Birds and Animals in the Summer

I came away from each outing this summer with either a photo of a new type of bird or an interesting encounter with a critter, or both!

The Osprey were back at the south end of Fish Creek Park, close to the Boat Launch area. When I was there it looked like there were two babies in the nest with mom while dad watched from a nearby light standard. I heard later that someone else saw three babies in the nest – so it is a good year for the Osprey. At Carburn Park on the Labour Day weekend, I thought I had found a Merlin feeding on something up in a tree. It was far enough away that it didn’t look much bigger than the Magpies that were hanging around waiting to steal some breakfast but it turned out to be an Osprey as well.

A Merlin did show itself in Votiers Flats one Sunday, though, giving me the clearest image of that bird so far. The raptor sightings finished up on the Labour Day weekend with an American Bald Eagle in Carburn Park. The other large bird that put on a good show for me was the Double Crested Cormorant, or more accurately, three Cormorants that took up residence in a tree along the river. Until then, I had seen them individually or perhaps as a pair on the water. This time, I saw one in the tree and as I approached, another flew in and then a third and the three stayed there, posing and preening for at least an hour.

That posing and preening was topped at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, where I finally saw a Belted Kingfisher up close. Up until then, any Kingfisher I saw was too far away to get a clear photo, or had the sun behind it, or both. On this day, as I walked along the path, the bird flew in and landed on a bare branch sitting in the water just feet away from me. It stayed there and posed, first in profile and then square to the camera for a least a minute. Just to round things out, another Belted Kingfisher showed off her colours for me a few weeks later. What more could I ask?

There were also several deer wandering around the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary that day. They are aware of people but not really afraid. As I walked down the path toward a bridge, a deer started to cross. It saw me and stopped, waiting to see what I would do. After taking a few photos, I pretended to be interested in the lone Mallard in the stream until the deer finished its way across the bridge and into the trees.