Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Bluffers Park with Ann

Ann and I met up at Bluffers Park just after 4 pm. I won the race down the hill and she showed her maturity by sticking her tongue out at me after we parked. It's on!

We went along the west side and saw...nothing. No turtles, no beaver, no night herons. We got pretty excited when we saw a robin so it wasn't looking good, even though the robin was adorable.

We kept going because I wanted to show her the Canada goose on the nest, and as I approached it I was horrified because there was some green thing on her neck. I thought it was garbage of some sort but it was a band:


That really bugs me because it's so big but they do this for a reason, it just seems way too invasive to me. We walked over to the boat launch and go figure, a second Canada goose with a green band was swimming around:


What we really wanted to see was the long-tailed ducks, and they didn't disappoint:




Buffleheads wouldn't come too close:


Beautiful Mallards:




Beautiful swan:


Complaining gull:


Canada Goose:


Sharp-shinned hawk on the east side of the park:

Monday, April 9, 2012

Around the Scarborough Bluffs

I had a pretty quiet work day today so between dog walks I went down to Bluffers Park. I'd run into my friends Pat and Nancy earlier and they told me there were Night Herons on the west side along the bluffs. Here is what I saw in a few different parts of the Bluffs today, click on each shot to make it bigger if you wish:

A Brown Thrasher. I didn't get a clear shot because he went into the branches and was gone really quick.


A male Downy Woodpecker:


Male red morph Eastern Screech owl who gets cuter every time I see him!


A male Gadwall (thanks Lev!)


Two Night Herons in flight!


Double-Crested Cormorant:


Turtles, turtles rah rah rah, turtles, turtles ha ha ha!


The Night Herons landed on some fences but I couldn't get too close. Their eyes are orange/brown:


The three of them flew into a tree:


A female Canada Goose on eggs. I saw a solitaire Canada Goose swimming nearby and figure it was the male. Needless to say I didn't stick around.


How smart are they? The Bluffs are so steep where they were climbing and it took them a while to get to the top.


A couple more of the Herons before they flew off:


Monday, April 2, 2012

ShenANNigans!

It seems that no matter who goes out on wildlife adventures with Ann, something funny happens. Tonight was one of those nights.

We met up at the park because we wanted to see the screech owls flying around, calling each other, and possibly mating. Screech owls rarely fly during the day so you have to go at night. So there we were, watching the owls, waiting for dark to arrive and finally we saw them take flight. We heard them calling each other, the male with typical tremolos, the female with a freaky tremolo that almost sounded like morse code. I think she was telling him to get a move on and find her dinner!

Soon after, we heard one of them in a pine tree and the other showed up. Within seconds we heard "cheepcheepcheepcheep" and knew they mated. We made some juvenile jokes and started to walk to the cars.

We were alone in the park and we were looking for the other owls while talking, so we were on high alert, almost like the owls were except our heads couldn't swivel all the way around. Suddenly we heard this really loud noise out of the blue behind us and we yelled and started to run. Turns out it was a kid on a skateboard! We thought it was a killer who was stalking us, or even worse, an owl getting revenge for being photographed so much!