Sunday Trees – 387

Posted on April 14, 2019 by Mama Cormier

…thanks to Becca Givens for hosting Sunday Trees

Birds and a Beaver

Posted on April 13, 2019 by Mama Cormier

…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.

New Flower (April 13, 2019) – Sumac

Posted on April 13, 2019 by Mama Cormier

….there’s something quite lovely when you look closely at these decaying sumac flowers

An Evening Walk

Posted on April 13, 2019 by Mama Cormier

…today was a beautifully warm day and before dinner I needed to make up some steps to reach my goal

No wind, the setting sun and temperatures hovering around 10 degrees Celsius were ideal conditions for an evening walk through the neighbourhood. I headed west and entered Col. Sam Smith Park where I opted to walk through the naturalized area and over to the marina. Here are a few of the sites I encountered along the way.

Can you guess what that lump in the pond is?

When I returned home I prepared a simple supper of eggs, avocado and tomatoes.

Cee’s Black and White Challenge – In or On Water

Posted on April 12, 2019 by Mama Cormier

….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)

Posted on April 11, 2019 by Mama Cormier

…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.