Canada Day at Otter Lake

Alex, Jen, Erin and I went up to Alex's family's cottage at Otter Lake Quebec for some Canada Day fun in the sun! We had a blast! There was lots of food, beer, sun, water, mosquitos and people! It made for a great combo. Here's a bunch of pictures for the weekend.

Sunrise on Otter Lake


Bert



Dustin




Jen


Marley


Sophie




Alex


Erin



Laura


Nick


Winston or as Sophie calls him "Winkston"

Happy Birthday Alex!

Erin came back from her weeklong conference in Ottawa on Emotionally Focused Therapy (sounds intense doesn’t it?) and Jack, Winston and I met her at the train station. After a bunch of kisses, we headed off the Alex & Jen’s for yummy birthday BBQ. We arrived at their place (it’s new by the way… and it’s fabulous… if you’re ever there… be sure to check out the garden!) to a big fun group of people. The beers were good, the conversation was fun and food was fantastic! It was great to meet a bunch of Alex’s relatives. I also enjoyed watching the kids play a little bit of Grand Theft Auto on the Xbox… although it’s not a very appropriate game for kids. (*grin*) Beating up prostitutes is BAAAAD! (*grin*) Happy Birthday Alex!

daCar is in daShop

What do two British tourists in Canada for their 2nd day and driving a motorhome on Princess Street have any thing to do with me? Well, it’s obvious. They crashed into my parked car. Erin was having a massage and had parked the car legally in a nice parking spot on Princess Street. Near the end of her massage she heard a car alarm go off. Minutes later when she was paying her bill, a man showed up at the door asking if anyone owned a blue Mazda Protegé5. Erin cringed. The driver side of the car was almost completely destroyed. The estimate for repairs came in at $5,000. OUCH! So this car has very bad luck. Readers may not know that I bought it in 2002 and three weeks after, my girlfriend at the time (not Erin!), smashed it to the tune of $3,800. So with this accident, we’re up to $8,800 of repairs. Yikes! Luckily, no one has ever been hurt in these accidents other than the vehicles… and I hope there are no more accidents in the future. Knock on wood!

Amazing Lyrebird

For those birdning enthusiasts who read my blog, be sure to check out this video with David Attenborough on the amazing Lyrebird from Australia. Very cool indeed! Turn on your speakers!

Star Wars: New Emperor Photos!!!

Who is the REAL Emperor from Star Wars? Vote now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

White-breasted Nuthatch at Lemoine's point. Click the pic to make it bigger and you can see his little tounge in his mouth even. Cool!

Ok, the horse has a rider! WILD! HAHAHAHAHA! Oh my goodness. Will the hilarity ever end? See a previous posting on this topic.

Jack and I went birding this morning at Lemoine Point and we had a great time. 3.5 hours and we saw lots of fun birds. We got a few pictures too. Here's a very cute Yellow Warbler. We saw about 12 of these. Cute!

Yellow Warbler in flight @Lemoine Point

Boblink - male - @Lemoine Point

Song Sparrow @Lemoine Point

Winston about to fall asleep. He is 11 weeks old now and he weighs about 7 lbs. Check out his ears which are starting to pop up. Too cute!

Tulip in the garden.

Male and Female Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

Male Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Female Downy Woodpecker competing for the suet.

Male Brown-headed Cowbird

Female Brown-headed Cowbird

Rose-breasted Grosbeak - Male

Eastern Towhee in my backyard! How cool! Never seen one of these before!

Jackie it's your birthday!

Jackie it's your birthday!
Happy Birdthday Jackie!
You're one year old today!
YEAH!

   -Love mom, dad, stirling and winston.

Red-winged blackbird calling to his mate.

Male goldfinch calling to his buddies.

male and female house finch at the feeder.

Male and female cardinals on a wire.

White crowned sparrow. Notice the lack of white throat and yellow nares that the white throated sparrow sports. He's cute.

Three male goldfinches feating on niger seed. It looks like they have full summer plumage now. Nice and bright yellow!

Look at the beast in my backyard. He's either a crow on steroids or he's a raven. I'm voting for raven because if they made crows this big, I'd be scared!

Getting "bizzzy" in the backyard!

WOW! Look what dirty spectacle I found in my backyard tonight! Downy woodpeckers mating! (*hee hee*)

Jack & Winston!

Jack and Winston are so cute together!!!!!

Recent Birds in my backyard!

Grackle! I had seven of them in my backyard at once tonight!

House Finch! So Cute!

Northern Cardinal - male.

Blue Jay!

Red-winged Blackbird

Male downy woodpecker

White throated Sparrow ruffling his feathers!

The Detroit Red Wings have been eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs!

It's very sad. I'm going to be depressed for 3 days. 'nuff said.

Eagle Eye Cam

Ok, you've got to check this out. A guy in BC has a webcam in a Bald Eagle's nest over 120 feet off the ground. A crazy opportunity to get up close to this amazing animal... complete with sound! http://www.infotecbusinesssystems.com/wildlife

Here's a before and after shot of me editing this image to remove the offending branch. Is the new image believable? What do you think?

Goldfinches in the backyard. They still have their winter plumage (grey/white colour on the body).

So I am home sick .. yet again! It's a new world record. Four colds in 4 months. Amazing really. I definitely need an Immune System Upgrade!!!!! Anyway, to cheer myself up, I took this cute picture of Winston playing in the backyard.

Wolfe Island is a birder's paradise!

S we spent two days on Wolfe Island over Easter and we took the opportunity to break out the camera and see what we could catch on film. First of all, for the record, we saw twenty different species of birds!!! Here's the list: mallards, red-tailed hawk, house sparrow, turkey vulture, Canada geese, tree swallow, red-winged blackbird, blue jay, downy woodpecker, ring-necked pheasant, grackle, mourning dove, herring gulls, common merganser, starling, killdeer, cormorant, caspian tern, ring-billed gulls and, believe it of not, a snowy owl! WOW! Here's a bunch of pics including other non-feathered animals we came across in our island travels.


Lets kick it off with this creepy vacant house!

A ring-tailed pheasant.

Red-tailed hawk. We saw 7 of these birds of prey in 2 days!

A cute garter snake.

Turkey vulture!

Donkey drinking.

I call this one: The Scarecrow.

Two cows.

A Snowy Owl who's not yet packed his bags to move north. What a beautiful bird!

Winston is HERE!

There's a new addition to the family! An 8-week old brindle Boston Terrier. He's sooooooooooo cute.... and he was the last of the 13 puppies the breeder had this spring. His name is Winston. Cute eh? (*giggle*)

He's sooo small!