I had taken off a day for my 50th birthday which I celebrated this year. Nothing big, just my kids and Dad and my husband at Tara Inn on Kingston Rd., a really great Irish pub we like. It happens too to be not to far from Rosetta McLean Gardens, and the Bluffs, places we like to frequent here and there, for nature walks and bird spotting.
We hit the Bluffs a couple days after my birthday, on a weekday, and found it quite a sighting filled visit, Mostly copulating birds lol! Spring has spring it would seem :-)
We did run across one sad sighting, a completely dried out open carcass of what I am sure was a mink, on one of the wood and fence gangplanks around the water treatment areas. I did shoot a photo of it, out of curiosity, which I won't post here of course, due to its hideous nature. Not sure what happened to the poor critter, possibly a bird of prey, but not entirely sure.
Well, the Kingfishers were quite active and rowdy, not to mention frisky (more than one time) though the pigeons on the beach were a lot closer for a better photo unfortunately lol!
The Red Tailed hawk was right above our heads, as was one of the pair of ravens. A pair of Mallard ducks swam along the edge of the main centre pond area, where there also were quite a few turtles, and we learned something about your basic mallard duck. They will catch and eat fish if the opportunity arises. The female duck suddenly had a small fish in her bill, and after a bit of a struggle, she did swallow it. I had no clue ducks like that eat fish! The male duck showed no interest in stealing it from her, maybe due to her possibly being a future Mom?
As we walked through the little paths around the water control area, I spotted a single dried leaf spinning wildly on a branch, making a cool whistling sound, then stopping as the wind dropped. I'm not a huge taker of videos but this entranced me, so I shot a little vid, very short, of it, which I have here above.
It was a really pretty day :-)
