...to stay off the Kawartha roads mid-September, as Ann and I were on the tear upon her arrival back up at the cottage on Tuesday the 13th.
It was already late-day with overcast weather conditions, so our one and only stop was of course at the Osprey nest:
Increasing tension still remained between the two babies, as their scrapping and skirmishes continued:
One of them finally caved and moved out of the nest to a branch for a time-out:
Twenty minutes later, dad did a food drop and the successful recipient took off with its fresh meal...
...but returned a bit later as the clouds began to clear out:
The cooling- off period hadn't worked, as the two of them soon began scrapping again:
Kudos go to Ann as well, as one of her shots from this intense interaction came in first for the second year in a row in the Friends of the Osprey photo contest, congrats, Ann!
The pair eventually separated and we were serenaded by The Whiner...
...but another food drop by dad a while later meant a hasty exit from the nest by the winning baby:
On Wednesday we stayed local, beginning the morning down at the swamp where the warblers were few and far between, perhaps because of this Sharp-shinned Hawk:
The brilliant green of this amazing Common (why call this beauty common??) Green Darner caught my eye, and I particularly like the bull's eye pattern on the top of the face, double-click on the photo to see it better. This is either a female or young male I draw the line at further examination ;-) :
A quick stop at the Osprey nest was unexpectedly quite stressful for both Ann and I, as one of the babies flew perilously close to the busy road as it decided on a different tree to land in:
It landed there safely with the remnants of its meal, so we quickly left so it could finish eating in private:
The rest of the afternoon was spent driving around country back roads (see? We warned everyone to stay off the roads!) and although it was fairly quiet, we did see a Red Fox, American Kestrels, and these Blue-winged Teal:
As it turned out, this was one of the marshes that Ann and I had been to during the Kawarthas Christmas Bird Count in late- December, so it was nice to stumble upon it again under much warmer conditions!
Perhaps our best bird of the day was a Red-shouldered Hawk that we spotted in a woodlot, this is a garbage record shot only, it can only get better from here, it's dead centre in the photo, coming in for a landing, red shoulders visible and all!
One only has to go to the local dump if one needs a tick for the day for Turkey Vultures:
The "No Scavenging" sign was apparently the tossed gauntlet for these Turkey Vultures:
We had hoped for some Bald Eagles, even just one (!!!), but no luck. There were some Common Ravens in the area, but mostly just TV's, how many can you see in this tree???
Others were flying right at us at times.
To quote Monty Python: "I'm not dead yet!":
On our way back to the cottage, we saw the Osprey dad continue with his enabling behaviour as another food drop was made:
Dad makes a quick exit while the baby chomps down on the meal:
In the end it was a quiet day for Ann and I, so we made an early night of it back at the cottage as the following day meant an early start to Algonquin, and you already know how that day turned out!!
My next post will be of the return overnight trip to Algonquin, stay tuned!
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