Sometime life has plans that suddenly change things up. I ended up spending a few days in the hospital due to a reaction to the fumes from the stain we were using on our deck. All is good, but they wanted to keep me under observation for a little bit. Now I am not allowed to do anything that involves painting or staining. Some would consider that a good thing, but I hate to think that My Lady will end up having to do all that in the future.

So as it goes, we ended up missing out on a few days of birding and we pretty well spent our time at the Amherstburg Navy Yard, or Holiday Beach, with a couple of trips to Hillman Marsh and Point Pelee.

We actually started off by going to Hillman Marsh when we heard of a rare Ruff stirring up the birders in the area. Of course it turned out that it wanted to stay well out of good viewing range and made it difficult to get proper photos. Without knowing where to look, we would have missed it and thought that it was another sandpiper. Sadly it wasn’t a breeding male which would have been gorgeous, but a less flamboyant female. Thanks to our friends we were able to at least see it. This is another bird that comes from Europe and somehow made it to our little piece of heaven.

I was wandering around Holiday Beach early June and found the Blue Grey Gnatcatchers nest was populated with hungry little mouths, and surprisingly nearby was a Yellow Warbler nest also showing little ones requiring feeding.

While I was enjoying this I happened to look over and saw 6 Pelicans flying toward the marsh nearby. They were beautiful to watch as they took up formation and circled the trout pond, perhaps looking for food. I kept telling them it was alright to land there, but they circled off and wandered further over the marsh.

One evening we were enjoying a picnic dinner at the Navy Yard looking out over the Detroit River, and I observed what I originally thought was a flock of Swans a little up river. I usually have my binoculars so I checked out the flock and was very happy to see that it was actually another flock of Pelicans! I only had my smaller lens with me so I started firing off photos and got a few shots. We let a few people know what we were looking at and surprised them with the information. Many people had not seen them here before.

Through the month we wandered out when we could and finally found a Meadowlark singing in the trees, Dickcissels calling out their territory, and out on the marsh at Point Pelee we watched the Black Terns looking after their babies.

Then it was time to take our Son and Daughter In Law out to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for our holidays. The trip was fun and we were able to do some of the stuff that we had wanted, but the weather didn’t always work with us.

A couple of hard day’s drive and we arrived in Moncton, with a short stop at the Hartland Wooden Bridge along the way. Moncton served as a base to visit areas around, such as seeing the Tidal Bore, head to Magnetic Hill, and scooting down to Hopewell Rocks.

Unfortunately, the Tidal Bore was just that, but interesting to understand what is going on. Just think of it this way, a river is flowing into the ocean, but as the tide is coming in the ocean water wants to take over the river so a steady wave of ocean water begins flowing into the river and creates a small wave as it moves further upstream.

Now add to the excitement of the Bore, we visited the Magnetic Hill. Our son remembers it from when we visited as a child and the water beside the road was going uphill. This time, the trees and bushes have filled in the gully and for some reason the whole illusion gets lost. Pull ahead to the White Post, put the car in neutral and let the car run uphill. Although it works physically, the visuals are not what they used to be. But at least they have a Zoo, Amusement Park and Winery built up around an optical illusion.

From Moncton our next stop was Halifax, where we checked out Peggy’s Cove and down to Lunenburg for a trip out into the ocean.

You should be able to click on the photos for the full view

Sadly the whales that we were hoping to see had not arrived in the area yet, so we had to settle for Seals, Black Backed Gulls, Razorbills, Kittiwake and the best bird of the trip… The PUFFINS! The weather was grey, the waves were unpleasant, the lighting sucked, but I was able to squeeze out a few photos of these lovely little birds with big bills.

One afternoon when we were walking along the Halifax shoreline, we saw a cruise ship docked at the wharf. I noticed the colours and felt that it could have been a Holland America ship so I mentioned to the others that it would be funny if it was the same ship that My Lady and I took in Alaska where we renewed our vows for our 20^th wedding anniversary. The ship we were on was the Zaandam. Imagine the feeling we had when I got home and was able to crop in and sharpen the photo and found out…

We ended up leaving the Maritimes a day early when we heard that we would be smacked with a major storm and a ton of rain during our intended drive back. As we were getting into Quebec the sky certainly had a very sinister look to it.

That pretty well wraps up June. Don’t worry, the July Blog is probably going to be about this short and will be out very very soon.

As always, thanks for following along and if you know of anyone interested in anything you read here, send them a link, you never know where it might lead them.

Till next time.