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!
We have now seen this little animal curled sleeping in a tree 2 evenings in a row. Both times we were unsure exactly what it could be. It looks like a raccoon but its colouring and markings are off, mainly, there Are no markings. The fur appeared reddish even in the dull overcast light we saw it in both nights.
Truly, we feel it is a leucistic or piebald raccoon. I hope that I can find it awake one day on a walk in the area it is, to see its face, and confirm this.
