Wildlife at Home, the Wetlands and Lakeside Park

Have you ever had one of those days when you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Well, that is exactly what happened to me this morning. It was a misty morning. The pale blue that was barely visible through the mist was a hopeful reminder that the sun might eventually break through the veil.  I was biking to the lake with my camera safely packed in my backpack and I'd already missed one good photo opportunity of a young Cooper's hawk who had just missed its strike on a squirrel that was bounding across the grass. By the time I'd unpacked my camera the Cooper's hawk was already looking for its next target. I managed a few shots in the poor light before it took off again. A quick stop off at the bottom of Shoemaker Lake was all the time that I needed to capture the great blue heron as it crossed the width of the lake in a few flaps of its wings.  And even though the low light produced some really grainy photos, I like the texture it added to the canvas. The su...

Since I first saw the black-crowned night-heron on the third of August it has become a regular early morning acquaintance. But only very briefly before it disappears among the high branches of the trees that edge Shoemaker Lake. A lone Caspian Tern has also been a welcome visitor to Lakeside Park every morning. It circles with seemingly effortless flaps of its wings, it swoops, stalls motionless in midair, it folds its wings and then dives headfirst. More times than not, it comes up with nothing more than wet feathers, but when it does hit its target the Tern leaves Lakeside Park with its prize, only to return a while later looking for its next unsuspecting catch. The young belted kingfishers are becoming masters of the hunt.  Using their skills effectively to score on almost every attempt. There is always the problem of the scales though, they tend to get everywhere! A quick rub and it's all better. The mallards and geese at Lakeside Park are quite often taken for granted. They ar...

Watching the kingfishers, enjoying the cool morning breeze blowing over Shoemaker Lake. It was blissful! I'd missed a few mornings at Lakeside Park with the much-needed rainfall we'd had. I returned to the lake on Monday the third of August for the photo of the black-crowned night-heron that I included at the end of my last post. On Thursday though, the temperature was a little cooler than of late and the light breeze was just perfect. Mallards were feeding at my feet in the shallows, painted turtles had pulled themselves out onto the dead branches poking through the surface of the water, and the kingfishers were calling out to each other a little further away, chasing whichever one of them was lucky enough to have caught a fish.  And then everything paused... there was silence. The silhouette of a large pair of wings held at full stretch glided in from my side. The kingfishers disappeared from sight, the mallards stopped feeding, everyone was watching the predator that was coa...