Wildlife Camouflaged, The Best Of First Observation Deck & Deceived

Anna Lozyk Romeo — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 03:42:51 +0000

‘Fast, fast the flying Great Blue Heron! Over there, look over there!‘ – she directed me.

‘Here do you see Green Heron? Come here. Can you see him?‘ – she pointed out.

The Great Blue Heron landed on the tree behind the leaves and branches. No chance to take a single photo. For love of me I couldn’t see a single hopping Green Heron in the direction she showed me.

Green Heron

Now I had her back. ‘Matthew go, go fast tell the lady we found the Green Heron‘ – I told him. She came and we both started to take photos. She was very nice, moving away and letting me take photos from her spots.

She had much smaller camera. I felt bad, so I offer her my camera on which I had telescopic 100-400mm lens. The lens I have is like binoculars, you can zoom in on objects to see them closer. ‘I show you something‘ – she said as I was trying to hand over my camera. ‘Here look in my viewfinder‘, and I did.

A viewfinder? Who uses viewfinder to view photos these days. Obviously her. I looked inside. I couldn’t believe. Her Green Heron was closer than mine. ‘Ouch how did you do that?‘ – I asked surprised. Well, she had camera with lens extender and with her current lens she ended up with telescopic zoom, probably 500mm. And who said that the bigger is the better.

Killdeer

That was deceiving. Her too – she was a pro in everything, photography and wildlife. She was also right about looking through viewfinder. During bright day light it is hard to see pictures on the LCD view panel, which she obviously did not use.

Time passed, and I was still at the first observation deck. We drove today, so that was a short walk. But we had fun when we started to see all the camouflaged wildlife in the pond, the Green Heron, Killdeer and Sandpipers especially. The pond was abundant in Mallard and Wood ducks.

Sandpiper

Oh, no I just remembered -I have not seen Canada geese today.

So we were having a great conversation. We talked about wildlife and photography, and everything else. Looked like her main thing today was the Green Heron. I never had an opportunity to shoot Sandpiper, so this was my lucky day to get nice collection of close ups. He was hovering all over and looking for food. It was definitely a juvenile Sandpiper.

The Green Herons are much smaller than the Great Blue Herons. We saw them catching frogs and fishs for lunch. It is interesting to watch them fish, especially when they stretch their necks and do not move for periods of time. A very common characteristic. When the time comes, with a split of a second the herons dive their heads for whatever they were looking for.

Also, I don’t know why the would do that, but they like to perk up and all their feathers on the head stand up in the shape of Mohawk. They also have this amazing ability to sway their body side to side vertically from head to toe, just like a fish when swims. A very graceful movement.

Now speaking of ducks. They were everywhere. Speaking of turtles. They were everywhere. At some point I saw seven turtles (Red-Eared Sliders) surrounding one duck that was sitting near by.

Mallard

Matthew was hovering around the lady. Greeting everyone passing by. Talked to all the children that showed up at the deck. At some point Matthew was hovering around lady’s lunch box on her back, and I know why?

Mallard Again

We continued to talk. It was time for the introduction. ‘Matthew meet lady Patricia‘ – I said once we introduced ourselves to each other. ‘What do you have there?‘ – Matthew asked and pointed out to her bag. ‘It is a mint-chocolate candy‘ – she replied, and hand out one each. So this is why he was hovering around her bag. What happened to my shy boy? The small and shy boy he once was.

Yes, Mallard Again, But Why Not?

It was almost lunch time, and I was still at the first observation deck. More visitors arrived. At some point it must have been 10 of us standing, at least four groups. I can see that children do really enjoy this boardwalk, and they will for many years to come.

Pond's Architecture

By the time we left, the Great Blue Heron was gone and we didn’t even notice his departure. I never made beyond the first observation deck, but we had great time conversing with Patricia, observing wildlife together, photographing and socializing. It was one fun day today.

Town of Aurora Section Of The Nokiidaa Trail Link Is Now Completed, A Strange Encounter

Anna Lozyk Romeo — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 03:19:46 +0000

The fence is down and access is finally granted after many months of a hard work. Without any notice, last weekend the boardwalk trail link was opened to public. The Nokiidaa Trail link is semi-officially now linking the St. John’s Sideroad boardwalk to the Tim Taylor Newmarket trail, and of course completes the Town of Aurora section of the Nokiidaa Trail.

Did I miss the ribbon cutting ceremony? There are probably small details still on the go for the boardwalk to be complete, so may be the ceremony is still coming in the near future. I requested the grand opening information from the Town of Aurora blog, but I have not received any response yet. It is awfully quiet there, and I mean it.

