Terns - Are They Just Fancier Shytehawks?!

We hear terns outside our apt often, being near the lake. We see them off and on on various hikes that lead to the lake, starting at many entrance points such as Halls Rd., Lynde Shores, Second Marsh, etc. It is kind of cool to see them fly over head and dive for fish. They are lean and streamlined compared to gulls. Very hard little buggers to get shots of because generally we run into them flying, not perching on things. However, on an evening walk down to the harbour in Whitby, mainly to get out and enjoy more refreshing outdoor (and hopefully cooler) air, there were a whole ton of terns compared to our usually spotting of one or 2 here and there among the 300x more prevalent seagulls.

This particular evening, there was a lot of ruckus going on, squawking that sounded not exactly like the terns we are used to hearing but not exactly a seagull. What looked to be hundreds of seagulls out on the spitt that runs parallel to the pier as usual, we soon realized were terns. There were quite a few of them flying around, diving, chasing each other, making quite the noise as they did. There were a lot of little fish jumping so maybe that is why the large amounts of terns around that night. Quite funny to see was the odd tern would do a flyover the group standing together on the spitt which in turn would induce screeching by the ones below at the one flying over with its prize in its mouth.

Terns are difficult so far to get shots of the times I've tried. Probably taking them with a 35 - 70 mm lens as opposed to trying to get them with a 70 - 300 mm lens would make a difference. But anyway, very cool to see them. Funny enough though, the more you see them the more it comes to mind, are they just fancy gulls to most?! lol! Do people find them just as annoying or distasteful? We quite enjoy seeing them and watching them dive for fish. I enjoy taking photos of gulls as really, they can be quite gorgeous, especially in certain light. I have yet to get a good one of a tern though.

More Osprey in Beaverton

This past weekend, we had to run my son up to a camp for some training. This meant we'd be passing Beaverton again on the way back down. We had wanted to go to a wetlands that has a trail running from Blackwater to Cannington, but we ended up in the town of beaverton instead. Luckily, becasue we walked down to the marina and we spotted cliff swallow nests on one of the houses that sat out over the waterway.  They were peeking out and coming and going from their nests. Also, we popped over on the way to friends' again, and stopped to see the Osprey we had seen last weekend. The female was a bit alarmed this time, left the nest and circled us, calling. I took a few shots of her before we thought it better to leave her alone before she has a nervous breakdown. As soon as we got back in the car, she landed on the nest again. We headed over to have a BBQ and spend some time with friends before heading back home.

Some Cool Sightings!

It is amazing what you can see practically in your own backyard. Any time I happened to be outdoors or up north, I had always heard the singing of birds, the overlay of so many unknown calls, but they always fell into that category of background music. Getting to know the source of the sounds is neat. Now, myself and my partner can identify blue jay, cardinal, song sparrows, ravens, yellow warblers, orioles, the sora, swans, the moorhen, and even muskrats, on our ventures. Recently, we've seen baby rabbits, a baby muskrat,  mom and baby geese, a moorhen, an egret, painted turtles laying eggs, cormorants, a bobolink, a black bird chasing a king fisher, turkey vultures overhead, baby raccoon, the blue heron as close as we've ever seen, and to top it all off, we saw 2 Sandhill Cranes fly over, circle, then come back to the water and land, at Cranberry Marsh in Whitby. It was awesome! I had seen photos by others of them, so immediately their shapes said Sandhill Crane to me, but I didn't think they were in Ontario. Well, they do migrate for summer breeding to Ontario, but they don't venture into this eastern area too often, so it seems. However, they have been spotted in the Whitby area before, research shows us. They were a pretty amazing sight, flying in synch, over our heads then landing. We realized, 3 mins before or after, standing in some different spot, we'd have missed this!