I was supposed to meet Dave (the gentlemen I met at
Dufferin Islands Park) for a Saturday morning at
Hendrie Valley Marsh at Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, but the winds were very high, so he thought better of it. I ended up still going and glad I did - the valley was rather calm, and I ended up seeing lots of different birds. My first birding on my own and had a lot of fun.
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| "The Lady" Female Cardinal |
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| "Close-up" Male Cardinal |
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| White Breasted Nuthatch |
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| "Saving for Another Day" - White Breasted Nuthatch |
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| "Just Going Down the Hatch" - White Breasted Nutchatch |
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| "Keepin' Warm on a Cold Day" - Blue Jay |
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| Male Downy Wood Pecker |
Woodpeckers are a marvelously designed bird. In order to survive the brutal onslaught on their brains (roughly 1000 times the force of gravity), a woodpecker has a number of things which protects the pursuit of a bug from killing them:
- They have a long tongue which actually curls up behind and around their brain, acting partially as a cushion.
- They have spongy bones in their head to help absorb the impact
- They have a sponge-like absorber between their beak and their skull to reduce the impact.
- They have muscles which contract to protect the brain while they are pecking.
These special characteristics are parts of what is called irreducible complexity - meaning important characteristics of an animal that all need to be present for the creature to survive.
Beautifully designed.
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| Muskrat |
This little muskrat was making lots of noise under the boardwalk cracking through the ice. Their eyesight is quite poor, so I was able to drop down and get quite close to get this shot.
I was on my way home, and saw this Red-tailed Hawk in a farmer's field. I thought I'd try and see how close I could get - usually they won't let you get too near, however this time this one let me get in quite a ways, flew a bit, let me approach again, repeat. My favourite birds are hawks and it's not that often you get this close.
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| Red-tailed Hawk |
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| Red-tailed Hawk |
I thought I'd try and get some flight shots which I find hard to do, and this was the best one I got. Not quite in focus as well is I'd have liked, but I like the setting of the picture. A beautiful creature.
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| Red-tailed Hawk |
All in all, a great 3 hours of freezing my fingers off!
