Exciting morning!!!

Well I still don't have my camera back yet but after hearing what the weather was going to be like today, I just had to venture out this morning to see what I could find and wow it was worth the drive. I got to see five turkeys in a tree, a deer, a fox, a red tailed hawk, lots of horned larks happily singing in the sun, two snow buntings and most exciting was a mink!!! I watched it for about ten minutes as it hunted along a river and the surrounding bank. It was so cute. It had a full-fledged winter coat on which made him look really fat. It was going to the stalks of the plants and then crawling down along the stalks until just the tail was sticking out. I watched as its tail wagged for a little bit above the snow and then all of a sudden the tail would disappear and then the head would pop up. It would shimmy its way out and then run along the snow until it found a new hole to inspect for breakfast. I was hoping that it would catch something because I have never seen a mink eat before but no luck this time. I can't wait to head back to that area with my camera but I might not be as lucky as I was today.

The Pine Marten

Wow, what a weekend. We decided to drive up on Friday Dec.11/09 despite the storm and we got to Bracebridge and couldn't get any further due to a crazy amount of snow that fell. Hwy 11 was closed between Bracebridge and Huntsville. We stayed in a hotel there until morning. We waited around on Saturday in hopes that the road would open in time for us to get up there and it did. We got to Algonquin later than we wanted but once we got there I made my way towards the area where I heard had two pine martens. I couldn't see or hear a marten so I set up the tripod and waited. There were tonnes of chickadees, goldfinches, two nuthatches, a pine siskin, about six hairy woodpeckers, couple of red squirrels, two blue jays would pop by for some seed every now and then and some crows would fly by making there usual ruckus. After two hours of waiting I bird landed in the top of a tree near by. I couldn't tell what it was at first due to it being silhouetted by the sun but it kind of looked like a shrike. I stood perfectly still and waited for it to come closer. Finally it dropped down to the feeders and it was a female pine grosbeak. That was a new one for me. All of a sudden I noticed a large bird in the tree next to me so I turn to see a whiskey jack (gray jay) starring right at me. I managed to take a couple of pictures and then I heard a large rustle behind me so I turned and there was the marten moving towards the feeders. It saw me and was very curious. The lighting wasn't the greatest but I managed to get a couple shots and I am pretty happy with them. After it felt comfortable with my presence it ate at the feeders for a while and then made its way back into the forest. They are such an interesting animal and I feel privileged that I had the chance to see them.