Wildlife at Home, the Wetlands and Lakeside Park

I had the perfect location. I was well camouflaged behind two tree trunks, with one small window between the trees from which to point my camera lens. The kingfisher was here and was sure to land on the dead branches directly in front of me. I heard the kingfisher's calls and sure enough, it flew upstream from Shoemaker Creek. The kingfisher hadn't seen me at all, it gave no warning as it approached. The kingfisher then continued, it flew straight past my position, landed on another branch further along the edge of the lake, swiftly caught a fish and then much to my dismay disappeared back along Shoemaker Creek! I thought that perhaps the belted kingfisher might return after a little while. No such luck, but in the course of waiting I did see other wild birds. A white-throated sparrow perched just to my left. I also saw yellow-rumped warblers that were just out of the reach of my lens. And there was more activity, from behind me. Birds that I would not normally have a chan

Lakeside Park was sublime this morning. There were none of those grey fluffy things overhead, and the strong contrast from the low morning sunlight added so much detail to everything it touched. As I seem to be doing quite often now, I'm going to play this morning in reverse. From the far side of Shoemaker Lake, I spotted the green heron. It flew into the reed beds at the bottom of the lake and on the off chance that it might appear at some point from the reeds, I made my way around Stirling Ave, to the bottom of Shoemaker Lake. I took a position, camouflaged against a dead tree trunk and waited. Eventually, the green heron did appear, but not from the reed beds I'd seen it land in. It flew over from Shoemaker Creek, circling around the dead tree I was leaning against, landing on a partly submerged branch on the edge of the reeds. The green heron hadn't seen me. As long as I didn't make any obvious movement I was as good as invisible. The green heron had seen a p

I never know what I'll find when I go to Lakeside Park, and sometimes it isn't what I find, rather what finds me. Partly hidden behind the woodland's latticework of twigs and fallen branches, this coyote knew I was there. It could definitely hear my clumsy rubber boots and with the wind coming from behind me, it also had the advantage of scent, but it hadn't seen me yet. I knew that I only had a few moments, if that, to capture some photographs. My autofocus struggled, as did the coyote's sight, to cut through all of the obstructions between us, but I did somehow manage a few shots before the coyote disappeared into the undergrowth.  The unexpected often catches me unprepared. A little earlier in the morning, I was attempting to take a photo of the first migratory warbler that I have seen this year, a yellow-rumped warbler. The warbler would not sit still for an instant, and in the course of attempting to relocate the warbler, I was entirely ta

I must admit that I am no expert when it comes to thrushes in Ontario. I am well acquainted with thrushes in the UK, but these guys have completely different names. I will do my best to hopefully identify correctly. There are I believe two possible candidates,  Swainson's thrush and the hermit thrush. Very similar-looking birds. One outstanding difference between them appears to be a white ring around the eye of the hermit thrush compared to a buffy eyering on Swainson's thrush. Another distinguishing detail is the colour of their tailfeathers. The hermit thrush has more of a cinnamon colour to its tailfeathers, and this photo does show that. A white eyering and cinnamon tailfeathers, I'm going with a hermit thrush. This photo also shows both the cinnamon tailfeathers and the white eyering. There were many of these thrushes working their way through the leaf litter of the woodland on the far side of Shoemaker Lake. They were very sensitive to any movement. I h