Early Riser Sunrise - The Bluffs

The last few years, since living in Scarborough, it has not been as enticing to jump out of bed at 6:15 am on a Saturday or Sunday morning and split down to the lake shore for the sunrise. We used to just be able to whip out, throw track pants and a sweat top on and boot it down to the marina on foot in about 10 mins. That was because we lived in Whitby in an apartment, and were pretty much a 2 min drive to the Whitby waterfront. I do miss that. We used to go down for an hour or so, even in dead of winter under icy windy conditions, then come back and load my images onto the computer, warm up with coffee and watch the slide show. It was fun, it was addictive!

Living now about a 20 min drive from the shores of Lake Ontario, it is not so spontaneous, it's not so much a"omg look at the sky, let's go!" it's more of a "what is the weather supposed to be tomorrow, think there'll be a good sunset? wanna plan to get up and go down? what time do you think we should leave? I guess we have to set the alarm to be sure we get up right?"

Well, all that means that I've lost my drive, become lazy, although sunrises and morning atmosphere is my favorite light and feeling.

This past Saturday, I decided I'm getting up, I don't care, and we are just going to get dressed and head out. We do have to drive, as it's way south of us, the Bluffs, but the beach there gives a perfect sunrise viewing opportunity.

It did not fail to disappoint. There was even this cute seagull there, who hung near us pretty much the whole time, and almost came to my hand when I pretended to have food. I felt so bad lol! Sorry buddy :-( I think of him as Sully the seagull as he seemed so disappointed and sullen to realize we had not food for him.

Some photos from that morn.

Bowmanville Waterfront

Had to go to the Clarington Tourism info center to drop off some things from my work. We decided to drop by the waterfront down there since we were out that way. It is different than Whitby. There are these old and in most cases, run down houses that face the beach. A lot of the beach is public land. A lot of weird things border the beach and shore. Some was interesting. Funny enough, people were fishing in the water and on the rock pier that lead out into Lake Ontario, and had a little light house on it. The rocks were covered in ice though....treacherous.

We saw a weird duck down there too. Maybe an Old Squaw/Long Tail.

Holy Cow It's a Downy Woodpecker!

John and I went to Halls Rd. in Whitby on Monday. I had a lieu day off work so it was nice to get to go when no weekend crowds were there.

At first, quiet and no animal or bird activity. Then, the Chickadees started appearing. There were suddenly tons of them back and forth, eating seeds from John's hand. His hand was getting sore from their sharp little feet lol!

Then, we heard a woodpecker. Next thing you know, a woodpecker swoops out of nowhere and lands on John's hand. He said wow, it is so soft compared to the little Chickadees. It was a female  Downy Woodpecker....so cute!!!

Besides the bird, we saw the most glorious rocks at the shoreline of Lake Ontario this day too. Holy crap, it looked like someone threw paint spatters on a few of them, the pattern and colours we saw! Gorgeous!