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.

Thickson Woods and Halls Rd.

Been out a lot lately, for what ended up being pretty long walks - 5 hours 2 days in a row lol! Omg my neck killed from looking up lol! It is exciting to see so many different birds and animals, that for one I have never seen, and secondly, never even knew we had in Ontario lol!

At Thickson, I accidentally stepped on something soft that out of the corner of my eye, then moved. I thought it maybe was just a small stick. I walked on a bit and was about to turn because something told me Maybe it was a snake. Last time I walked beside a snake, it was in Tobermory, and it had a rattling tail lol! I know we don't have those this south in Ontario but....... my boyfriend then called my name and said "there's a snake" so I realized I sensed right, I had stepped on a snake. I hadn't hurt it but when I saw it, I had No idea what it was lol! Turns out it was an Eastern Milk Snake, harmless, but can still bite. It was in strike pose none the less. Cool to see, very pretty, about 4' long.

Halls Rd. by far is our favourite. The trees and brush is lower so the birds are closer. We also always tend to see Something interesting there. We regularly see deer, raccoon, squirrels, the muskrats, baby animals currently, rabbits, chippies, and tons of different birds. I was lucky enough recently to pull up and see a Cardinal 2 ft from my car. I shot some images out the front windshield then slowly got out and managed to get an awesome shot of the female reach down to try to take the sunflower seed the male had taken from top of a fence post. She never ended up taking it but flew away further instead. The cardinals always stay pretty far back so it was quite a lucky moment!