Babies and more babies….

Despite the fact that it is so cool I had to turn the heat on today, and so wet that our walk was delayed and then we still got wet….there was a lot of bird activity – probably as glad of the break in the weather as we were!

We’ll start with the water levels though, which are definitely dropping – we’re down to almost the 3 foot mark on the marker…water going down isn’t nearly as pleasant to watch because it leaves behind a coating of fine silt on everything, and many dead mushy plants that didn’t  take kindly to be emerged…it also means that when (if) the warm weather ever arrives…the mosquitoes will be out in force…

Cedar Waxwing continue with their nest building – they like the ornamental trees that line our streets – there are nests going up all over!

Meanwhile, the early nesters have finished and there are baby birds, like this fledgling Spotted Towhee, showing up all over the place!

I don’t know what the great attraction was on this section of road today, but every time I went by there were Pine Sisken (2 at bottom) and House Finch

there seem to be several House Finch families right now…I actually took this yesterday…daddy at the top and baby below… there was also a family of Red-breasted Sapsuckers flying around today but didn’t land anywhere I could get a photo…

 

down at the boat launch there was a very active family of Black Capped Chickadees – the above being one of the babies – I’m wondering if they might be the family from the nest by the viewing platform although there was no doubt more than one pair nesting in the area.

Now…I’m going against principal here and tossing in a couple of pictures of a Great Gray Owl.  I spent last weekend at my favorite birding spot – Tunkwa Lake Provincial Park and was thrilled to see, for the first time in my life – a Great Gray Owl.  I will be doing a full report on my other blog (http://birdingbyShantz.blogspot.com) but know a few people would enjoy seeing some pictures now…

Here is one – he/she actually flew this close to me while I was standing there – it showed no fear of humans

I actually think there was a pair as there seemed to always be one present in this stand of dead pine trees and when the one out hunting caught something, it never stayed and ate it, but headed back in this direction.

I put this one in just to show how the bird was right in the campground.  You can see the owl on the right hand side, and that is our camper just visible the other side of the trees..

One last shot – I probably have a hundred pictures of the bird or birds!