A Special Fir Tree

My morning started well with a sighting of the beaver, just before it disappeared under the water as it 
headed home for the day. Its schedule is nocturnal, as is mine:


Just beside the parking area at Lakeside Park is the Greenbrook water treatment plant. It is surrounded by a fence, trees and shrubs and that is where I spent almost my entire morning. I had no need to move at all. There was something special about one fir tree in particular which was attracting lots of attention. First I heard and then saw the young kingbirds in that tree. They have finally left their home in the highest tree at the park


I could fill this post with photos of the kingbirds; they were everywhere, and I took so many, but more interesting is my first photo of a tiny hummingbird on the same fir tree. Not my first sighting, as I saw them much earlier in the year, collecting nesting material from last year's reed heads, but I was unable to take any photos then:


There were young Baltimore orioles, a goldfinch and a flycatcher, which I missed out on. Also this little red squirrel, who was frantically running from branch to branch, dropping pine cones to the ground. Maybe it was going to come back later and eat what it had harvested? It has its eyes clearly fixed on another pine cone in this photo:


In a bush beside the fir tree, I heard the cries of a hungry chick and so went to investigate. It was a young cowbird. Cowbirds are remarkable in their cuckoo-like nesting habits. They remove the hard part of parenting and leave it to someone else. Here is the cowbird looking really cute:


And here it is demanding to be fed by a diminutive song sparrow:


Its surrogate parent seems almost scared to approach:


Quite remarkable:


Copyright © wildlakeside.blogpot.com 2019 Scott Atkinson All Rights Reserved.

Location: Lakeside Park, 206 Lakeside Dr, Kitchener, ON N2M 4C5, Canada

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