I went out with my friend Nigel to explore the trails at Heart Lake Conservation Area. With the melting snow and the ice formations, it was a difficult trek along the slippery trails.
Bird Feeder
It was a challenging hike and I did not come away with many photos. These little birdhouses were the most interesting things on the trail, in my opinion.
Reeds
I did try to find other things to photograph, but inspiration was not my friend this time around. I hope my next outing will be more productive.
My friend Nigel and I went out for a hike at Lynde Shores today. The trails at Lynde Shores are full of wildlife, most likely because they have several feeders on one of their popular trails. The Chickadee trail is only 500m long. On most winter days, you can find wild turkeys, chickadees, nuthatches, squirrels and more on this trail.
Goose Stretch
Under the walking bridge by the parking lot, ducks and geese were congregating in the river below. I got lucky when this goose decided to wash his feathers and put on quite the display doing so.
Mourning Dove
Starting on the Chickadee Trail, we spotted this Mourning Dove sitting on one of the trail fences.
Caught Red-Handed
The feeders are quite popular, and you won’t just see birds here. This squirrel was taking advantage of the free food. Do you think he looks a little worried that we’ve discovered him inside the feeder?
Red-Breasted Nuthatch
We stopped a little further down the trail and decided to take out the seed Nigel brought with him to feed the chickadees. Little did we know that this Red-breasted Nuthatch preferred to be feed by hand. When we put the seed on a nearby bench, to be able to free our hands to photograph, he scolded us from a branch above us. It wasn’t until we put the seed in our hand that he stopped scolding us and came down to eat. Someone’s a little spoiled.
Red Squirrel
We continued hiking, eventually coming to LeVay’s Lane trail, which looped us back towards the parking lot. On LeVay’s trail, we found this cute red squirrel, who couldn’t decide if we were friends or foes. After overcoming some of its fear, it came a little closer, and we were able to get a few photos.
Four days ago the World Health Organization announced that this new virus that has been circulating, is now considered a pandemic. Pandemic – something we hope to never have to deal with in our lifetime is now here. My employer has asked everyone to work from home as of end of day today. How long will this last? No one truly knows but we all hope its over soon. In order to get out of my head I decide to get myself out into the world. A world that for some reason still seems to have no snow. Winter, where did you go?
So today I’m back in Claireville with my friend Nigel to photograph some nature.
Nuthatch
As we walk through the marsh we are greeted by a pretty nuthatch who seems to be curious enough to get a little closer. I, of course, have the wrong lens for birding but I figured I can alway crop in if its not too far away. And that’s exactly what I did with the above photo.
Corridor of Trees
As we walk back to the main road we take a path through this corridor of trees. As silly as it is for us to be planting trees in rows since the natural world does not do this, it does make for a great photo. Especially when you have soft golden light shining through their branches.
I’m out hiking again with my friend Nigel and this time we are in Guelph hiking the Bear Den Trail. Nigel found out about this trail from the Loops & Lattes: Caledon Hikes book. It’s supposed to have some wacky Alice in Wonderland type boardwalk but first we have to hike most of the the 6.6 kilometre trail until we find it. I am a little curious to see what else we find along this trail.
Beware of Poison Ivy
This is the only trail I’ve been on that has a sign warning people to beware the poison ivy. Is it going to jump out an attack us? Is it going to creep along the ground and reach out with its roots to infect us with its poison? LOL Absolutely love it.
Rock Wall
We came across some small stone walls during our hike. I found out later that these were built by early pioneers who farmed this land. The trail was pretty easy to hike with a lot of flat areas but we got a little confused when we ended up at the scout camp and had to turn around. We did find the right path pretty quickly after that. Have you noticed that we seem to be having a lot of navigation issues lately?
Crooked Path
Towards the end of the hike we finally came across the weird and wacky boardwalk we had read about. This “whimsical” boardwalk (as described in the book) zig zagged here and there with no rhyme or reason. It even went “through” a tree. Very strange and fun to navigate, especially since it was a little slippery.
End of the Trail
Coming off the boardwalk we turned onto the last stretch of the path before we were back at the start of this loop. Another fun trail to check out just watch out for times when it might be slippery – that boardwalk could be dangerous!
My friend Nigel and I headed out to Terra Cotta Conservation Area for a late fall hike. Our plan was to hike the Terra Cotta Loop (found in the Loops & Lattes – Caledon Hikes book) a 6-kilometre trail that follows the perimeter of the park. We did have some snow recently as well so we were hiking on some slushy paths.
Snowy Terra Cotta CA
The photo above is the only one I really liked from this hike. For most of the hike we were concentrating on figuring out where the heck we were. After a wrong turn and a back track we did finally find our way back to the start but I have a feeling that we may not have followed the path from the book exactly. Either way we had a good time even with our little adventure..
