A Visit to Rondeau Provincial Park

Mid May, my husband and I spent a few days in south western Ontario, and we visited 2 very wonderful parks while there.

We were heading to Point Pelee as we'd always wanted to go there, being big hikers and fairly avid but amateur bird lovers. I booked into the Talbot Trail Inn, which by the way, was excellent! Shout out to Talbot Trail, we recommend it!

It was pretty chill chill the day we left on our 4 1/4 hr drive, raining on and off, and threatening snow. We did end up getting soft little balls of wet snow while at Rondeau, and I was Not dressed warm enough. Seeing the Spring forest floor flowers get dusted with snow balls, and the poor migrant birds probably chilled to the bone just seemed wrong, lol! The sun peeked out here and there luckily, and the visit there was so amazing that the cold day and weird weather didn't ruin it.

The marsh was expansive and stunning, running in section like rows between forested land rows. There were a ton of warblers, and we saw Rose Breasted Grosbeaks so close and plentiful. One higher skilled birder made a comment that the warblers were in trouble, as they were seen coming down low to the marsh surface, hopping around on fallen logs in the water. Maybe due to the weather being not quite right for them, and food not being plentiful enough for their migration, would be my guess :-(

The scenery, plant life and bird life in this park was all breath taking. We have marsh areas in Durham Region and in Toronto, but it seems so like another world in southern Ontario. Sort of similar to the Niagara area in a way.

I'll be doing a post on our Pelee visit later on down the road a week or so.

Red Tailed Hawk Surprise

Last weekend, we decided to go to a different location, a park down in the east south end of Scarborough, for a change of scenery. We ended up parking and basically turning around as we reached the top of the steep park entrance path - I'm just Not keen on people's large dogs running off leash :-( I had had a feeling we would encounter that there too, similar to the whole of Greenwood, because it isn't signed as a sensitive wild life area. I am just too scared of strange large loose running dogs and it is a terrifying anxiety filled venture then, unfortunately. So, we headed back to Whitby, and the Lynde Shores/Halls Rd. areas again as we'd spent a lot of the time driving already.

Lucky we did because we ended up seeing some pretty cool and exciting things.

As we stood on the bridge over the water at Lynde Shores, John spotted a red-tailed hawk fly across from one side to the other, landing in trees on either side of the narrow marsh. We waited to see if it was going to attempt to grab one of the many mallards below. Walking into the path, John spotted it fly over the forest path and swoop at a Canada Goose. It then went into the forest area and hung around on some low lying fallen brush and tree branches. A possum was looking through the debris on the ground, the hawk seeming to not be concerned with it at all. It then flew into a tree just above where I was standing. I got a couple images of it before it again took off. We thought it may still have been a juvenile one, from its behaviour and the head markings and yellow still present at the beak.

At the marsh, 4 of the Trumpeters were up on the roadway, hunting for food. Probably the babies from last summer we think. There were also 2 adult pairs in the water, mutes and trumpeters. The ducks were crazy as usual and we saw a weirdly marked male mallard, maybe a mix of some sort. We also saw hybrid female mallard/american black duck mixes.

There were also rabbits, squirrels, American Tree Sparrows, chickadees - as usual. One funny sight was a sparrow bathing in a small amount of icy and dirty water on the ground.

What began as a sort of disappointing outing ended up being a fun one back in our usual haunts.

Short Walk on my Short Work Day

I had some lieu time to take, about 3 hrs, so I got to leave work at noonish Friday. I was excited as I'd be home long before dark time and we could do a walk on a weekday, which is always enjoyable.

Well, it certainly was Not +12 like Wednesday, in fact, with the wind chill it was -18 lol! We did go, kind of halfway hoping we'd see a Sawhet owl that 3 different people we've run into have mentioned they'd spotted. Typically, I am not one for going out specifically to look for something as I enjoy the walks for the walks first, then love the surprise of seeing something cool or interesting or exciting. Otherwise, there is that chance of being disappointed because one didn't see what they hoped to see - it's like that for me anyway.

Well, we got there and a guy had his shepherd running loose in the area where my boyfriend mentioned the owl is seen usually. So, no way was I going to walk around there. We figured we'd look a bit on the way back to our car. Venturing into another area, we startled a deer in the small tree and bush area, which scared the crap out of me at first. What a beautiful and large animal it was. It ran and we saw that down below in the valley, it joined a group of about 4 or 5 other deer and they headed away. I'd never seen deer there and was surprised by coming upon one.

In a different area, we happened to spot the Great Horned owl (not me though, my eyesight tends to suck). It was nice to see that it seemed fine and was still present as we'd not seen it for a while. It was dozy, turning its head slowly in the direction of some far off sound. They are always so high up that getting a photo of them is very difficult with my lens. Seeing it here, you'd think we were very close but at the height they usually are, I can barely see them with my naked eye. Nice to have a couple shots though, to recall in the future how lucky we were to have seen them.

We never looked for the Sawhet even though the guy and his dog were gone because we were freezing so we booted it back to the car and went home to make dinner and watch a movie.

Discovering Mount Nemo in Burlington

We had the opportunity to visit the Burlington area and chose a conservation area that looked interesting - Mount Nemo. Definitely worth checking out! The area is very similar to what we experienced at Ball's Falls near Hamilton. There are crevice caves and dizzying heights from which to view the landscape below. You even can spot the Toronto city center from the top of the escarpment. There are 800-1000 yr old trees all along the rocks at the edge of the escarpment. The bird and animal life there is not as prevalent as in some areas we go locally in the Whitby area, but the landscape is different and very exciting to view. There are turkey vultures to be seen at eye level as they tend to glide on the updraft off the escarpment cliffs. It's possible to explore the crevice caves although it is discouraged from Sept to April, when bats are hibernating. Our hike was about 3 1/2 hrs and partly on the Bruce Trail where at one point there was access down the escarpment to below where we met a road and old grave yard.

Back to Second Marsh

July 2nd, in order to get out and get some exercise again, we decided to head to Second Marsh in Oshawa. It's not too far from us so is handy. Part of the motivation to head there was to possibly spot the Belted Kingfishers again. We did, however, I failed to get a shot of them this time. They flew back and forth, under the bridge, and past us a few times. They were quite noisy this evening and there were 2, probably a male and female.

We also headed further along, towards the dead end of Colonel Sam, to the GM plant, and the lots that one parks to walk into Darlington Provincial Park. We headed onto the paths that lead towards Oshawa Path, towards the lake shoreline and through some glorious and cool forest areas. With the sun setting and its light reaching through open spots of the forest and touching leaves and parts of the path here and there, the views as we walked along were quite stunning! Reaching the open part of the path, on the way back to the car, we saw a most magnificent moon over the distant Lake Ontario with a beautiful landscape in the foreground.

One other reason we wanted to explore that area again was to see if there was much sign left of the devastation a purposely set fire that we had heard about from other conservation enthusiasts recently, had caused earlier this season. There were noticeable burnt pines along the marsh side area but a lot of regrowth seems to have taken place since then, which is good.