The Winter Kinglet at Halls Rd.

Early January, we went for a walk on a really pretty sunny Sunday. We decided to go to our old favourite haunt, that we loved so much, and with the hopes of seeing a lot of birds.

It was so bright and sunny, and right in the middle of our little hike, little flurried began to fall. They were sparkly and gorgeous, back lit by the brilliant sunlight. It was stunning!

There indeed were quite a few birds. Lots of nut hatches, and Downy woodpeckers, there were blue jays, and tons of Chickadees as usual, and Juncos and a couple sparrows. The woodpecker, a boy, actually made the move to come and eat out of the container of seeds we brought with us. I am assuming he was hungry, mainly because in the past, only the females have been brave enough to feed from our hands. That, and it has been maybe twice only in a 5 year period that a woodpecker has even come to our hands to feed.

We actually learned something new this day as well. John spotted a tiny bird hopping around in one of the pine trees. Upon c loser look at it, we were surprised to see it was a Golden Crowned Kinglet. We had no idea they stayed in Ontario during the winter. Once we got home, we were able to research and find out that they actually Prefer colder weather, and they travel further North in Summer, and for breeding.

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. 

Second Marsh Privileged Sightings!

Saturday (had to delete and repost due to bugs in the interface!!!), we decided to get up early and venture to Second Marsh, mainly to see if we'd get lucky and spot a Kingfisher.Well,we ended up seeing quite a few, however it was not easy to get a photo of them. Elusive little buggers. They must have good hearing. As well, we saw what we at first though had to be a deer walking far out in the water of the marsh. Looking through the camera lens, we realized it was a coyote! The ducks and blue heron couldn't care less that it was skulking through the water right by them. It was far so we did not get great shots of that either. However, and generally I find plant and flower life boring subjects, I did get some of the nicest shots of them that I ever have taken....plus butterflies lol! I'll do a second post with some of those.

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!

Exciting Bird Spotting Lately!

Both myself and my boyfriend are fairly new to bird spotting, having been introduced to it sort of by accident last summer. Living down by Whitby Harbour was the draw, and walks along the water. Then, the Smew frenzy in December happened, and we began discovering this whole world of avid and serious birders down here, and many from pretty far locations throughout Ontario, that come here.

Lately, we have been lucky to have seen birds we have never seen, most I guess are common spottings to birders, but to us, exciting and new.

I do not own a zoom that will fit on my DSLR, as of yet. The best I can get is with my manual Nikon Nikkor 105mm portrait lens that i used on my old FE.