Mating season

This morning on my way home from having some more pre-op testing done at St. Thomas hospital, I noticed across a field a strange sight. I stopped the car and grabbed the binoculars to try to figure out what I was looking at. It was a male turkey in full splendor trying to attract the nearby hens. I watched for a short time then headed for home where I told Deb to grab the camera and we drove back together. Sure enough he was still there and this time had been joined in the open farm field by his hen.

today's surprise

This morning we headed out to Pearce park for a stroll and just as we entered the park we heard a small thump on the ground nearby. This was quickly followed by another thump and then baby cries. A closer look at the base of a tree closeby showed this pair of racoon kits squawking for their mom. The last pic shows mom and another kit starting to stir in the nest hole above the babies. When we returned to the area at the end of our stroll there was no sign of babies or mom. We assume they are all safely back inside the tree sleeping once again.

In regards to the ugly bird in my prior post. The neighbours all agree that it is a very small vulture however, one friend thinks it is a rather large pigeon. That is possible since they also have red feet. Guess we will never be quite sure now.

click on any picture for a better look

Turkey Vulture baby???

As we were getting into the car this morning we noticed this very odd looking bird perched in Ruth's tree. The bird was fluffing it's very wet wings(we had some earlier rain) and the size was just a bit larger than a pigeon. The bird sat calmly while we got the camera and walked closer to the tree. Deb managed to get these pics but when I went closer to the tree he decided that two people were just too much and he flew off to one of the very tall trees at Ed's house.

Despite the small size, we are pretty sure this is a Turkey Vulture...maybe a baby? The red feet are the give away. We can't find any other bird in our books, with red feet.

click any picture for a closer view

Heron Rookery

We took the dog for a walk along the old railway trail to check out the Heron nests. Of course it was the wrong time of day to find everyone there but the nest on the extreme right side of the group definitely had an adult moving around the top..not so visible in the pictures unless you use your imagination.

Beautiful

The flowers are blooming across the front of the house but the grass is also growing. I'm thinking the first cut of the season needs to be soon. Top picture is mini Iris. Mom, that is the flower I was trying to think of that we planted in your garden and is just beginning to show green leaves growing there this week. The white flower you have in bloom right now are called snow drop flowers. Our Hyacinths are in bloom all across the front and side of our house as shown in pictures and our time share dog, Ebony has had fun with Deb all weekend, cleaning up flowerbeds and edging to make things look pretty.

click on any picture for a larger view

Easter Flowers

I have been bragging on Facebook about our early spring flowers so I thought I had better post some evidence. The final 2 pictures are mini flowers, a tiny blue one we got from barbie and a mini daffodil that came in a flower arrangement. You can see how tiny they are by comparing the size of our bark chips to the flowers. Our crocuses have all died off already in the front yard(south side of house) but so far nothing in back yard is in bloom.