Sorry I’m Late once again. I won’t let it happen again. At least until next time.

What a snoozefest.

Was July and August really that bad?

I was looking at how many times I actually took photos in July and it seems we only went out birding 5 times.

On July 4 I was fortunate enough to watch our local Osprey parents feed their 3 babies.

Then for whatever reason, life and the weather seemed to conspire against us most of the time.

My Lady and I decided to get out of town for a weekend since we were finally allowed to see other parts of Ontario without feeling too guilty. We shuffled off to Guelph as a base point, and visited Stratford, St. Jacobs Farmer’s Market, and spent a half a day wandering around the beautiful town of Elora. While in Elora we did a little Punting tour, then had a lovely dinner outdoors by the river.

I got lucky at the end of July…,

Thought I would leave that one to your own thoughts.

Actually, I had wandered to the marsh down the road and sat, just watching for anything to come by. While I was watching a Blue Heron another one flew in and they began eyeing each other up, when suddenly, BAM a Big Bird fight (except these ones were blue, not yellow, and didn’t speak English). Click click click click click…

Very soon after the interloper had chased away the original owner of the spot, the victor took off to another location nearby. Have to ask if the fight was really worthwhile.

I was finally able to get another couple of photos of a Hummingbird coming to our feeder, but it appears that the males had pretty well left the area.

Along came the first of August and I was watching the Ospreys as the parents came and went with breakfast and then suddenly, One Of The Babies TOOK OFF! I saw it FLEDGE! And if that wasn’t enough, I had apparently missed an earlier one as I noticed one sitting on a fence at the back end of the baseball diamond where baby number 2 flew over to. Eventually number 3 decided to take a leap of faith, and so all of the babies were now out of the nest.

After that day, the family abandoned the nest on top of the light stand, and took up residence on the original cell tower for a couple of weeks. We will have to see next year if the light stand gets used or not.

We had an opportunity to babysit our grand-dog and truly had a blast with him. He is a Spanish Greyhound, and he loves to run. I don’t know who was more tired after we had him out for a “walk”, him or us.

August also saw the rise of the number of shorebirds being seen in the area. We were over at Holiday Beach and while watching the Green Heron we noticed a Sandpiper fly in nearby. After looking at the photos we believe it is a juvenile Spotted Sandpiper. We heard of a number of different ones within the county, so went out to see if there was anything else. Found a couple of Wilson’s Snipe in a field, along with some Sandpipers and Killdeer.

We were hoping for a good year for the Monarchs, but we hardly visited Pelee during the migration because we heard about so many Stable Flies this year. These guys are nasty and their bite is vicious. Here’s hoping for next year.

The warblers are heading south and we had some nice views of them. Not as vibrant, and not as talkative as they were on the inbound migration, but it’s really nice to see them again. A couple days have been busier than some days from this year’s inbound. Unfortunately they like to hang around in the leaves or undergrowth, making it almost impossible to get some nice photos. Sorry.

The Hummingbirds must have had all their babies, because we are constantly seeing them at our feeders. They don’t really like me taking their pictures from outside, the sound of the cameras seems to startle them so I have had to try to photograph them through double paned windows, and the lighting never seems right (of course).

The egret roost down the street is full every sunset and they usually head out just before sunrise. One morning I stopped by after sunrise and was surprised to find quite a few still there. I was able to count 42 at one point.

So then along came September and I suddenly realized that I hadn’t updated in a while. Of course it didn’t help the cause when My Lady and I decided to do an Eastern Ontario holiday right after Labour Day. Stories and pictures from that trip may have to wait a bit longer so I can catch up on all the other stuff going on.

Didn’t get out too much afterwards in September, but we did make it over to the Holiday Beach Hawk Festival, and we are getting up to the tower once in a while to help out with the Raptor count.

Live Owls on display during the Hawk Festival

Hopefully I will be able to get next month’s blog out on time, and actually have something worthwhile to talk about, but until next time, thanks for sticking with me.

Till then.