Lucky Collingwood Trip

We were real lucky recently, to be invited to stay a few days at a friend's timeshare in Collingwood. It gave us a rare opp to get away somewhere different, and explore new to us conservation areas. I've been to Collingwood a few times in the last 4 yrs or so, for various reasons; sports tourney, a moms and kids weekend,    work related, and just for fun. However, I've never really explored anything more than the typical expensive "touristy" spots really. My partner and I decided we would love to see a couple different hiking or conservation areas. It gave me the opportunity for some photos in a different environment.

We walked through the Nottawasaga Lookout Provincial Nature Reserve and a few different areas in the Minesing Wetlands. The Lookout was amazing. We ran into huge drops, dark and creepy drops in the earth down rock embankments where we could even spot ice at the bottom of real perilous looking huge gouges in the earth - part of the Niagara Escarpment. Breathtaking! We could hear ravnes making a racket and ventured along in hopes of seeing a nest. We did end up seeing a pair of what we thought were adult ravens. Turns out what we saw were the fledgling ravens. They were well hidden behind branches, around the turn on a cliff face. I barely could get shots of them, stepping 1 ft more would mean a hundreds of feet drop. I got an ok shot of their faces and blue eyes. Prehistoric looking creatures! Their calls are unearthly sounding. Before getting to this park, we had turned to early, towards Pretty river Provincial Park, and came upon a group of turkey vultures eating roadkill. I got a couple shots of these strange creatures too.


Minesing was a bit harder to navigate. I suspect it is more suited to portaging access. We hoped to be able to walk in to see the heron colony area but it was pretty impossible. We tried out a couple entry points. We ended up off the marked trails pretty easily, without even knowing How lol! We do know how to read trail markers on trees. However, funny enough, the only time we saw anything interesting was on private property lol! Saw a grouse in the grass of a field, a deer running, woodpeckers, etc. Seems wrong turns and wrong roads always ended up producing our sightings this trip lol! Last entry point, in the last hr of a 6 hr hike day, we ended up at Mayer's Marsh. We saw an Indigo Bunting and a light yellowy Oriole, possibly an immature male. We also saw horses, animals I Love!

All in all, a nice little vaycay.