The Month of May

May is really a nice month in Ontario. I think it may even be nicer in (Southern) Ontario than it is in Nova Scotia. I realize this may be deemed heresy by many of my readers, but you should remember that I still have Nova Scotia up 11 to 1.

During the month of May in Ontario:
1. It is often quite warm. Nova Scotia had a windchill of -4 this past weekend, and snow earlier in the week. Southern Ontario was mild (or warm!) all week.

2. There are a few really good places to observe bird migration. I realize this doesn't matter to most of you, but it matters to me. I'm going to talk about birds some in this post, but I have pictures too, so some of you might not mind.

3. It's really green. The Carolinian forest in Ontario is lush and green, and it seems particularly nice after a long winter of grey. Nova Scotia's forests are a little slower to put out leaves & flowers, and many are not quite as lush.

Well, those are enough reasons for me. Remember, Nova Scotia is still up 11 to 1.

This month Amanda and I have been able to make it to a few parks, and have run into some interesting things outside. I will explain them with the help of a few pictures.

Our Yard
We let the cats outside occasionally these days. We try to go outside with them so that they don't kill things (they spend alot of their day thinking about killing things) or get themselves killed (by dogs, coyotes, fox, raccoons, or other cats). Even so, they have managed to catch a few things while outside, including a bunny, a snake, several small rodents, and a cowbird. They killed some of the small rodents, but everything else survived (the cowbird probably lasted another day). Oliver does most of the successful hunting, but Franklin has managed to catch a mouse. The bunny and the snake were the most surprising. Both times we found Oliver trotting across the yard with the victim, still alive and hardly hurt, in his mouth.

Here is a picture of one of the bunnies in our yard. They're not around as much now, but we did keep Oliver inside for a few days after his bunny incident.


Here is a picture of the snake that Oliver attacked. He was in pretty good shape, but doing his best to play dead when I picked him up. I think he played dead well enough that Oliver got bored and went somewhere else. He did take off when I put him in a safe place though. He was a big one!


Finally, here is a shot of Franklin that I like. He is as full of energy as ever, and often heads for a tree when he goes outside.


Beyond our yard
We made our now second annual trip to Point Pelee during the hiking day weekend. We blogged about it last year too. It was a pretty good time this year. Lots of migrating birds (a few pretty special ones), nice forest, and lots of nerdy birders to watch. Amanda likes watching the weirdos around us just as much as the birds.

Here is a shot of Amanda and my dad wandering through one of Pelee's forests.


My dad decided to have a nap on the beach, and I'm sure he made a few people wonder if he had just fallen over and died, or actually intended to lay the way he did.


A Yellow Warbler, which is a pretty common bird in Southern Ontario.


A nice-looking male Scarlet Tanager. We also saw a Summer Tanager while we were there, which is a rare visitor to Ontario. Note how fuzzy the picture is--really high end camera equipment is made for taking pictures of birds.


The bird nerds. We did our best to avoid areas that looked like this.


This wasn't at Point Pelee, but...this picture is an attempt to demonstrate trouble with finding birds once there are leaves on the trees. In that picture you'll see the head of Hooded Warbler that I saw in St. John's Conservation Area. I knew he was there because I heard him. This is a rare bird in Southern Ontario, and it is considered threated in Canada (mostly due to habitat loss).


We went to Long Point Provincial Park this month as well (more birding). We didn't see many birds there, but it was a nice park. It had pretty nice beaches for being on a lake. Here is a picture of my beautiful wife in the tall grass at Long Point.


And one of me looking for birds.


Amanda playing in the sand on the beach (which was a little chilly).


This is a common snapping turtle I ran into at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton.


Finally, I'll leave you with a few pictures of birds that I took while I was bird banding this spring. Most of the birds pictured here are 'neotropical' migrants, meaning that they spend their winters in South/Central America or the Southern states, and spend their summers breeding in North America.

A nice-looking male Indigo Bunting.


A Ruby-throated Hummingbird. We don't put bands on these guys, but she got caught in a net so I took a few pictures of her.


A Blackpoll Warbler. In the warbler world, these guys are really quite special. Blackpoll Warblers undertake the longest migration of any warbler, with some birds traveling 8000+ kms from Alaska to Brazil. What is even more amazing is that they spend a large part of that trip over the Atlantic on their fall migration--and they can't swim. An average Blackpoll flies 3000kms over the Atlantic, meaning that they fly nonstop for up to 88 hours before reaching land again. Glad it's not me!


A Blue-winged Warbler.


A male American Redstart.


A young male Cape May Warbler.


A Chestnut-sided Warbler.


A Philadelphia Vireo.


A Wilson's Warbler.


A Magnolia Warbler. This is either a female or a young male.