LaSalle Park and Tresspassing

About a moth ago now, I went for a lunch hour to LaSalle Park. Late fall, winter, and spring this place is great for water birds, but I often don't go here because it's a little further away for my short lunch hour (ok, I'll wait for all the comments from people who only get half an hour!). But I thought I'd give it a go again for an early summery visit.

Walking down the trail east from the Pavilion parking lot, two Osprey were busy scanning the Hamilton Harbour Bay's edge and circling close overhead.  I wasn't aware of any nesting in this area, so I wonder if these two are the pair at the base of Hwy 6 and 403.

Osprey eyes me closely as it flies over.

Osprey

A little further down the trail, a Warbling Vireo paused long enough for a picture.

Warbling Vireo

This little male Yellow Warbler was not willing to pose and this was the best picture I could get.

male Yellow Warbler

A Baltimore Oriole was willing to show off its contrasting orange and black outfit.

Baltimore Oriole

A Gray Catbird pair were mewing at me, and I barely got this shot off as it perched out in the open for a few seconds.  Being much more shy than the similarly sized and shaped Robin, they generally prefer to be lower down among lower perches or even on the ground.  This bird wasn't happy as I approached and actually "bristled" its feathers and a show of strength.  I wondered if there was a nest nearby, but there wasn't any typical setting for that - usually a clump of shrubbery or something dense enough for their usual hiding place.

Gray Catbird

That was pretty much all I saw that day on that short visit.


I was out wandering in my neighbour's yard early one morning, quite annoyed!  I had heard a bird singing heartily since the early morning hours.  On and on it went and I didn't recognize it... not that I profess to be very good a recognizing that many bird calls yet.  At one point, I decided to just get up and find it; I wasn't going to sleep anyway.  It was actually across a church parking lot, across the street and behind the house of a neighbour we know quite well. In the morning, the sound travels well, but this little bird had quite the voice.
I'm embarrassed to say, it turned out to be a Baltimore Oriole. I don't hear them often, but somehow it didn't click.  I'm also embarrassed to say, I got caught in the backyard of said neighbour, who had been up early as well. I should have known better as I knew was an early riser and risking walking down her driveway was sure to get her quite confused as she couldn't see who I was.  I sheepishly explained that I didn't figure she'd be up and so I had risked it. She's way to good natured to really be upset, but had started to call me with a stern good morning until she figured out it was me. :) Ironically, I was out birding while she was up having already done a load of laundry! You're inspiring Jo!

As I apologized for startling her, I caught the unmistakable sound of the whistling of feathers that only comes from a fast flying bird... two Common Loons were also up early getting a head start on the morning commute and making use of the cool morning to travel some where. We don't have any resident loons in our area that I know of and being this far south, so they must have been late migrants.  Strangely, they weren't terribly high, which is where they usually are situated when they're making their long distance flights.  Loons are very fast flyers!  I remember doing a science project on them as a young kid in school... If my memory is still correct, their cruising speed is often around 100km/hr!

Common Loon flying over St. George

Common Loon

A short while later, I was doing my own commute to work at roughly the same speed.  Only thing is, a whole lot of technology was required to get me moving that fast.  And a lot more inefficiently!  What a marvel these creatures are. Yet, we never hesitate to look at the technology that we use daily in our lives and make the reasonable conclusion that it is obviously the result of a detailed and well thought out design.  And the more we learn and the closer we are able to look at the detail of the world around us... I still can only can conclude...

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Psalm 19:1-3

Till next time...
Keep enjoying HIS handiwork!

Mother's Day

The weather on Mother's Day was beautiful. With plans to visit my Mom later in the day, I went for a walk with the kids to the park in town to give the dear mother of my kids a quiet afternoon at home.  I took the camera along and wandered the grounds around the playground.  I did not linger long by the playground with my long lens for fear someone would call the cops reporting a strange guy with a big camera taking pictures of kids - don't laugh, it's happened before.  Another blogger I follow had it happen to him once when was in a woodlot abutting a school yard!

I watched the always present Robins combing the "grass-scape" for works and grubs, pausing for a few seconds to scan the grass below, and then hopping the next five paces to another place to search.

