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!

Ernie and Burt

Actually, Ernie did not show. And neither did Bert, but I did spend time with Burt (Road) twice last month. Mid May I took a Sunday afternoon two weeks in a row to go just east of town to a dirt road which is all but closed due to a bridge over Fairchild's Creek which has been condemned and never replaced.  The quiet lane passes through a mix of settings including the creek, low scrubby growth, open farmer's field, and then some hardwood forest.

Down by the creek, a couple Yellow-rumped Warblers were flitting around collecting bugs.  I believe this one is a 1st year male.

1st year male Yellow-rumped Warbler

As I walked along an Indigo Bunting scolded me and then sung from the tops of the trees, keeping out of view for pictures.  I heard lots of protest from blackbirds in the distance and wondered if I might find an owl on my own. But soon after, the reason for the noise flew over - a Red-tailed Hawk with some Red-winged Blackbird pursuers on the attack.

Red-winged Blackbirds repelling a Red-tailed Hawk

Across the bare farm field, some deer stood watching me and then finally trotted into the bush.  I decided to follow and hiked around in the woods in that direction.  At one point, both a deer and I spooked each other as I came around a clump of trees... it must have been bedded down in the long grass and jumped out to flee, scaring me as well.

White-tailed Deer

On the way back, I passed along side an open scrubby area full of lower bushes and tangles of still dead raspberry stalks and I thought I'd see if I could raise some sing of life from some perfect habitat for Common Yellowthroats.  I use it sparingly, but resorted to playing bird calls from my phone with Sibley's Bird app [link].  Immediately I got the reaction I expected with the chattering scold to warn the interloper.  It was accompanied by lots of posing, tail up and head down and forward ready to attack.

male Common Yellowthroat

aggression pose of the Common Yellowthroat

The little guy was so intent on seeing who the offending visitor was, it was hardly even aware of me and came quite close.  Almost two close to keep up with with the camera to take a picture.

male Common Yellowthroat

The activity brought out the female as well and I got a pretty good shot.  It was early enough in the season that I'm thinking she was likely not nesting yet and maybe thought the new male was worth checking out.  Most of the time she would stay low to the ground and skitter through the tangled undergrowth, just giving glimpses of a view.

female Common Yellowthroat

As I stood up to leave the pair in peace, I noticed a raccoon sleeping up in tree not are into the bush bordering the Yellowthroat's territory.  However, it seemed to look odd and not quite right. I realize they can look quite strange while wedged into a crook in the treed, but this one looked some how very large in the body, and with quite a thin and matted head.  I'm not sure if it's pregnant (seems late), sick (would seem to match the strangely thin looking face and flat head hair).  Not surprisingly, when I returned on my next Sunday visit, it was no longer there.

Racoon (pregnant, sick, awkward?)

A few Turkey Vultures flew overhead and swooped quite low and fast over me.

Turkey Vulture

On my first trip, a Indigo Bunting was passing back and forth between two trees, singing its song to ensure everyone knew where it had claimed home to be.  I didn't get any great shots.  But my second Sunday outing was much better finding a second bird not very far away in a clump of isolated trees in the field. I was surprised their territories would be that close. I could actually see the other Bunting flying around along the lane way a short distance away still visiting the same trees.

Indigo Bunting ruffled by the wind.

Again, I thought I'd try the bird calls briefly and saw for the first time the phenomenon I had saw and shared [link] in a previous post of a video showing the wing wage warning.  The next two pictures show it clearly.

Indigo Bunting wing warning.

Indigo Bunting wing warning, more pronounced.

A bright and brilliantly coloured bird!

Indigo Bunting

Heading back to the car, as usual later than I should be because of the one more picture delay, my eye caught the tips of two big ears just barely poking out of the grass behind where the Common Yellowthroats put of their show for me the previous week.  In the picture below, the female White-tailed Deer I had spotted had already noticed me and was trying to figure whether she needed to get up from her comfortable spot.

White-tailed Deer doe.

Decision is made and the white flag was lifted and soon she bounded into cover, and then proceeded to let me know she was not impressed at all with a long series of surprisingly loud snorts. I didn't see any other activity and was half hoping I'd see some fawns come out of the grass somewhere with those warning sounds.  If they were there, I saw nothing.

White-tailed Deer doe.

On the way back, I spotted a Blue Jay busy making a nest, busily carrying and arranging twigs in a big, old Sugar Maple.

Blue Jay nest building

Just before getting back to where I left my car, I was delayed even further with a Eastern Bluebird who also wanted its picture taken, though shyly as it would not let me get too close.

Eastern Bluebird

I'm getting really far behind here on posts...Lots of chores around the house this spring so the picture editing and posting does not happen as often. I've not been out birding in a while either. Hopefully I can change both "problems" a bit soon.

Till then...
Keep enjoying HIS handiwork!

Lunch in Bayfront Park

I went to Bayfront Park for lunch, almost a month ago now, having not been there for a long time.  It's a quick drive from the office meaning I have more time to wander about in my one hour lunch break. It's a trade-off though because though there is more time, it's not always that active on the bird front.  Being late spring still, I thought I'd see what might be around though.

I headed along the marina side of the park and quite quickly caught sight of a Chestnut-sided Warbler busy collecting bugs.

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Further along the path a Song Sparrow didn't notice me as it busily caught more bugs that thought they were hidden from harms way in the crevices of tree bark.

Song Sparrow

Up above, a silent but active little bird caught my attention.  It's the first clear shot I've gotten of a Warbling Vireo. It took me a while to ID this bird - what I had been expecting to see of the typical yellow flanks aren't really very evident.

Warbling Vireo

Off the trail, a little ways up is a low area which is not manicured lawn like most of the rest of the park. Here there are a number of bird houses that have been put up last year.  Most of them are now well used by a little group of Tree Swallows. A few have been commandeered by House Sparrows.  One male Tree Swallow let me approach quite close and I got this full frame picture.  Too bad it's still not terribly sharp.  I think between me zooming in too far (I try not to go past 400mm on my lens as it gets too soft) and some wind, the focus is a bit softer than it should be for such a nice close shot.

male Tree Swallow

In the same area, a pair of American Gold finches were bathing in a puddle of water.

male American Goldfinch bathing.

Walking back along the boat launch side I watched the Caspian Terns fishing in the waters below.  I kind of like how they are softly framed by the reeds in the foreground. Not often you get two terns together that close either.

Caspian Terns

Walking on a little further there was a pair of Yellow Warblers.  I managed to get a picture of both of them.

female Yellow Warbler

male Yellow Warbler
(note the barring on the breast)

While moving around the tree trying to get on the right side of the bright little yellow birds, I was scolded harshly by an American Robin.  Soon I found out why...

American Robin on nest.

As I headed back to the car, I caught the soft but high pitched notes of Cedar Waxwings and found a small group of them eating what I think are high-bush cranberries.

Cedar Waxwing

Cedar Waxwing

In the end, it was a nice relaxing stroll with quite a varied find of birds.  None new, but some nice close encounters.  The Waxwings were nice a close which was great, but the photo shoot was cut short by rain. I just made it back to the car as the deluge started.

Until 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!