Strange day…

Today was a strange sort of day…the walk started out with me thinking there was going to be absolutely nothing to report….there wasn’t one single duck, couldn’t hear a bird anywhere…

but then when I got to the area by the viewing platform…I could hear Golden Crown Kinglets and Chickadee’s (both kinds – Black Cap and Chestnutback) and something else…the something else turned out to be that Yellow Rump Warbler that I’ve spotted 3 times now, this winter.

Continuing on I was busy staring into the trees looking for, yes, an owl (no I haven’t seen one since my sighting of the Boreal a week ago)…and there, right in front of me, in the middle of the path…is a Ruffed Grouse - of course by the time I spotted it and was fumbling for my camera…it had spotted me and was wandering off into the underbrush….so you get this ‘file photo’

The above photo of a Ruffed Grouse was taken at Tunkwa Provincial Park in 2006.

Continuing on to the log bay, you can see it is another dull gray sort of day  and yes, that is a rain drop on the lens right in the middle of the picture…it was here I finally spotted some ducks…

a pair of Mallard and some Green Wing Teal.  I am sure the Bald Eagles have something to do with the lack of ducks…there was a juvenile eagle perched in a tree over looking the bay.  On Saturday we watched a pair of eagles going after a gull…There aren’t that many Eagles in the area now, but the ones that are here are obviously hungry. 

Last day of summer

Today, being the last day of summer, I figured I would make sure to post something ~ anything…..

It was a beautiful day, as this picture, taken on our morning walk, shows.  I should mention though, that as I’m doing this posting, cloud is moving in.  Note too that the water level has dropped again, less than yesterday’s level but not yet back to where it was prior to the rains.  That is the way it will go….up and down and up and down depending on what the weather does.

We’re over at the first bay now….still with water but not quite so much….and it is so quiet ‘bird wise’ that I am beginning to wonder if I’ll have anything to post!

But then….a Ruffed Grouse ran across the path in front of us.  I’ve spotted Ruffed Grouse in the park before, but this was the first time I’ve been able to actually get a picture of one.

and unfortunately it chose a place of dense shade to stop in and I only had my ‘small’ camera so any closer shots were blurry….this was the best of the bunch.  I should explain I guess, I use 3 different digital cameras.  The ‘small’ one is an Olympus with 18x optical zoom and 7.1 megapixels.  This is the camera I have with me most of the time as I can tuck it inside a jacket or vest and I don’t worry about it so much if the weather is bad.  All of the pictures in the first two postings were taken with my Canon Powershot with 20x optical zoom and 12.1 megapixels.  I actually really like this camera and use it when ever I’m not rushing through a walk or think there might actually be something to take a picture of, and lastly, if I’m not having to hold a dogs leash…and it isn’t raining….I’ll take my Pentex DSLR camera with 300 mm telephoto lens.

So back to today, this is off of the log bay and you can see the gravel bars are starting to emerge again.  Besides the Ruffed Grouse I spotted a Ruby Crowned Kinglet….couldn’t get a picture of the active little guy…could hear some geese way out there and there was one lone heron, but that was about it.  Some days are like that.  Some days there just isn’t much of anything and other days there are so many birds you don’t know where to look first!

So the summer of 2010 ends at, I think, sometime around 8 pm tonight…..