American Robin

I watched this Common Grackle take on a different approach to finding food, or should I say, obtaining food.  When the Robins would find a grub or worm, the Grackle would swoop in and pounce.  The undersized Robin would drop the catch and flee, leaving the Grackle to pickup the fallen prize.

Common Grackle thief.

This Grackle did it a few times while I was watching and picked up a good supply of food, likely for a nest full of young somewhere nearby.

Common Grackle with stolen meal.

The familiar high pitched notes of an American Goldfinch caught my attention up in a tree.  It was serenading a female that was calmly sitting by while the male switched from branch to branch, singing its heart out hoping to convince the lady of its worth.

Male American Goldfinch with female in background.

Although I'm doubting it now, I'm pretty sure the bird in the background is the female. Usually Goldfinches are quite camera shy but it seems this pair was quite distracted and I could get quite close. Too bad they were way up in the tree.

male American Goldfinch singing away.

female American Goldfinch

male American Goldfinch

After returning from the park, I wandered behind our place in the church yard to see if any migrants might have stopped for a rest in our little area of town.  Way up in the tops of some old spruce trees was some movement and I took some pictures with harsh mid-day lighting.  The birds were constantly moving through the branches and it was a challenge to try and get a few good pictures.  Previewing the pictures I assumed they were Yellow-Rumped Warblers and didn't think much about it till editing them recently.  I'm still not 100 percent sure, but I think they were They were Cape May Warblers (Thanks Dwayne!).  I'm pretty sure the bird pictured below is a young male.  Life bird #203.

Cape May Warbler

These little birds prefer the spruce budworm, but also have a unique feature in the warbler world.  They have a curled, semi-tubular tongue which they use to gather nectar during the colder seasons after having migrated to the West Indies islands.

Cape May Warbler

What had actually brought me to these tall spruces was a Gray Catbird which was eluding me earlier.  I was able to get one quick shot as it played cat and mouse (yes, pun intended!) between the large row of stout spruce trunk bases.  Although not a great shot, I thought I'd include it as it shows, albeit obscured somewhat, the bright rusty colour under its tail.

Gray Catbird

We headed to my parents church in Cambridge for their second service, and afterwards, my youngest brother pointed out a neatly carved hole in an aging Maple tree in the front yard of the church.  Soon enough, the curious head of a Red-bellied Woodpecker appeared, giving away location of an active nest site.

Red-bellied Woodpecker in nest cavity.

Once it got used to us standing there, it seemed content to just watch us right back.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

However, once the curiosity of the young boys running on the other side of the church lawn brought them over, the woodpecker had enough and fled with its trademark, scolding call.  We didn't stay long after that and let it return to the nest.

Just as we were about to leave, a Cooper's Hawk soared over, nice and slowly so I could get a reasonably clear picture as it coasted west, way above us.

Cooper's Hawk

That afternoon we headed to the Huron Natural Area near my parent's place for a walk before supper.  It's a beautiful spot in an area quickly being developed with new housing.  Great to see such a large area being left for conservation.  Since the camera was in use for capturing our family time, I didn't do a lot of bird searching or photography.  I was surprised though that there weren't more birds to be seen then we did.

Spring fiddlehead in the afternoon sun.

We headed back to the home of half my childhood (after we moved) and enjoyed time with family and spent time appreciating my great Mom!!

Mourning Dove

I'd almost completely forgotten....  My outing earlier that day had been to take my first run with our new camera.  I had convinced Henry's to drop an already sale price on a Sony a65 to replace our dead a33. After quite a bit of research (online and talking to various Sony and Henry's staff), I'd determined fixing our stuck shutter was likely to be between $400 and $500.  I ended up getting the new camera for barely more than that.  On top of that, the a33's shutter had already died on us once with the camera being replaced for us under warranty.  With it having hinted at a failure earlier and then finally dying, I was nervous about spending that much money on a shutter system with known problems.

For those of you proud Nikon or Canon owners who I'm sure are right now wondering why I still went with a Sony... already owning Sony lenses meant I was not going to start over again with a whole new camera system.  There are things I really like about the Sony cameras, and then other days when I really wish I could get another stop or two of light without the "transparent mirror" in the way.

