First trip to Grass Lake...

Below are a couple shots of my first trip to Grass Lake this spring with brother Brian and my new camera.  Brian had seen some talk on a nature blog about Sand Hill cranes that were nesting in a swampy area not far from our house and he thought I might like to come along.  By the time I had arrived Bri had already located one of the birds and we began taking shots.  We searched for the nest that we had seen pictures of on the internet but to no avail and Brian had to go home.  I had about another hour so I decided to do some exploring in the far right of the lake since we had heard some calling from there. I found nothing here except for a scared Canada Goose and some malards but enjoyed the treck none the less.  As I made my way back something caught my eye through the trees.  Sure enough,  there through the trees I could just see a sandhill crane sitting on what appeared to be a nest.  Was I ever excited but a little disapointed that Brian missed the first opportunity since he was the one who had gotten me to come.  As I approached I got a few shots of what I thought was the male, before he flew away.  Moma flattened out and tried to hide but eventually raised her head and relaxed.  What an amazing first trip to grass lake. But many more were to come as I will share in future posts...

Red winged blackbird singing his heart out

Hey, where'ed ya' all go?...

This seemed to be the general practice of the Canada geese here.  We are so used to the tame city ones we forget that they are wild animals.  This may have also been because they were nesting at this time.

Presumably male sandhill crane in flight

Scared moma

Sandhill Crane

Creatures...

Found this guy shivering on the shore in Collingwood while on our yearly anniversary trip a couple Aprils ago.

Dock spider at the lodge

Took a detour on the way home from Rock Lake Lodge to check out this osprey nest and were rewarded with these shots.  Not the clearest zoomed in all the way with our old camera but acceptable.



On a walk this spring I found these acorn caps which fell or "grew" with a newly sprouting plant. A bug also thought it would be a great resting spot. I, thought it was a great photo opp...

Flowers etc.

A couple misc. flower shots...





Hoar Frost

One morning several years back, I got up to everything covered in hoar frost.  I had about half an hour of picture taking and about 15 minutes after, the frost was gone.

Mushrooms etc.

Though some of these are not the best photos, I thought I'd include them just to show the many shapes, sizes, colours and textures of mushrooms there are.