….I see these at the cottage all the time but I don’t remember ever seeing one in my neighbourhood in the city
A Toad in the City
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Category Archives: Animals
Friendly Friday Photo Challenge – Looking Up
….a little late with this one but thanks to Something to Ponder for hosting this week’s challenge
Finding Art in Sidewalk Cracks
….part of the Sketchbook Revival
On day one of Sketchbook Revival one of the two visiting artists was Carla Sonheim. You’ve heard me mention her many times on my blog because I’m constantly taking on-line classes with her. For this particular session, Carla had us look for animals or objects in a photo of sidewalk cracks that she provided. I’ve done this exercise many times with my students when I was teaching. It’s a lot of fun and it’s amazing how many different things people can find. Here are 3 animals and one person that I found in the same photo.
More Backyard Visitors
…these are of the welcome variety
Time to play around with my telephoto lens again. I filled the bird feeder and it wasn’t long before the birds and squirrels came to visit.
Introducing Tober
….a couple of weeks ago I was cat sitting for my neighbour
I’m more of a dog person but I have owned a cat in the past and I usually like other people’s cats. About a month ago my neighbour was taken to the hospital and I was asked if I could look after the cat. This wasn’t the first time I had to do this so the cat was familiar with me. If I had known that Tober would be alone for two solid weeks I might have brought him to my house but I’m pretty sure that our dog Frances would not have been happy with that arrangement to say nothing of the fact that my husband is allergic to cats.
Every day I went into my neighbour’s house, brought in the paper and the mail and changed the cat’s water and refilled his bowl with fresh food. Out of guilt I stayed anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to keep the cat company. I started to read a book to pass the time of day but Tober made sure that I paid some attention to him.
I brought over a cat toy but Tober really wasn’t interested. He liked to be petted and have his ears rubbed but he also seemed to want me to speak to him. On my last day with him I took some photos of him.
Birds and a Beaver
…more photos from my daily walks
Now that the weather is warming up I’m seeing more and more birds. Living next to the lake has always given me lots of opportunities to photograph the waterfowl, even in the winter but now that the weather is finally warming up (for a day or so and then it gets cold again) the number of birds is definitely increasing and their activity level is on the rise as they get ready to mate and build nests. Here are a few more birds that I’ve witnessed on my walks.
Another critter that I discovered this evening was a beaver that resides in the pond over at Col. Sam Smith Park. I knew that there were beavers there but I’d never seen one before today. At first is just looked like a rock sticking out of the water but I knew it had to be more than that based on the excitement of two other onlookers.
Cee’s Black and White Challenge – In or On Water
….thanks to Cee for hosting the Black and White Challenge
In the warmer weather he’d be standing on water when the fountain is working.
A Surprise Visitor(s)
…this time last year we discovered a similar visitor in our backyard
Some of you may remember the racoon we found in our deck box last year. We managed to get a couple of photos before it scurried off and never returned. All spring we’ve had a heavy metal pan sitting on top of the box so we figured that would be enough of a deterrent to keep the racoons out of the box.
When our dog Frances started to get excited and agitated around the outside of the box this week my husband suspected that the racoon had returned. We took the dog back into the house and quickly the racoon escaped. When we opened the box we found another surprise.
The mama returned shortly after but she wasn’t sure what to do.
We called Animal Control and they told us to make the area very uncomfortable by playing loud music, especially at night, and throwing in some dog fur into the box. The one thing not to do is add moth balls because they are too toxic for the babies. Apparently racoons have more than one den site so the theory is that the mother will take her babies somewhere else.
We were all set to do that but my husband didn’t want to wait until nightfall so he started by opening the box all the way. Again the mama racoon scurried away. It didn’t take long before she returned and one by one she removed her babies and waddled across the deck and the backyard, up the chain link fence and into the neighbours yard. We were afraid she was going to move into our old garage or crawl under our deck but I guess one of her other den sites is in someone else’s backyard.
Silent Sunday – March 24, 2019
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Dogs of Blogs – Day 4
….thanks to Jessica for hosting Dogs of Blogs
This is Frances. She is a strange mix between a Dachshund and an Australian Shepard. We’ve had her for over 12 years and she has certainly slowed down over the years. Her favourite place in the world to be is at the cottage. She loves the water but now she spends more and more time sleeping in the shade.
Mama Cormier 