Image grabbed from Sony's website of the a65

So far from my few outings with the new a65, here are my pros and cons:

Pros
Bigger: Yes, I found the a33 too small.  I don't have huge hands, but when you're gripping a camera for a few hours on an outing, it actually is a pain having a small camera in your hands.
Faster: It can shoot 10 fps with continuous AF but AE locked after the first shot, and 7 with adjusting AE. That's nice and fast!  And when capturing while panning, the lag problem with the display of the last picture is greatly reduced.
24.3MP: Though really it's getting pretty high, if you really get the focus right, you can crop in nice and close on a distant subject.
Additional Focus Mode:  Sony has added one new focus mode which groups all the sensors in a field of three.  That limits it from hunting as much when there is varied  focus items.
Overheating: Or rather, the lack there of!!! In warm weather, the a33 would constantly overheat on me and shut off.  That was extremely annoying!!  I will not miss that.  Almost reason enough to switch just for this!
new OLED viewfinder: Sony has upgraded the digital viewfinder.  In normal lighting, you can hardly tell anymore that it's not optical.  It has almost double the pixels of the a33, and with the OLED compared to LED, it uses less power and presents much cleaner when displaying motion.

Cons
Programmable button: I changed the D-Range button on the a33 to focus mode so I could switch quickly between single point focus and wide (say a noticed a bird in flight and needed to switch quickly).  However, though the a65 does the same, the only button I don't want remove its normal mode from, can't utilize the customized mode in Manual mode.  Why, I do not know!  I usually shoot in fully manual.

Multi Shot Self Timer: This is a general gripe.  I don't know if any of the other SLR brands have this, but I can't for the life of me understand why they don't have a feature to shoot a sequence of multiple pictures on self timer.  Our old Panasonic FZ30 (now that was a great camera in its day!!) had this.

Ok, have any of you other photographers had this idea?
"Camera, ISO 400"
"Camera, Focus, Point"
"Camera, Focus, Burst"
Being able to have the camera obey voice commands to adjust functions without having to shift to another hand hold for another button and change a mode would be great!  Maybe that feature would price the camera completely out of my market I don't know, but you'd think with all the voice control on our phones, that technology has been mastered?


But to wrap it up, a post mother's day thanks to my Mom who is very dear to me.  She's a great mom and now is a great grandmother to our kids!  She throws her heart and soul into everything she does, sometimes so much that it takes a little too much out of her I fear. ;)  I love you Mom and thank God for you and your huge impact on who I am!

Until next time...
Keep enjoying HIS handiwork!

A Morning with Dad at Ruthven

On May 19th, Jordan, son number two, got his long awaited one-on-one time with Dad for an outing as we headed to Ruthven for bird banding morning.  Jordan's turn was overdue with Andrew's having happened back in December.  Jordan had often reminded me but neither of us had come up with what he wanted to do.  When Pete Scholten (moderator of Hamilton Birders group) let me know of the event Ruthven was holding, I suggested it to Jordan and he was quite excited about the idea of being able to hold birds and release them.  I was not at all pushing the idea as it's supposed to be something they want to do.  But it sure is nice if they want to find interest in something we can share over the years.

---Creation of this post interrupted by neighbourhood fire!---

Shed Fire

Nothing like a fire to get the neighbourhood out onto the street on a quiet Sunday evening.  While working on this post, I heard a good bang ("Really, not more fireworks again?") and then two very large bangs outside ("That was definitely not fireworks!").  It sounded like the back gate on a dump truck slamming shut just outside the house.  I grabbed my phone and headed quickly out the door.  When outside I could hear the crackle of fire and black smoke just starting to heading upwards into the darkening evening sky.  As it was definitely more than a crazy backyard campfire, I called 911 but had already been beaten by what I later found out was the neighbour just next door who obviously knew something was not right.  Thankfully no one was hurt or injured from what was "only" a shed on fire about 10 houses down.  The neighbours are guessing it might have been an ancient John Deer riding mower the shed owner uses and keeps there.  As for the large explosions, we could only guess at gas tanks exploding or the tires, maybe propane tanks?  Needless to say it had the entire street outside.  Our kids were sleeping already and will likely be quite upset tomorrow when they find out they missed it.

