On a Gossamer Thread

Last comes first in this post. The last thing which I took a photo of this morning, were these hairy, white caterpillars which I almost rode into on my way back from Lakeside Park. They were suspended from a black walnut tree, right over the trail, at head height. There were lots of gossamer threads strung from that tree, all with their own abseiling caterpillars, which were wriggling a dazzling dance in the sunlight:


If there is such a thing as a deluge of birds, then I experienced it this morning. I was literally surrounded at one point, with woodpeckers, the northern flicker, a nuthatch, chickadees, young robins etc. And as usual, I missed more photo opportunities than I took. Here is another photo of a juvenile baltimore oriole with what looks like a grasshopper in its grasp:


A female rose-breasted grosbeak, which I had to include even though the pose and photo quality are not that good:


This young bird, which I had to use my Merlin app to identify as a young warbling vireo:


Of course, I had to end with a heron. This green heron completely caught me off guard. I was not expecting to see it, perched where the male red-winged blackbirds normally like to display. It also quite surprisingly, let me walk right up to it.
I am now more confident after looking at this photo, that it is a green heron. The chestnut coloration on its neck is more noticeable:


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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