Wildflowers on the Sentier Botanique near Montreal

On the 22nd March, a lovely sunny day when the temperaures had freakily risen to about 25C, we went for a walk to the Sentier Botanique (botanical walk) which is about 12 minutes drive from home. It's a woodland walk in an area where there are many wildflowers, many of which are ones that I am familiar with from northern Europe, but there are also sunny banks which have Mediterranean garrigue plants! Totally weird but it makes it oh so interesting.

Where we park is next to a stream, which I was really surprised to see was dry. It’s been running every time we’ve been here in the past, even in summer the first time we came here. I thought we’d had a wet winter, but obviously still not enough to refill the water table. Worrying times.

First butterfly we saw was my second only Comma since moving here! I didn't get a shot of it though. It's crazy that what I consider a common (garden) butterfly is rarely seen around my new neck of the woods.

The most common flowers out at this time were Celandine, Pulmonaria, Cuckooflower, Greater Stitchwort, Wood Anemone and Vinca.  There was also the beginning of the wild cherry blossom and Tree Heathers. Interestingly, not a single orchid was seen.

Cuckooflower or Lady's Smock are the most commonly used common names for this flower (Cardamine pratensis). They are an important food plant of the larvae of the Orange Tip butterfly.

There were plenty of butterflies around, many of which were Orange Tips (Anthocharis cardamines), but it was not surprising given the amount of Cuckooflowers here. They were all very active though, so I was only able to get some butterfly shots by zooming in. No chance of any macros as they didn't stay on a flower for longer than a few seconds!

There were also a lot of these Wood Anemones (Anemonoides nemorosa) on the verges of the path.

We then came to a place where the path either loops around to go back to the car park, or you can walk a bit further on, and down into the valley bottom where there is a little stream (that joins the bigger stream by the parking) and a waterfall. We've not seen much more than mud for the stream and a few drops of water for the waterfall, but this year it was completely dry.

It was heavier shade here and as we descended the temperature noticeably dropped - which was quite nice on this unexpected hot day! It was a bit too dark for my photos (my camera can't cope) so my photos are not sharp and are noisy. But it was nice to see some different plants in this different habitat.

Top left: Anemone hepatica, Top right: Cowslip (Primula veris)
Bottom: A parasitic plant known as Purple Toothwort (Lathraea clandestina) which grows in conditions just like this, near streams in valley bottoms in shade, where it can parasitise the roots of various trees.

We then had to walk all the way back up the steep slope, but thankfully rope handrails had been provided which made it much easier. I don't think I could have got down there without it and it certainly helped pulling myself back up! 😀

Back to the sunlight and we decided to return along the path that we came on, as I recall the return path being less flowery and less interesting. I probably wouldn't have got these butterfly photos if we hadn't stuck to the nicer path. 

These are male Brimstones (Gonepteryx rhamni) although we also have Cleopatras here, which are a brighter colour with orange on the forewing. My focus is off on the first photo, but it has focused nicely on the Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) that it is feeding on!

On a Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis).

There were Bee Flies buzzing about all over the place. I love these insects! This one is Bombylius major and it's a parasitic insect, laying its eggs near the entrance to where the nests of certain species of solitary wasps and bees are. In fact, what they actually do is, whilst flying, flick their abdomen towards the entrance hole and chuck eggs towards it! Needless to say, only a small amount of larva get into the host nests to eat the larvae and food stores within, but presumably, that is all that is needed.

This is only the third Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) that I have seen in over four years here and I actually saw one in our garden last autumn which was a nice surprise! Yet they were the most common butterfly in my last garden in Brittany.

At home, we’ve had an amazing show of the earliest orchids - pics to follow in a later post. I must get this posted.

Happy Spring! 😄