Eerie, Wonderous Morning Landscapes!

Yesterday was dismal and grey but a neat venture considering our cool large fossil rock find. 

This morning, we were awake at 6:30 again and by 7am we decided to venture out. Lucky we were not put off by the grey looking west sky view.  We saw the most spectacular atmospheric landscapes I think I've personally ever seen. On top of that, we got to see a muskrat, deer, and have blue jays land on John's hand. 

All in all, a spectacular experience all around, at Halls Rd., Whitby, Ontario this morning.

Confused Beaver

We have seen a lot of weird things down at Whitby Harbour in the past year of living near it and venturing down there. Sheep skulls with bullet holes in them, boats way out on the lake on fire, a kayaker having to be rescued, tons of swans, wild grapes growing, a resident mockingbird, all sorts of people fishing, lots of varied water birds, the snowy owl, a photo shoot in the old brick structure.....always Something interesting. It often can seem like the walk will be a boring one, then something freaky or neat shows up.

Tuesday of this week, not a lot seemed to be around. Then we spotted what looked like a brown shape swimming in the lake toward the shore. It was not a bird, we knew. We quickly ran back along the pier and jumped onto the sand and headed for the beach area where it looked like it would come up on shore. Then, this creature waddles out of the water. It looked like a groundhog. But....it was a beaver! It started walking towards me. I only had on my old manual 105mm portrait lens so I had ot keep refocusing to get some shots. The beaver seemed odd, acting strange, disoriented and we were not sure if beavers would be seen out in the open waters of Lake Ontario.  It turned and headed back to the water, and swam back out. Freaky.

Got some shots of the mockingbird too, which was surprisingly close that evening.

Bowmanville Waterfront

Had to go to the Clarington Tourism info center to drop off some things from my work. We decided to drop by the waterfront down there since we were out that way. It is different than Whitby. There are these old and in most cases, run down houses that face the beach. A lot of the beach is public land. A lot of weird things border the beach and shore. Some was interesting. Funny enough, people were fishing in the water and on the rock pier that lead out into Lake Ontario, and had a little light house on it. The rocks were covered in ice though....treacherous.

We saw a weird duck down there too. Maybe an Old Squaw/Long Tail.

A Post Just to Get to #14 Fast lol!

Ok, I never Used to be superstitious but it seems I am the last year or 2. I have to post something Just to make it 14 posts lol!

Here's some candles lol!

Here are some shots from years ago, of my son, that I want to incorporate different parts from, to get back to painting after a sort of semi forced hiatus for 18 months. I'll probably do it 20"x30", acrylic on canvas. Hopefully I could finish it to enter into the Oshawa Arts Association's juried show in May 2012 but doubtful. Yikes, next May isn't 2014 lol!

Krazy Kayaking Guy

Not really sure what was behind the decision, but this guy was unloading his kayak from his car roof at the harbour in Whitby. Now, nothing wrong with that in general but......this was March 3rd and winds were as high as 100km in some places in Durham. Ours were probably about 70km average at this time of day. 90kms was happening earlier in the day. The waves in the more sheltered inlet were ok, choppy, but yeah if you have experience.....ok. However, by the pier where the water was more open and lead right out into Lake Ontario, not so much. The waves were huge and dangerous at times.

We were walkign down by the pier, shooting some photos, when suddenly there is the guy, struggling in the waves and we saw him turn to head back to the safer area. He never made it. He ended up against the walls of the cement walk and being bashed against the wall. Some bystanders were reaching down to try to help him get up one of the metal stairs that extend down into the water. It was proving difficult. We started up to see if they needed help as we were pretty far back still. They got his kayak out as John was almost there and then we saw he was helped out. By this time, Fire Dept. was on its way. Hopefully the guy was ok.

Lottsa Birds Today!

Another partial day off before a late shift at a trade show my work participates in. Good time to hit Halls Rd. while the hoards of kids and birders are (hopefully) at school and work.
Sure enough, it takes a couple minutes, but the tons of chickadees and eventually the other birds, smell food and begin to appear. There were again, hundreds of bombing by your head chickadees. Then, the downy woodpecker shoots out of nowhere and is on John's hand.
I got some cool pics. One, a one second chance capture of one of the red squirrels as it climbed around on the tree in front of us. So cute!!!