Good Morning Presqu’ile!   Oh how I love you!

There are so many reasons to love Presqu’ile Park, no matter when you visit.You can show up early on a hazy fall morning, and observe as Presqu’ile’s beaches and offshore islands start to come alive with sound and activity.

Migrating shorebirds start to wake up, and begin their daily search for food.

If you sit or lie down very still, the shorebirds will walk right past you as they are feeding.   It is endlessly entertaining to watch them.

A fall drive around the park may reveal a Ruffed Grouse, foraging at the side of the road for breakfast.  Look at those gorgeous feather patterns!

As seasons change and the weather turns colder, the park becomes very quiet.    I think winter is when Presqu’ile really shows its magic.

Little by little the lake freezes over.   Depending on the wind and the waves, the lakeshore looks different every time I visit in the winter, and each time is spectacular.Presqu’ile is famous for its ice volcanoes.   When the wind is just right, water from the waves will spray up through these holes in the ice.  I like them best at sunset, when they are lit up like some alien landscape.   Snowy owls love to use the offshore islands to hunt. Even in the dead of winter there is so much beauty to be found at Presqu’ile.Spring comes to Presqu’ile, and with it, the busiest time of year.A walk along the boardwalk in Jobes Woods reveals little sprouts of green, and some unexpected company.Look who’s watching you now!Early spring also brings the arrival of waterfowl, who are great show-offs for their potential mates.   What characters. As the ice moves out of Presqu’ile Bay, huge “rafts” of waterfowl can be seen feeding along the ice edge.Spring also brings bugs- lots of them!   But isn’t that perfect timing? The migratory birds are on their way back north.

Lots and lots and lots of them!.   How exciting to be at the park when the trees and bushes are just full of colourful birds singing and eating and flying about.  I am very grateful to have met some very experienced and knowledgeable birders at the park, who can help me learn about all these birds, their names, and their habits.     The diversity of species at Presqu’ile is amazing!

One day I got stuck out in a thunderstorm down by the lighthouse so went into the duck viewing shelter to get out of the rain.   In the tree next to me were so many different kinds of little birds I could barely keep track of them.   Above is a little Yellow Warbler shaking off the rain.Oh, and “fallouts!”   A fallout is when weather or wind conditions cause many thousands of birds to come to the same area all at once.   I will never forget being at Owen Point early on a May morning this year, and experiencing a fallout of shorebirds.   They were everywhere the eye could see, in flocks in the hundreds, soaring around, and feeding on the beaches.

I think I took over 1000 photographs that day!    It was so great because the Ontario Field Ornithologists Young Birders were at Owen Point that morning too, and this enthusiastic group of young people got to experience this spectacle as well. I don’t think any of us will ever forget it.

Did I mention you could see a fox at Presqu’ile?   And if that’s not enough for you…How about watching a fox walk down the road and then having a deer cross right in front of it, say “Good Morning” and carry on.   Is this the Bambi movie? I don’t know.    Presqu’ile is so cool.On the first hot hazy days of the year, the momma snapping turtles will come out of the mud and start to lay their eggs at the side of the roads.     A couple of years I have been down there on just the right day and seen 4 or 5 of these beauties all in the same trip.  I love their long sharp claws!Of course, Presqu’ile is for recreation too!   Walter loves to swim and run on the rocky beach.    The sandy beach is for the shorebirds, and of course all the campers and day trippers that flock to Presqu’ile in the summer.No matter when I visit, Presqu’ile always has something beautiful to offer.    I’m never disappointed.

Presqu’ile Provincial Park is located on the north shore of Lake Ontario, just south of Brighton.   Check it out!

The post Why I Love Presqu’ile! appeared first on Leslie Abram Photography.

First,  perhaps the most surprising one: the Belted Kingfisher!

Last month my husband was talking to our neighbours who are in the process of building  their house.    As they all stood there chatting, they could not believe their eyes when a kingfisher flew in front of them, and right into a pile of topsoil they had in their backyard.

The Kingfisher had flown into its nest! Upon further investigation, we found out that Belted Kingfishers make their nests in tunnels between a foot and 8 feet long in the sides of vertical banks of soil.  The male and female work together to dig it out in the spring. Who knew?  Not I!

We had the unique opportunity to see the five little fledglings when they came out.   They could not fly, but were hopping around pumping their tails up and down, and rattling just like adult kingfishers do.

I didn’t stay long, as I knew the babies were waiting for food.  Adult Belted Kingfishers are quite wary of people (I have never actually gotten a good photo of one) so I fired off a few shots of these little ones and then carried on.

