Cooper Hawk Nest Near Our Place

We often walk over to the ravine that is near our condo. It is not a far walk, but once you get into the ravine entrance, you could conceivably walk for miles, east towards McCowan, then towards Markham Rd., into the Highland Creek area. We often go as far as McCowan, but have walked for 4 hours or so, and done the longer route.

Last time we were there, John noticed a huge stick nest up in a tree. It was quite visible from certain spots. We saw the partially silhouetted head of a hawk in it, and I thought it to be a Red Tailed Hawk.

Today, on a day off from work, after renewing our library cards, we decided to head over and see how the hawk was doing.

There was a city worker mowing the meadow area just north of where the nest is, and as he left, passing us as we stepped aside and out of his way, the one hawk took off from the nest and was circling. It didn't seem to like all the noise, and it flew back and forth finally settling in a tree near the nest. I got a couple photos of it, enough to see that it was not a Red Tail Hawk, it was a Cooper's Hawk. We decided to walk on and leave it alone, let it settle down and go back to its business.

Later on, we stopped to see how it was doing, on our way out. I could see a bird seemingly feeding another bird, or pulling from something below in the nest then lifting its head. The bird popped up its head. It has yellow eyes and it seems larger than the one that flew from the nest earlier. Not sure if it is a female being brought food by the smaller male, or a single juvi hawk. Hard to know 100%, could be the female sitting on eggs still, or a juvenile pretty close to fledging. It was large. Hard to see from the distance the photos were taken from too, and the amount of the bird that I was able to discern in the photo. I purposely over exposed the photo when I tool it so I could see as much detail as possible later on. Looking in person it is too far and in total silhouette.

We also were treated to a pair of crows chasing a red tailed hawk through the sky.

The ravine is a pretty place to walk. Generally, someone will stop and talk to us for a few moments, and it is quite enjoyable. Many are long time area residents and we learn quite a bit from them. We saw a lot of swallow tails, mostly the yellow Eastern ones, but we did see a black swallowtail butterfly closer to our condo, on the walk back.

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.

Right in Our Back Yard

Ok, well, I guess not Literally, since we don't own a house, but live in a condo. Though, this is very close, basically right across the street :-)

Often, we walk a ways, to the Birkdale Ravine, or we drive a short distance to one of the parks or trails down on the shores of Lake Ontario off Kingston Rd. in Scarborough, or we head into the city for Tommy Thompson, or even out to our old haunts in Durham Region (which are sorely missed by us).

However, there is this lovely little forest area right near Scarborough Town Ctre, on Borough Dr. and it is basically on the street that runs just south of our condo building. It's a 5 minute walk. We decided to do this little walk, something we have not done since last Spring, and see what there was to enjoy.

This time of year the Trilliums are coming up, and lots of other little forest floor flowers. They were starting, and there were a lot of Trout Lilies already. The fallen tree pieces seem to lay in a beautiful elegant way in this forest, among the plentiful piles of leaf debris and pine cones, and with the flowers nestled all around these, it makes for quite a scrumptious sight. There also was some beautiful lower evening light on lots of dried leaves and new buds and such, always a visual joy :-)

We did come up with some really cool little bird and critter sightings! Right in this little urban forest. Lots of White Throated Sparrows, 3 Hermit Thrush, and lots of Robins, as well as your usual House Sparrows. We spotted many of these city sparrows on the way there, eating the new blossom buds and dandelion flowers.

A critter, we think a ground hog, was collecting dried clumps of leaves for its den, which we did find the entrance hole to.

Pikachu even waved to us from out his window high above, welcoming us back lol!

All in all, really, we did not need to go to far to enjoy a fun and beneficial walk.

our little urban forest

Weekday Walk at Bluffers Park in Scarborough

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 :-)