I’ve had the chance lately to see some red-winged blackbirds up close. They have entertained me as I’ve been kayaking past. They are a familiar sight in Ontario, but I haven’t been able to get close enough to take their photos before. Male red-winged blackbirds are easier to spot than the females. They have red […]
I took a photo of this small songbird and didn’t know what it was. From the distance I couldn’t tell, but my new lens brought it up close enough to see the bird. Thanks to some friends on Facebook I found out that it is a Red-eyed Vireo. It has a brief song, but it […]
The pileated woodpecker is often seen around here, but is usually timid and flies away before I can take any pictures. This one was quite involved looking for bugs, and didn’t seem to pay any attention to me. It is the largest woodpecker in Canada. This one is a male, as it has a red […]
We have been enjoying seeing the Canada Geese and their goslings – as long as they aren’t on our beach. It’s interesting as we watch them. The little ones stay very close to the adults. The goslings have yellowish down. Their eyes are open when they are born and within 2 days they can walk, […]
We have both buffleheads and goldeneyes (ducks) come to our lake during migration times in the spring and in the fall. They seem to travel together. Both are fishing ducks, and we often see them diving and bobbing up again. They are skittish and it is hard to get close enough to take a good […]
Our neighbour let us know that there was a northern saw-whet owl in a tree by his house. He had seen the smaller birds acting agitated, so he went out to see what was going on. I would never have seen it in the tree without him pointing it out to me. At first I […]
Yesterday, I saw a lone trumpeter swan on our lake. It wasn’t until I looked at the pictures on my computer that I realized that this swan was banded. It had large yellow tags on each wing. When I looked this up, I was directed to https://www.trumpeterswansociety.org where I was able to read about the […]
Loons are still one of my favourite birds to observe. Awhile ago we had more loons than usual on the lake, and I was able to get some pictures of them before they moved on. We have about 3-4 loons on our lake through the summer, but they don’t always spend time around each other. […]
We have a neighbourhood raven, whom we have named Bob. He/she started coming around here a couple of weeks ago, and is getting comfortable around people. Apparently, they are one of the smartest birds. Usually, the ones around here are very timid and won’t let you get near them, so this is unusual for us […]