Wildlife at Home, the Wetlands and Lakeside Park

For a week or so now I have been aware of an unusual croaking noise coming from way up high in the trees. I had been unable to locate the owner of the croaking. And even though the sound did appear to move from tree to tree, I never saw any movement, or was that perhaps because it was one communicating with another?  Some kind of tree frog maybe, or was I possibly starting to lose my mind? I was not going crazy and I did finally catch up with the owner of the croaking noise a few days ago, more by chance than anything else. I was in position, neatly hidden in the undergrowth as I waited for a northern flicker to return to its nesting hole. And then I saw it, partially hidden, high up in the leaves of a willow tree. It possessed a really long tail that was broken with patches of white, a curved beak and a definitive line under its eye separating the colours on its head. The only bird that sprang to mind of being anything remotely like that was a bee-eater, but that was impossible....

The 9th of May saw the temperature drop down to freezing! The soft and squishy waterlogged ground surrounding Shoemaker Lake that could previously only be traversed with the aid of rubber boots had now been transformed into a soft toffee type substance with a thin icy crust. My first thoughts were, what is going to happen to all of the birds that depend on insects to feed? Well, this American Robin had a backup plan. I'm guessing that the seeds of Staghorn Sumac are not the favourite food item for American robins, but in times of need, they are always there. The yellow-rumped warblers were still somehow managing to find insects to feed on. The kinglets also, although they are more adapted to hunting for food in much colder temperatures. And quite to my amazement I actually saw a hummingbird. We had a mixture of snow and hail over the course of the day. The next photo shows a hermit thrush with snowflakes falling around it. Moving on to Sunday which was almost a...

I did mention in my previous post that I observed a common grackle at Lakeside Park, although I was unable at the time to obtain photos of any worth. One day later though, as I walked back from the Borden Wetlands and through Highbrook Park, I came across lots of grackles. They appeared to be singing to the sun which had barely ten minutes left before it dipped below the horizon. When the sun is this low, it paints everything with a glorious warmth. The grackles kept to the highest branches, eager to stay in the sun's golden hue. The low sunlight, combined with the iridescent qualities of the grackles feathers, painted the grackles in gold. Here is a male displaying to the world with a familiar pose: I'd normally expect to see a male red-winged blackbird displaying in that fashion with its epaulettes blazing. These photos were taken at Lakeside Park, the morning after the grackle photos. The grackle and red-winged blackbird are shown displaying similarly and...