Attacked by Blackbirds and Other Unusual Occurrences

This weekend, among some long put off tasks like completing taxes (for reasons that couldn't be foreseen or helped), we got out on an evening and morning walk at the Halls Rd. area of cranberry Marsh in Whitby. One thing I love about this area is the marsh in the evening light. The other thing that occurs sometimes is the foggy atmosphere, in the right conditions, in the early mornings.

We decided Saturday morning to head out to Lynde Shores instead, for a change. We got part way in and guess what, the mosquitoes have been born lol! We decided to go back to the apartment and get bug spray and for John to change from shorts to jeans.

When we got back and re-parked, we had just headed up the main roadway over the bridge when something whizzed through my hair at the back of my head. Next thing I know, a Red-winged black bird is dive bombing me. It happened several times, even into the chickadee path. It was funny and scary at the same time lol! I recall reading last year in the news about people being attacked while jogging, etc.

In the midst of this, we ran across our first odd sight, a red-winged blackbird with a fan of white on the underneath of its wings as it is flying back and forth. We saw this bird briefly a few weeks back but I failed to get a shot of him. This time, he was hanging around for food, so I got several. Wings closed, it shows as a strip of white.

We walked the long route towards the observation deck and on further to the marsh lookout and then to Lake Ontario shoreline. As we ventured along the path, we came upon what we felt was an unusual sight. A male Ruby Throated Hummingbird just perched still on the open branch of a tree. He stayed there for quite a while. Later on, we saw again another perched on a hydro line. This is Not how I'm used to seeing them. Because of the lighting, which caused him to be in silhouette, I didn't get the world's greatest image but it gets the point across.

There were lots of things to see, namely a family of geese begging for food, a flicker, a nuthatch, a funny blue jay, some yellow warblers, fly catchers, tons of squirrels, loads of chipmunks, a hairy woodpecker, white egrets, cardinals, and sail boats out in the amazing hazy morning light over the lake. There had been lots of rain the night before so lots of opportunity for the cliche water droplets on leaves shots too :-)