Family Nature Walk
The weather was great again this past weekend, so we went for another nature walk in our nearby natural area, Edworthy Park. We saw (and heard—“wick! wick! wick! wick!”) oodles of Northern Flickers:
I quite like this shot I got mid-flight; it is not until you see their showy colours and white undertail “flickering” when in flight that their name makes sense:
We saw more robins:
We saw a very tame downy woodpecker; it allowed Gareth to get quite close:
The black-capped chickadees were even tamer, landing right on Jim’s out-stretched hand, even though we had no seed on us. (BTW, that’s the new-ish Children’s hospital on the hill in the background; it’s supposed to look sort of like Lego blocks)
Gareth attempted the same, and the chickadee came close, then swerved away. You can just make it out, between 2 and 3 o’clock from Gareth’s head:
We spent a lot of time looking closely at the nature around us, even where there were no birds:
Daegan found a patch of moss:
And we all found lots and lots of woodpecker holes. We’re looking forward to seeing who moves in in the next few weeks to raise their young:
On the way back to the car we stopped at the playground. Gareth met some new friends and joined their project of building a little teepee out of small sticks (sorry, no pic!), while Daegan showed us that he knew how to pump himself on the swing now:
And he had Jim twirl him round and round on the tire swing:
It was a much-needed afternoon of fresh air and fun after a tough week for all of us with a stomach flu. Life is good!