Wildlife at Home, the Wetlands and Lakeside Park

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...

I was all set to leave Lakeside Park this morning without many photos. I'd seriously underestimated the weather and how cold it was going to be. I was literally shivering in my rubber boots and heading to the warmth of my little car when the smallest of movements caught my eye. You'd be forgiven for thinking that a small piece of bark was moving up this tree. This bird's colouring is designed to seamlessly blend into the surface on which it hunts. I'm more used to seeing brown creepers moving through the trees in groups of other small birds, for safety during the winter months. This brown creeper, however, was hunting over the jigsaw puzzle of cracks and crevices in this tree's bark all on its own. Only when a brown creeper is silhouetted on the side of a tree's trunk does it really stand out to the naked eye. It appears I'm writing this post last first, so I'll continue in reverse with this photo of a northern flicker. T...

I have posted a few photos of the white-throated sparrows at Lakeside Park already and now find myself posting one more. I seem unable to not take a photo of these colourful sparrows: This bird is a brown creeper. I don't believe I have posted a photo of a brown creeper before, but it is not a new bird for me. I am well acquainted with these birds from my time birdwatching in England, although we do call them treecreepers in the UK: Squirrels appear to be everywhere at the moment. In the canopy dropping walnuts and on the ground hiding their stash: The red squirrels appear to be very aggressive towards their larger cousins, driving them off their walnut tree: I see painted turtles all the time at Lakeside Park, and I guess that is why I don't really take any photos of them. This is October though and for that reason alone, I took this photo of a painted turtle basking in the sun: Copyright  ©  wildlakeside.blogpot.com 2019 Scott Atkinson All Rights Re...