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

Barred Owl

Yesterday Kevin and I went hiking at Lemoine's Point in Kingston..it was a beautiful day and we were rewarded with seeing and feeding chickadees, nuthatches and even a woodpecker...But our greatest sight of the day was this owl below. We were near the end of the trail and saw this family staring up into the trees, so we looked too and saw this Barred Owl sitting on a branch. The first picture below is our first view of him...not that great! So, we went into the forest where he would be facing us to get some shots...He was not afraid of us at all...mind you we didn't get too close anyway as we didn't want to scare him!

Here's a bit of info about the Barred Owl for you from Wikipedia:

The Barred Owl (Strix varia) is a large typical owl native to North America. It goes by many other names, including Eight Hooter, Rain Owl, Wood Owl, and Striped Owl, but is probably best known as the Hoot Owl based on its call.

The adult is 40–63 cm (16–25 in) long with a 96–125 cm (38–49 in) wingspan. Weight in this species is 500 to 1050 grams (1.1-2.3 lbs). It has a pale face with dark rings around the eyes, a yellow beak and brown eyes. It is the only typical owl of the eastern United States which has brown eyes; all others have yellow eyes. The head is round and lacks ear tufts, a distinction from the Short-eared Owl. The upper parts are mottled gray-brown. The underparts are light with markings; the chest is barred horizontally while the belly is streaked vertically. The legs and feet are covered in feathers up to the talons.

Next week I'll have some photos of the other birds we saw...Have a GREAT week!



Oh How You've Grown....

Wishing my darling, Brookie a VERY happy 17th Birthday (February 3rd)!

Love you lots and lots "Boo Bear"!

Sorry for the poor quality of photos but my scanner sucks! lol

1995 (3 weeks old)

2012



Flowers

These are from our hiking trip in June to Presquile Park in Brighton. These were all taken along the boardwalk and mostly growing in water (sorry I don't know the names of them!) Look closely and see if you can see the little insects that "jumped" into my shots! :-) The dragonfly in the last photo is supposed to be there!

A Variety of Zoo Animals

Today I have included a little bit of everything, well not EVERYTHING, but different zoo animals! I think I've finally exhausted my zoo animals from our last trip there..may have to go again soon! Anyway, I'm sure I'll find some other animals to include next week as I have a few (million) taking up space on my external drives! :-)

So, for this week, I'm including the following:

1st Pic- West Caucasian Tur (yep, that's their name, don't ask)

2nd Pic- Dhole, Asiatic Wild Dog (again, don't ask!)

3rd Pic-American Reindeer (he was striking a pose!)

4th Pic-Red Panda (I can never get a good shot of these guys..it's not like they move fast or anything, but they do spend most of their day sleeping!)

5th Pic-Snow Leopard (shot through glass, so not the best quality..have to try again next time)

6th Pic-Siberian Tiger (love these guys and he looked so cute here, pretending to sleep)

The Polar Bear!

Welcome back! I hope everyone is enjoying this icy/snowy weather we've been getting lately! I could have done without the Hydro being off for 9hrs or more yesterday, but other than that it looks very pretty! I am posting my weekly post early this week as the girls and I are heading to Ottawa for the weekend...We were suppose to go today after work, but the roads are too darn yucky for me and Ottawa is getting it worse than we are, so we'll hopefully head that way tomorrow morning!

Anyway, here are some shots of the polar bear from the Toronto Zoo. There was another one in the back cage area, but he wasn't in camera-shot, so I only got photos of this one...He/she was pretty lazy as you can see from these pics. These aren't my best pics, but they were shot through glass, so all in all, I was happy with them!

Enjoy!

Last of the Lions

As promised in my last post, I've included some more pictures of the lions. I love the big cats!! I'm not sure if this is a female or the male lion without a mane (as we had heard).

Sorry if some of these look similar, if I happened to like the pose or facial expression, I included it!

I'll have some different zoo animals for you next week (probably some polar bear shots)!

Have a great week!!