Lemoine's Point Conservation Area

Kingston, Ontario

Welcome back!

This week I'm highlighting some birds from the Lemoine's Point Conservation Area. The area has lots of trails, so you can take a shorter one or the longer one...we usually do the longer one as it's still under 2 hours...there are probably longer ones, but that's the main one that we try to stick to each time. 

These are photos of the Black-Capped Chickadee (first 7 photos)  and the White-Breasted Nuthatch (last 2 photos).

These are quite common on our walks any time of the year, but these were taken last April...hard to believe it's been that long! They are quite comical birds and we love watching them and of course, feeding them..They love peanuts, but we usually have sunflower seeds. They will dig through the seeds looking to see what else is there, hoping for peanuts I'm guessing!

Have a great week!

The Chickadee

cHere are some shots of Chickadees that we took last week while walking in Lemoine's Point Conservation Area, in Kingston. As you can see they are very tame...and fast too! I tried to get a shot of them in the trees, but they were too quick for me, so I only have them eating from Kevin's hand.

We were feeding them seeds and bread and apparently they like peanuts as well!

Here is some info from Wikipedia again about the chickadee:

The Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) is a small, North American songbird, a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is the state bird of both Maine and Massachusetts in the United States, and the provincial bird of New Brunswick in Canada. It is notable for its capacity to lower its body temperature during cold winter nights, its good spatial memory to relocate the caches where it stores food, and its boldness near humans (they can feed from the hand). Its French name is Mésange à tête noire.

On another Photography Note:

I submitted a photo of a Heron for the Conservation Ontario-2011 Photo Contest...Anyway, I didn't win, but my picture was awarded an Honourable Mention! Here is the link if you want to check it out...It's down at the very bottom:

http://www.ontarioconservationareas.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=93&Itemid=70

A Hiking We Will Go....

Last Sunday was so beautiful that we went for a walk around Lemoine's Point in Kingston. It's a pretty nice walk, but even better if you get to see some critters! Here are all the ones we saw throughout the walk..sorry for posting so many this week, but I couldn't narrow it down to just 2-3 this week!

1st-Bluejay

2nd-Chickadee

3rd-Nuthatch

4th-Woodpecker-he was far away!

5th-the sun shining through the trees

6th-chipmunk, pigging out on the seeds

7th-fat squirrel eating something

8th-squirrel checking us out

9th-another squirrel

10th-a black squirrel

My friend Melissa and I were at the Toronto Zoo on Friday and I took 3 SD cards full of pictures, so once I get through them, I'll be sure and post some shots...We had an awesome day for shooting. It was a bit chilly, but didn't rain on us! The animals tend to be more active too! I got to see and shoot the African Penguins too..they are so darn cute, I wanted to sneak one home!

Lemoine's Point Critters

A couple of weekends ago we went for our first hike at Lemoine's! The trilliums were growing well, but were not open yet. We saw a few critters there...Mostly chickadees, chipmunks, squirrels, woodpecker and a blue jay! My girlie, Keturah fed some chickadees from her hand...They are still pretty tame. The bluejay looked pretty hard, but would not land on anyone's hand! The chipmunks were pretty tame as well and wanted some sunflower seeds..luckily we brought lots and Keturah fed them too!

Enjoy!

For the Birds!

Yep, this post is for the birds! Or for the bird lovers at least! Here are some pictures shot in Nov 2009. I haven't taken any good pictures lately, other than horses, so I went back into the archives for these ones! They were all shot on Amherst Island last year.

1st-chickadee sitting on Kevin's hand

2nd & 3rd-two shots of the same woodpecker. I wasn't sure which I liked better, so included both

4th-a nuthatch getting a seed from the feeder

A Hiking We Will Go...

Yep, we went hiking on Sunday since it was such a beautiful day. Brooke's friend, Keegan came along with us too as we hiked through Lemoine's Point in Kingston! We saw the usual critters there, including the pictures below:

1st-chickadee

2nd-nuthatch

3rd-chipmunk

More Algonquin Park

Here are some more shots from our trip to Algonquin Park...

1. Scenic picture along the logging museum trail
2. Chickadee eating off Kevin`s hand
3. Keturah hiking along the logging museum trail

Feathered Friends....

Happy New Year!!

Sorry I haven't posted lately...We were busy with family/friends. We then went to the Cottage near Algonquin Park for 3 days. We took a couple of Brooke's friends with us as well this time. We had lots of fun and the kids enjoyed sledding, skating, playing the Wii and board games while at the cottage. On our last day there, we went hiking in Algonquin. We didn't see ANY moose, but we did see the feathered friends below as well as a pine marten, a squirrel and woodpeckers.

Anyway, here are a couple of cute shots that I got of a Gray Jay and a Chickadee. The chickadees ate out of our hand and the gray jays came close, but would not eat from our hand. We did throw seeds in the snow and they came down from their perches after we moved away a bit to eat the seeds.

More pictures soon...

If you are on Facebook and have an interest in Photography I have created a group called "The Shooting Gallery", where I will be posting tips as well as more of my pictures. I hope you will consider joining us!

For the Birds....

Here are today's offerings...yep, some birds. Kevin and I went hiking on Amherst Island in the area called the "Owl Woods". Of course, we didn't see any owls...well, we think we saw a couple, flying around, but none close enough to shoot. I did get some good shots of the birds we did see, which were:

1st Pic-chickadee with a seed in his beak on Kevin's hand
2nd Pic-woodpecker up in the tree (above a bird feeder)
3rd Pic-nuthatch with a seed in his beak on the bird feeder

Enjoy!

A hiking we will go...

On Monday, we headed out to enjoy the nice, warm weather. We went to Lemoine's Point in Kingston for a hike through the woods. We saw a variety of critters---a woodpecker, a lot of chickadees, a couple of chipmunks, a couple of nuthatches and of course, a couple of snakes!

Here are some shots from our hike...A couple of chickadees and a couple of chipmunks.

Enjoy!

More Birds!

Here are some more shots of birds from our hiking trip the other day...

Today we headed to Amherst Island and saw/shot some owls and hawks...AWESOME!!! I'll post those tomorrow because I had these ones ready to go for today!

Back to work tomorrow (urgh) :-(

1st Pic-Those rare Napanee Birds, Brooke and Keturah
2nd Pic-Kevin feeding the chickadees from his head
3rd Pic-a front-facing shot of a chickadee perched on a hand