...back to the post ...actually, completion delayed till the next day 

Ruthven is a beautiful park in the form of a land trust donated from the Thompson family who had built a large mansion on the bank of the Grand River just north of Cayuga.  You can read about the history and the programs here.  Aside from the bird banding which happens in spring and fall, there are mansion tours and nice grounds with trails for walking through the Carolinian forest and along the Grand River.

We arrived at about 7:30 in the morning on good advice from Pete that the best hours were before 10am. The staff were already busily untangling a bird from the mist nets strung up all over the grounds. 

Pete Scholtens removing a bird from the mist nets.

The birds are thoroughly examined and identified, and then banded with a unique number which traces them back to this birding station.  They rank their health, measure them up, look for ticks, weigh them and keep a record of the bird for future reference.

Bird banding in process with the tools of
the trade in the foreground.

They had just finished banding a Magnolia Warbler which Jordan got to hold and release.

Jordan about to release a Magnolia Warbler

Of note, this little bird doesn't get to be added to my life list count.  The accepted "rules" are that the bird has to be seen in the wild and be free.  Getting caught in a mist net isn't really free!

Peter took Jordan and I and a few others on a hike along the Grand River trail where we enjoyed the perfect weather and sites and sounds of lots of birds.  Purple Martins (life bird) were noisily circling over some colony houses, nesting material being flown in for accommodation building.

female and male Purple Martins

female Purple Martin

A pair of Tree Swallows (life birds) were sunning on top of their nest box.  The iridescent blue wings contrast so vividly with the snowy white underparts on the male.

female and male Tree Swallows

We headed down the bank to the river and walked through the pink Dame's Rockets.  We first heard and then saw a Belted Kingfisher flying very high up, and I sighted a Red-headed woodpecker (life bird) flying up river.  Peter pointed out a Eastern Wood-Pewee (another life bird), and we saw a Red-bellied Woodpecker emptying a old tree knot of nesting material.

Eastern Wood-Pewee

An Indigo Bunting was seen by the rest of our group, but not by me.  For some reason, there have been a number of times that I've been places when others have see this bird, but it seems to allude me!

Jordan on the trail.

When we returned there were more birds to release.  A Red-bellied Woodpecker female was busy pecking at a staff worker's finger.  If you open up the picture and view it larger, you can actually see the serrated tip of it's tongue which it has to snag and pull out bugs from with the little holes it chisels in the trees.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Jordan got to see a Chipping Sparrow up close. Along with House Sparrows, these are fairly common in your back yard in Southern Ontario, but nice to see up close.

Chipping Sparrow

Here is a series of burst shots of Jordan releasing the sparrow converted into a GIF.  I love his face on about the 3rd frame.  He did this for every release. :)

Jordan releases a Chipping Sparrow into the bushes behind him.

A Gray Catbird was Jordan's last release.

Learning the bird-bander's hold.

Releasing a Gray Catbird

Ruthven is definitely a place to return to and from what I've seen so far, looks like a great place for a family for a day outing.  I hope to come back with the whole family some time soon.  The park staff encourage bringing the kids to see the banding.  Nice to see how good they were with the kids.

Jordan was very excited to tell of his fun when he returned home, confirming that it had been fun day for him, as well as for me.  Justin's up next.

Gray Catbird in the Backyard

I chased this Gray Catbird around behind our backyard for awhile without a camera trying to figure out what bird it was, then out came the neighbour's riding mower to end that pursuit.  Only a short while later, as I was  taking pictures of my rascals on the trampoline... who's sitting only 15m from me in our current bush - the same bird.  I didn't know what it was till searching for a while on the internet, I finally figured it out: Gray Catbird.

Gray Catbird

It was being true to it's usual habits; its song was almost constant, and quite varied.  The Gray Catbird is a relative to the mocking birds and thrashers. It also mimics songs of other birds in a varied mix of its own. You can distinguish it from mocking birds and others by its darker crown stripe, a rusty coloured under-tail section.  It likes to forage off the ground, but likes to sing from the tops of bushes or trees.  But it gets its name from it's pretty good imitation of a cat's meow, which apparently you can use to draw it out of denser brush where it will hide.

Gray Catbird

If you look closely, you can see the rusty coloured under-tail.