Crayfish and Caterpillars

My morning was almost a repeat of yesterday at Lakeside Park. The great blue heron was in position and there was again not enough light for anything other than grainy photos when I first arrived. I felt that I had to upload this dark and grainy photo though, because instead of a catfish, the great blue heron pulled what appears to be a crayfish out of the lake, and that is a first for me:


I really did not want to take similar photos to those I took of the great blue heron yesterday, so I decided to move further along to where the beaver was busily working on its daily maintenance, clearing channels in the bed of the stream. Moving mud:


And also any branches which were obstructing:


I walked inland from there to the wildflower meadow and was happy to find a little hairy caterpillar on a leaf, bejewelled by the morning dew:


I heard a car pull into the parking area and met up with a fellow photographer. We swapped stories for a while and then spied the young pied-billed grebe which was strangely enough, in the same area of the lake as we were. I decided to try to sneak around the path for a shot of the grebe. I would either succeed, or the grebe would move away from me and over to the other photographer, one of us was sure to get a photo opportunity:


I was lucky this time, and perhaps it was because my fellow photographer was in full view at the seated area that the grebe did not notice me. I was able to get reasonably close this time:


I have to mention, that I also snapped a photo of the pied-billed grebe with a crayfish which was unfortunately out of focus. I guess that there must be a good population of crayfish in the lake.

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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