It isn't often, especially lately, that there isn't a breeze blowing, but yesterday evening was one of those rare exceptions....
so we headed out in the canoe....
a Seal swam by....there were a pair of Common Loon out there as well, but too far off for a photo.
headed straight across to the log jam at the edge of the Harrison River, you can see how shallow the water is, already.
found these Common Mergansers, only saw one adult female and a total of 17 young.
doesn't get much calmer than this!
A Muskrat swam beside us for a while, could hear more 'nibbling' in the reeds.
on the other side, lot's of baby Swallows
most of them appeared to be Northern Rough-wing Swallows.
then just ahead of us, a family of Hooded Merganser...
an Eastern Kingbird perched on a stump at the side of the river...
and then there were the Beaver....
sometimes those encounters ended in an almighty splash - much to the amusement of our little dog...
and sometimes they just happily swam alongside.
Oh, and the Purple Martins....they were there...we didn't actually check them out but could hear them feeding overhead.
Just a perfect, almost last day of June evening....
First day of summer and we managed a quick canoe trip....
conditions weren't ideal, but better than they have been....
and the main reason for going out was to get an indication of how the Purple Martin colony was doing....and pleased to report it seems to be doing well!
there was activity at all 3 sets of boxes and from the sounds, there must be quite a few still sitting, while there are a number of youngsters visible as well.
Youngsters like these ones. Quite a few Tree Swallows making use of the boxes as well. Saw one young Tree Swallow sitting on one of the boxes but it looked like most are still inside being fed. There were swallows of all descriptions, Tree, Violet Green, Barn and Northern Rough Wing flying about.
a lot of young Canada Geese as well. Hard to count but think there were about 40 of them of varying ages, none really young.
Only other item of note was an Eastern Kingbird. Unfortunately couldn't get a photo. Total of 4 Osprey seen too.....and unfortunately a number of Bullfrogs were heard.
We braved the heavy black clouds and took a walk over to the park today....
always amazed at how 'lush' the place is as the water levels start to drop.
The log bay is still a 'bay'
There were a number of Canada Geese taking a rest there, obviously several families as there were varying ages of the youngsters.
I was concerned about the lack of activity around any of the martin boxes although a kayaking friend assures me they have been around. Perhaps it was the Bald Eagle eating something on top that had everybody hiding.
this male Black-headed Grosbeak was spotted in the blackberry bushes
there were a number of Red-wing Blackbirds, including his youngster.
But the biggest surprise was the number of....
Bullock's Oriole! They were everywhere and very vocal. Obviously a lot of young. Orioles don't mature for 2 years. The previous years kids help raise the current crop and that is exactly what is happening here as this is a one year old male. Also, unlike most birds, they don't all hatch at once so dad and older siblings feed the fledglings as they hatch while mom remains on the nest.
and speaking of fledglings....here is one of them
Where's food?
Back home and made it over to Harrison Bay this afternoon.
water levels pretty much identical to when we left 3 weeks or so ago. It was very windy, in fact it has been windy since we arrived home on Sunday. Hope it dies one of these days because I really want to get out on the water.
Because of the wind I didn't expect to see much in the way of birds...
I see there is still an Osprey on a nest out there....
and speaking of nests, was thrilled to see this young Bald Eagle peeking out of the eagle nest. Looks like just the one.
There must also be at least one....
Spotted Sandpiper nest as this fellow was really agitated as we walked by.
The fields are looking very green but the sides of the dike looked a little crisp...as did the Viper's Bugloss.
about the only birds that seemed to be enjoying the wind were the swallows, mainly Tree Swallows, like this fellow.
Should mention that yesterday morning, when I hadn't got into the routine of taking my camera with me, 6 adult Canada Geese, swam by with at least 30 partially grown young!
I've heard the Purple Martin but really need to get out on the water to see what is what. Hopefully soon.
As we are about to head out again for a few weeks of roaming about the province, tried to get out to get some pictures of the area before we leave.
Did an evening walk over at Harrison Bay....
water continues to creep up but definitely won't be a flood year this year. We could hear lots of bird activity but between the time of day and all the leaves, hard to actually see anything. Bullock's Orioles were calling from the tree tops. For such a bright bird they can sure be elusive!
we'd seen one of the Bald Eagles fly out and grab something on the farm field and then head back to the nest with a crow in hot pursuit. Still no indication as to how many might be in the nest though.
one White-crowned Sparrow made itself known. Most are sitting on nests right now I think.
the Viper's Bugloss is coming into flower on the sides of the dike - in fact it is looking very lush right now, which probably means someone will decide it has to be mowed soon. Hopefully not but that seems to be the way it goes. Fortunately the birds seem to have sense enough to nest in the bramble hedge out of the reach of the mower blade.
Yesterday we did a walk over to the park....
have to take the long route now as there is 5 or 6 feet of water over the path. Nice to see the Foxgloves coming into flower...
and the Ox-eye Daisies....the sides of the path should look beautiful in a few days...provided mowers stay away.
here is the view from the viewing platform. There was water under the platform and on both sides of the path so probably by today you would need to wade to get to here.
this male Red-wing Blackbird was perched just out from the platform.
and this Song Sparrow was drying off as it had been raining pretty much all day.
the path is becoming almost tunnel like in places....but lets get to those Purple Martins
I haven't had a chance to get out on the water so not sure how much activity there is but could see a pair at one of the nest boxes, then something unusual caught our eye...
there were Purple Martin flying into this tree - a Pacific Crabapple I think. As far as I know Purple Martin only eat insects
and yet, in this one, it almost looks like it has the immature fruit....I am assuming that there are maybe little caterpillars of something as the leaves look kind of eaten. I can only surmise that if that is the case, it is a good thing because one thing I haven't noticed many of is flying insects and there seem to be a lot of birds around right now whose diets rely on them.
this is what it looks like over at the log bay now....
lots of these, I think 'naturalized' roses in flower right now, along with the native....
Nootka Rose....
and I'll leave you with one more photo of a Purple Martin in a tree....
and we will see you again, sometime after the middle of June.
