Wildlife at Home, the Wetlands and Lakeside Park

Lakeside Park has always felt welcoming, and it was an unscheduled return on a dull, misty morning in September that saw me tracing my steps from a year ago. I wondered what would be different and what would be unchanged. The black-crowned night heron's willow tree was uncustomarily empty. The long outstretched branch of the willow which reached out over the water had been a favoured roost, but it held nothing. Perhaps I'd catch sight of the beaver out amongst the lilypads, bobbing up and down as it dabbled in the shallows with its feet, searching for tasty roots. But again, there was nothing. The lake appeared eerily still.  And then my vision started to return. Through the mist, a familiar shape came into sharp relief. A grey silhouette dwarfed by the tall reeds on the far bank. It was tiptoeing its way along the length of a partly submerged branch. I had never observed the night heron hunting, but there it was. There was no light, no detail, just grain and layers in shades o...

Viewing the expanse of Shoemaker Lake from the bottom edge of the lake is a great way to start a morning's birdwatching. The whole of the lake is visible and with the aid of binoculars or a camera equipped with a telephoto lens, it's easy to pick out the great blue heron, the kingfishers and on the odd occasion even an osprey. I'd already located the kingfishers and this really is a great time to watch them hunt as the young have fledged and are busy honing their fishing skills. They are numerous and at times present all around Shoemaker Lake. Scanning further around the lake, I located a heron much smaller than the great blue heron. Not a night-heron as they have sadly been missing from Lakeside Park this year, this was a young green heron perched on the dead branches of a black walnut tree. It was way over to my left, standing out, highlighted in contrast to the shade of the black walnut's leaves behind it. Some kingfishers were also on that side of the lake, and so I...

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...

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...