| A beautiful day for a walk in the park. |
Saturday June 30 to Tuesday July 03, 2012. Swan Lake Village area, Markham, Ontario |
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| Swan Lake Park June 30, 2012 |
| Mute Swan |
| Juliet with her six cygnets swimming rapidly torwards the shore. This was on the north shore of Swan Lake. The cygnets have grown a lot in the last 5 weeks |
| Mute Swan |
| Juliet leading her cynets west along the north shore of Swan lake. The other two cygnets are trying to catch up. |
| Robin |
| I've been seeing Robins doing this for the last few days. Fluffing their feathers way out and I think it is a way for them to let the air circulate closer to their skin and help shed the excess heat. In the winter they use a similar method to retain heat and the difference appears to be that the fluffing in winter is done with all the feathers locked together so that they keep heat and an insulating layer in. In summer they are spreading the feathers out and apart allowing air to circulate in. |
| Swan Lake Park |
| Looking across the park from the hill to the north west towards the entrance to Swan Lake Village on the east shore. |
| Swan Lake Park July 1, 2012 |
| Mute Swan |
| Juliet, six cygnets and Romeo on the beach at the Landing. Romeo and Juliet make sure they are between the nice photographers and the cygnets - just in case. |
| Mute Swan |
| The six Mute Swan cygnets waiting just off the shore for mom to join them. Dad was already in the water ahead of them making sure everything was ok. |
| Swan Lake Park July 2, 2012 |
| Mute Swan |
| Romeo had just finished checking the beach for predators and actually ran off a couple of small ones. Now the kids have the all clear and most of them are going full steam for the beach at the Landing. One cygnet wants a better look at the shore and rears up to look over the heads of it's siblings. The cygnets have been stretching their little wings lately as this one is also doing. |
| Baltimore Oriole |
| Two very poor shots of a male Baltimore Oriole. Very difficult to get a good shot of this bird as it is very cautious. The shot was taken at the Point lookout area in the woods to the north west. |
| Great Blue Heron |
| This shot of the Great Blue Heron was taken from the path down to the point lookout area. We were near the top of the path and were looking down at the open water between our shore and the Island to the east. |
| Ringed-Billed Gull |
| Caught this picture of one flying by overhead on the north shore. |
| Mute Swan |
| Juliet with some of the cygnets as they slowly leave the beach at the Landing, where the cygnets were napping, and move along the north shore looking for some juicy plants to eat. |
| Swan Lake Village July 2, 2012 |
| Rabbit |
| Back home and we were sitting on the back deck to enjoy the cooler evening air when we saw this cute rabbit on the grass. When we looked a little closer we saw another one go into the neighbours garden to nibble some flowers. Our neighbour tells us that these two have been visiting her garden every morning. |
| This is the other rabbit that was in the garden. He decided to run off and join his friend in the grass across the street. I think he was a little nervous of Cindy and I taking all the pictures of him eating the flowers. |
| Swan Lake Park July 3, 2012 |
| Robin |
| A young robin sitting on the Swan Lake Village fence behind the Swan Club. Note the speckled breast instead of the adult red breast. |
| Cedar Waxwing |
| At the first lookout as you ascend the hill we looked down at the shore and saw this beautiful Cedar Waxwing eating some berries. |
| Chipmunk |
| We saw one chipmunk on the hill as we climbed it and then when we were climbing the path from the lookout at the point we saw another running down the path straight towards us. This fellow had a full load in his cheek pouches and was concentrating so hard on getting it to one of his secret caches that he completely ignored us and came withing a few feet of us before he turned off into the grass. |