These little birds are fascinating! I found out that baby kingfishers have very acidic stomachs that break down the bones and exoskeletons of the fish and invertebrates they eat.   But as kingfishers get older, their stomachs become less acidic, and they actually regurgitate pellets to get rid of the hard parts of what they are eating, quite like an owl would.   I learned so much from this opportunity.   What a thrill.   They were adorable, in a kind of prehistoric way (pteranodons?).

Everyone knows that groundhogs live under the ground. No surprise there.  I have a special place in my heart for groundhogs, as they were the first animal I photographed when I got my telephoto lens.   I well remember lying on my stomach on the grass in Centennial Park in Trenton, and watching this little groundhog family go about its business. Luckily, they were the ones covered in flies, not me.  The telephoto lens allows me to get a great close up view ( count the flies!) of different types of wildlife and watch their behaviour, without being right up next to them.

After hibernating in their underground burrows all winter, groundhogs give birth to about half a dozen little ones in the spring, and the babies stay with their mothers for a couple of months. They gorge on food throughout the spring and summer, and return to their burrows to hibernate after the first frost in the autumn.

Although we most often see these charming members of the squirrel family on the ground, or peeking up from a hole, they are actually very good at climbing trees, and are also capable swimmers. The one in the photo above lives right beside a pond under a big pile of old logs.

Hey Big Mama! If you see a snapping turtle out at the side of the road in the summer, it is most likely a female.   Snapping Turtles much prefer to be in the water, and usually only come out to lay their eggs.  They like to lay their eggs in loose soil, such as at the side of a road, or in a garden.

These beauties hibernate in the winter, under the mud or silt at the bottom of ponds or streams.  At our house each year, a snapping turtle emerges from the mud in our stream,  lays her eggs in our garden, then climbs the 5 foot high page wire fence to get to our pond, where I assume she spends much of her summer.   When she reaches the top of the fence, she teeters back and forth a bit flailing her legs around, and then falls onto the other side. The first time we saw this, we couldn’t believe it!    And of course when my kids went to school and told their friends that a snapping turtle could climb our fence, nobody believed them.

Years later we finally got a photo, but I couldn’t find it for the life of me when I was writing the first draft of this blog. Somehow my Mom and Dad still had it, so after my Mom saw the blog she sent the photo back my way.   Saved!   See- snapping turtles CAN climb fences.

Snapping turtle nests can contain up to 50 round, white eggs.   The incubation temperature determines whether the baby turtles will be male or female.    I am not sure which this baby is, but if she is a girl, she will not be ready to mate and lay eggs until she is at least 17 years old.   Both male and female snapping turtles can live into their 70’s. Snapping turtles look prehistoric because they are- the snapping turtle as we know it has been around for 40 million years, and its close relatives walked with the dinosaurs.

So there you have it- 3 very different creatures who spend part of their lives under the earth, along with countless other animals we have never even heard of.

For more on Belted Kingfishers see the Cornell Lab of Ornithology pages

Visit the National Wildlife Federation site for more on Groundhogs

For more on Snapping Turtles you can visit Ontario Nature

The post Under the Earth appeared first on Leslie Abram Photography.

Hi!

Let me admit right here I am unabashedly IN LOVE.

Bath time

Mama and Papa fox have been raising  6 little kits in a quiet neighbourhood by the water.  The babies were born in a den under a garden shed.

Ever watchful Mama Fox

The first night I went to see them it was raining a bit, and the foxes were out playing around under the trees.   The mother fox was grooming them and watching over them carefully.

What’s up?

A couple of the kits came out to the side of the road and took a look around.

Did I mention this is the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life?   Watching the foxes is like watching a combination of a dog and a cat.    What do you think?

Papa Fox with dinner

Last night the weather was lovely and I went back to see the foxes one last time.   I waited over an hour, and nothing happened at all until just before dark.   All of a sudden the father fox went running across the field with dinner for the kits.   Then the fun began.

So curious

Once they had eaten, the little foxes started to run all over the place.   One even came out to the side of the driveway where I was sitting.

Stare Down

The father fox headed back out to go hunting, but not without first giving me a good long stare, and even barking at me twice.   I did not know foxes bark.   It was just like a quiet “woof” a dog might make.    I had been sitting still on the other side of the street from where the foxes live this whole time, and stayed still while this happened.   It seemed like the fox was cautious, but certainly not afraid.

Here I am

I was then treated to about 5 minutes of watching one of the kits play peek-a-boo out of the drainage pipe that runs underneath the road.   It popped in one side and out the other!

Oh my goodness.

What’s on this side?

Found something tasty!

Sneaking out the far side of the pipe, the little fox then ran back to its den, and all was quiet once again.

I have to say this is one of the best experiences have had observing and photographing wildlife.   I still cannot get over the fact that I was so privileged to witness this beautiful fox family.

Bye for now!

I dedicate this blog to my friend Bill, who knew I would be over the moon about these foxes, and showed me where they are living.

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