A very fine outing covering three spots: Reifel, Terra Nova and Piper Spit!
Reifel Bird Sanctuary
The feeders by the office are still in the shade, but I managed to take a nice shot of this lovely Anna’s quenching her thirst. I’ve been tweaking the settings on my camera to reduce (potentially) the graininess, and it seems to be working!
I always get a thrill out of shooting new and interesting pollinators. This is a paper wasp, it seems? A very elegant creature, with its white, yellow and black colour scheme.
For some reason I wanted to take a shot of the Purple Martin condos. I don’t remember seeing any this season… I hope that’s not a bad sign for their population. It also looks like this structure is falling apart? I’m not even sure how they maintain it in the first place.
Red soldier beetles are really cool.
Every time I’m out on the western dyke, I take shots of the faraway landscape — reeds, flowers, the wibbly-wobbly border between marsh and open water. And the mountains behind it all. But I rarely post them, maybe because I like birds more than landscapes these days? But every once in a while, I need to share some of the amazing scenery I’m blessed with every day.
Oh speaking of blessing, here’s a special little guy: a Yellow Warbler making himself beautiful and serenading us with his sweet song for a couple minutes.
Right, so I’m not really sure what’s going on here. What are these little black bugs? Are they being herded by the red soldiers? Is that where they got their names?
We regularly hear towhees, whether their screechy calls or their trilly songs, but they often stay in the bushes.
A pretty Northern Bluet damselfly having a rest. And… some kind of little fly nearer the top? I literally just noticed it now.
The two adult cranes were lounging about in the grass — no colt to be seen, I guess they gave up trying to nest for the season and their almost-grown child is out partying or something.
Just for fun, I decided to meet this House Sparrow at his level
Terra Nova Rural Park
Not a whole lot of birds to be seen at Terra Nova
An eight-spotted skimmer, taking a short break before going off again to challenge all the other dragonflies around. Male, apparently, because of the extra white spots on its wings.
Piper Spit
And here’s the star of the show: a blackbird having a nice refreshing bath on the lilypads. The day was a scorcher, so I really envied him!
Oh yeah, we’re still in the time of eclipse ducks.
The butterfly garden next to the Nature House didn’t have any butterflies.
