this was good news, at least for 2021. <\/p>\n

It was approaching dusk as I prepared to leave and the call of a loon provided some further good news.<\/p>\n

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Mayflower (Trailing Arbutus)
\nClick on images for larger versions<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

On Wednesday Apr 21st, I took a walk with my grandson to Jack Lake. A few Mayflower\u00a0 plants (also called Trailing Arbutus) were in bloom, the first I had seen this year.<\/p>\n

We side-tracked in a few places to check for the occurrence of an orange-coloured alga on exposed\u00a0 faces of rock ridges that occur to either side of the trail to Jack Lake. When I first noted this organism a few weeks previously, I had thought it was an unusual occurrence of an orange coloured lichen that is common on rocks by the ocean. But a closer view revealed it had a different structure and I was able to identify it as a species of Trentepohlia<\/em>, an alga whose orange colour is due to the presence of carotenoids. I checked with a friend who is an expert on plants growing on rock faces in NS; she had seen it but not commonly in NS.<\/p>\n

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Left: Rock face with orange colured alga. Right: 25″ dbh (diameter at breast height)\u00a0 red spruce<\/p><\/div>\n

We noted some\u00a0 magnificent big red spruce, hemlocks and yellow birch along the way.<\/p>\n

Jack Lake has a boreal ambiance, bordered by wetlands and wet black spruce forest; it felt secluded and serene. (The bugs were not yet out!)<\/p>\n

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Jack Lake<\/p><\/div>\n

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Pitcher plants<\/p><\/div>\n

There was a beautiful clump of pitcher plants where we walked close to the water.<\/p>\n

Leatherleaf had not yet flowered.<\/p>\n

Spring is just beginning!<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday April 19th, Ed G and I lowered a probe to the deepest part of Sandy Lake and found that the lake had “turned over” and was well oxygenated from top to bottom. View the limnological limnological profile. That … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natural-history","category-sandy-lake"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6782"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6800,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6782\/revisions\/6800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}