Wildlife at Home, the Wetlands and Lakeside Park

This morning was special, Lakeside Park gifted me with so many photo opportunities. Photos of an animal that I have not seen at Lakeside Park for a long time and also of some elusive birds that I had wanted to better my previous photos of. It was a cold but gloriously sunny morning, everything crunched underfoot from the nights low of -2 degrees. I followed the sunlight along the bank of the lake and was preoccupied, focusing on a northern flicker that was drumming on a hollow dead tree when I noticed a distraction off to my left as it climbed its way up a tree. The last time that I saw a raccoon at Lakeside Park was back in March of 2018, and that was a young raccoon ( https://wildlakeside.blogspot.com/2019/07/a-wet-and-cold-raccoon.html ). This raccoon was a large adult. I took a few photos before moving along. The northern flicker's drumming and calling had attracted a mate. It presented itself to its partner, tail feathers spread out in an orange fan, fri...

I have not been to Lakeside Park since the 2nd of April and I must admit that I am missing my walks around the lake and my observations of the wildlife there. Work has kept me too busy to even go through my photos, but I feel I should make an effort. The last time that I observed this bird at Lakeside Park was in October of 2019. From the front, it is a strange-looking creature with its black bib and those eyes that appear to see everything from every direction. It is remarkably hard to get close to. From the side, it is easily identifiable as a pied-billed grebe. It was extremely cautious, and the slightest suggestion that there may be something human-looking and it moved off, and out of range. I circled the lake a few times in my rubber boots attempting to sneak up unawares, but this grebe was way too canny for me. After my initial photos, the best that I could do was to take shots from a good distance away, and while being not very detailed, they do show what ...

I was met by a bold little red squirrel on the edge of Lakeside Park this morning: It scurried from one side of this black walnut tree to the other, protesting loudly. Its complaints were directed towards me. Perhaps I was standing over some fallen walnuts it was harvesting or maybe I was simply in the way, but for whatever reason, this red squirrel was not happy with me at all: I was unsure of this bird in my previous post: A few clearer photos and with a little help from the Merlin app I have a positive ID for this bird. It is an eastern phoebe: There were so many of these small birds this morning in the pollinator meadow: And also in the trees and bushes. A little more help from the Merlin app showed that this bird is a ruby-crowned kinglet: I was surrounded at one point by warblers in the meadow. This bird is a female yellow-rumped warbler: Another new bird for me in this photo. This is a blue-headed vireo: The brightly coloured and partly h...