Boardwalk Observation Deck

I have decided to investigate on Monday, and it was worth going there despite a long walk and heat from the sun. Once on the boardwalk, I noticed how nice it was to be away from the road – it was quite. The road noise on the McKenzie Marsh boardwalk on the St. John’s sideroad is unbelievable, especially around the lunch time. Not just for my benefit, but for the environment sake, I think people should start bringing lunches to work.

Fallen Trees

The boardwalk is also very close to the water. I didn’t notice if there was any passage under, but there must be. However, if we get heavy rainfall, I wonder how will that affect the area and the boardwalk. From what I understand there was some kind of environmental study done on the construction of this trail link, thus the reason for current design of the boardwalk. I am sure that nothing got overlooked.

Feather Art

I am not sure what to call it – a wetland, swamp or pond. However, some interesting things to notice – a lot of dead and fallen trees. In addition, the water is fully covered with Duckweed, making the sight seeing very green. Kind of spooky with all the dead trees sticking out. However, dead trees are good for birds to perch on and good for us photographers, at least we can see them.

Canada Goose, Bath Time

Despite of all the construction activity going on in the past few months, the life around the boardwalk seems well adapted, especially the Canada Geese and Great Blue Herons. The Canada Geese participated in the construction of the boardwalk from the minute the first posts went into the water, and now they are enjoying taking a bath. Great Blue Herons enjoy perching on the dead trees and they probably like it a lot because they are closer to the water so they can fish.

Great Blue Heron, Almost Cameoflaged

That day I think I did more socializing than taking pictures. I met nice gentleman who also is into photography, similar equipment and much better than mine. We talked a lot about birding and different places to spot new species. Well, now I know that I don’t have to go far to find new birds. Our conversation was slightly interrupted by lady who fell off the bike few meters away from us. She gave us a hand sign of being okay.

More Boardwalk

Now, you think that our adventure stopped here. No, not yet. At some point a lady biked by us and commented – ‘It is like in the Louisiana‘. I don’t know why, never been there so cannot confirm. I continued to take pictures when a man passed by us. He was wearing hood on his head. It was almost mid day and it was hot – so I guess any head protection helped. Matthew waved at him and said Hi. The man looked down at him and kindly nodded his head. He was going towards St. John’s sideroad. The Louisiana lady was biking back. She stopped and this is when I started to grow goose bumps on my body.

A Strange Encounter

‘If I were you, I watch out for this man.’ – she said.
‘Yes, he is kind of strange looking.’ – I replied.
‘Take a picture of him.’ – she said noticing my equipment in the wagon.
‘May be stay closer to the road, where people are.’ – she continued.

We both looked in his direction. He stopped at the St. John’s sideroad and turned around. We kept looking at him for few seconds. We both stayed silent and my heart started to pound. I looked around, there is no single soul when you needed, just me, my Matthew and her, and of course the man was now heading in our direction.

My imagination went wild. ‘May be …’ – I started to tell her what I was going to do just in case, but nah. I kept thinking, this is my opportunity to use some of my martial art moves, a kick, a punch, the famous flying spinning kick I could never do. My head was full of crazy maneuvers, may be its time to use dragon style. Or not, I liked snake. Or why not monkey, anyone can do monkey. I was getting ready, I was indestructible. I was a champion. Bruce Lee will be proud, proud, proud of me.

‘Are you okay?‘ – she interrupted my moment.
‘Yes, I think so.’ – I said.
‘Do you want me to walk you to the end of boardwalk?‘ – she asked.
‘How nice of you to offer.’ – I acknowledged.
‘No I will be okay.’ – I replied.
‘And which way you going.’ – I asked.
‘Towards Newmarket.’ – she replied.
‘Okay then, I think I will be okay.’ – I said it, and she biked away.

The man passed by us again right after the lady left. Matthew greeted him again, he smiled again and we moved on. There was nothing to be scared of at all, but it really does take two people to blow things out of proportion. I did not get to use my moves, but that is completely fine, because I have not practiced for many years. I don’t even know if I can kick or punch at all.

The gentleman who talked about birds came back, and I shot some more pictures of birds, this time a Killdeer. No, no body kill the deer. The name is related to the call of the bird – I couldn’t hear it, but if you listen I think their call is kill deer. They are very friendly, just like sea gulls, and very interesting to watch.

Killdeer

I wish everyone enjoyable time on the newly constructed Nokiidaa Trail Link and don’t let your imagination to run wild as mine did otherwise you will never get to the other side. I will be back to see the rest.

Living in Aurora, Town of Aurora, Ontario » Killdeer

Wildlife Camouflaged, The Best Of First Observation Deck & Deceived

Town of Aurora Section Of The Nokiidaa Trail Link Is Now Completed, A Strange Encounter