Monday, October 8, 2007

Birding With My Cousin Ruth

Us Identifying Birds Online
The Swamp

Northern Pintails


Mallard



Eastern Phoebe




Geese Landing





Mallard Sunning






Praying Mantis
Today my cousin Ruth and I went birding and saw many birds and animals. Including hard to find species like a pintail and a Praying Mantis, but I'll talk about that later.
First I got all ready for birdwatching and packed some snacks, then my cousin Ruth came and picked me up. She drove me to a neighbourly famous swamp. We walked down there where a few pairs of Mallards and what Ruth thought was a female Wood Duck. Then we got back in the van and drove to they other side of the swamp, there I spotted the pintails. I took several pictures of them but only posted one on this blog.
Then we drove off to another Grand River Trail. Here it was blazing hot so we didn't stay very long but still saw a fair amount of birds.
After that we had a snack and went to a place Ruth goes to often. It was 8km. but we only walked a short distance. I saw many critters and small animals there including Praying Mantis's! All of a sudden many bikes came riding by us so we went off the trail and almost steped on a Garder Snake which slittered away so fast that I could'nt take a picture of it. So we continued walking and saw a few signs about Global Warming. As we walked tons of species of grasshoppers suddenly started hopping on our legs. We then turned around and saw many butterflies inluding Swallowtails. But it was so hot that we had to go home.
I had a great time!
Thank you Cousin Ruth.