July at the Lodge and Young's Point

Well, vacation is over for the summer, back from my second time up at the Lodge in Bancroft.  Although shorter for me, we had a great time with Holly's side of the family.  It was cooler than the record highs of our previous stint in Bancroft, which meant a little less water activities.  But a great time with relaxing and even construction of a new swing over the water.

Still sharing pictures with you from my week with my family in July...  I got to see and get some pictures of what really are my favourite group of wildlife, raptors.  They are hard to photograph, having such great eye sight, and having a preference to be left alone for the most part.

When we arrived that week, I quickly noticed characteristic, piercing cries of a raptor.  Soon I located the source, across the lake three falcon-like figures, rolling and diving, chasing and then fleeing from each other with great speed.  A couple years back I remembered having gotten quite close to a young falcon/hawk (didn't get close enough to see which), and recognized the cry as being similar.  

Not wanting to be accused of disappearing right away from family vacation time, I put it off for a number of days into the holiday.  On one of our last days, I noticed I had not heard the sound of the birds, which is a persistent "kee, kee, kee", somewhat reminiscent of a killdeer.  I was afraid I had waited to long.  One of my brothers, Dan and I thought we'd see if we could find what we guessed would be a nest site in the large pine which they seemed to frequent most of the time.  After about an hour of hiking in the bush on that side of the lake, and not finding the nest, patience finally paid off, not because of a skillful search, but with the tell-tale cries coming nearer and nearer.  We came down from the ridge we were on, and walking on, Dan spotted the first, then the second juvenile Merlin, quite grown up already.  The one didn't hang around long, but the other decided to take a nap there.  I had to stop short of banging pots and pans to get it to open its eyes for some photographs - well, not quite.  You can see it sleeping in the third of the photo-strip picture below.

Juvenile Merlin

Spreading, Scratching, Snoozing, Stretching Juvenile Merlin

On the way back to the Lodge, my brother spotted the nest, in one of the big pines on the lot of one of the cottages across the lake from us.  It was much closer to the water than I had thought.  Recent talk in Holly's family might mean that we'll be back next year in July, which might mean another attempt to get a little closer to the young.  I'd love to try and get into one of the nearby trees to get a nest view, but don't think that will be possible.  

Merlin Nest

I posted some facts about Merlin when I saw my first one in Myrtle Beach this past winter.

For the last 10 years or so, we've come home from the Lodge through Young's Point which is about 25km north of Peterborough on Hwy 28.  Almost every time we pass, there is an Osprey sitting on a nesting platform on top  of a hydro pole, just beside the bridge which crosses the Trent-Severn Waterway (near lock 27).  Well, when you're either 3/4 of the way on a four hour trip with kids in the back, and getting close to the cottage, or, finally finished packing, got the kids settled in the back, and no longer asking if we're almost home... you don't get much more than the glance through the windshield and then maybe the side mirror.  This time, I dared to ask :) as I was sure my brother Dan would want stop as well, and we were graciously "granted" a quick dash to the bridge by our wives.  I assured it wouldn't be longer than 5 minutes....though how do those minutes always somehow stretch to 10 or 15 ?!?  I think we didn't do too badly though.

Osprey nest with Adult and Juvenile

As we approached, the adult on the left sounded a warning, and the juvenile (though already as large as the adult) quickly disappeared out of site in the nest.  The parent took off and warily circled, higher, then lower, around us as we walked nearer to the nest.

Osprey circling as we approached the nest

Osprey are large raptors, with wing spans of up to 6ft that feed almost exclusively on fish.  They will watch with amazing eyesight, for a fish in a lake, stream, or river, and then dive, often from great heights, and pull up, feet first to grip their prey, sometimes fully submerging themselves under the water to reach their quarry.  They have unique feet compared to other hawks, with one toe being able to pivot backwards or forwards to assist the other rear toe, extending long, sharp talons into slippery, scaly fish.  As they climb up from the water's surface, sometimes with a fish weighing as much as they do, they will arrange the catch to be head first, a more aerodynamic position reducing the effort required gain altitude again and head back to the nest.

The osprey was also designed with special legs compared to most raptors; they are much more heavily muscled, longer to reach deep into the water (up to 3 feet) and covered with very thick feathers to help cushion the impact as they hit the water during the speedy dives to surprise and catch the fish.

An interesting link with more information (and some of the information above) can be found here: 

http://www.cvps.com/osprey/facts-feeding.shtml

Soaring Osprey

If time had allowed the adult might have gotten more trusting and landed on the nest to allow for closer shots.  However, after the 5 minutes (likely 10) we walked back, turning around to get some pictures of it landing to assure junior again. 

Osprey landing at the nest.

Myrtle Beach - March 2011 Part 2

Continuing my Myrtle Beach post from a few weeks ago....

I went for a late afternoon trip to Huntington State Park - to see what there was to see.  There is a very nice, untouched and ungroomed beach here compared to the beaches by the condos.  There are some mild dunes that find themselves between the southeastern forests and the ocean.

Beach at Huntington State Park

Here are some of the shore birds I was able to see and capture some photos of.

Willett Sandpiper

The Willett Sanpiper is one of the larger in the sandpiper family.  It's about three times the size of the sandpipers were used to seeing on the beaches in Southern Ontario.

Willett Sandpiper

The Ruddy Turnstone gets its name for doing it exactly what it sounds like, flipping stones over looking for bugs and small sea creatures to make lunch out of.  Sometimes they will dig holes larger than themselves pursuing something like a crab, burrowed in the sand.

Ruddy Turnstone

Apparently, if you've seen a shore bird, you'll most likely have seen one of these - a Sanderling - as they are the most wide spread shore bird in the world.

Sanderling in Winter Plumage

Also at Huntington Beach State Park, there is a unique feature called a salt water marsh.  The tides flood it with salt water, and it is a breeding ground for things like shrimp.  The egrets, herons, and terns usually flock here, but I must have hit a slow day.  I saw some, but not many...

Immature Double Crested Cormorant sunning

Great Egret

Great Blue Heron

Snow Egret

Great Egret

The park also has a fresh water lagoon which had a large number of American Alligators.  They got quite close to a number of us were standing (about 5 other photographers there - with much bigger "fire power"!!) which was somewhat unnerving at first.  However, we were up an embankment which separated the fresh water lagoon from the salt water marsh.  Apparently they cross this every night, and we were counting on the fact that they were planning to do this later in the evening when we were gone.

A young American Alligator

A younger American Alligator, waiting in the algae.  Probably was about 5 ft long

A large bull American Alligator sunning in the mud.

American Alligator - swimming towards the crossing point we were taking pictures from.  It was probably about 12 ft long.

The common Moorhen is a unique bird.  The males exclusively build the nests, but they build more than one.  One is used for hatching the young, but when the babies are mobile, they will travel around use the other nests for sleeping at night.

Common Moorhen

And of course a turtle had to be sunning somewhere...

What I think is a River Cooter

As I was leaving, I saw this Merlin up in the trees. Though I followed it for quite a while, it was not going to let me get too close, so this was the best I got.  The Merlin is a small falcon, very active and very aggressive, often pestering and competing with larger hawks.

Merlin

All in all, a great 6 hours or so of enjoying a wide variety of animals and birds I don't get to see in my part of the world.  What a vast number of creatures He has made for us to enjoy and marvel at.