Wildlife at Home, the Wetlands and Lakeside Park

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

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this ring-billed gull was having a leisurely stroll across the surface of the water at Lakeside Park. It does appear to be doing just that. The ripples on the surface of the lake were in evidence, but the water was completely frozen. I have no idea how water can freeze so fast as to preserve ripples, but as they say, the camera does not lie. I have seen ring-billed gulls diving for fish at Lakeside Park in warmer weather, but what was so enticing to this gull and its friend, on a frozen lake? Frozen hard-boiled eggs! That's right, hard-boiled eggs that two city workers discarded when they took an early morning break. The gift of a free meal did not go unnoticed for long, and the gulls were soon joined by another scavenger. These American crows were not going to miss out. That gave me the perfect opportunity to get close enough to the crows for some detail. There has been so much activity at Lakeside Park recently.