Saturday 24 January 2009

Winter in High Park


[1]



[2- Northern Cardinal - male]




[3- Northern Cardinal - female]


The Northern Cardinal is a common and popular bird living in a variety of habitats including city parks and back yards. It mates for life and will return to the same breeding area each year. Mated pairs communicate with complex songs. Their preferred habitat is forest edges, swamps, hedgerows, suburbs, and anywhere with small trees and shrubs.



[4- Wood beyond the pond - click to enlarge]



In the summer the beavers are busy enlarging their beaver lodge and reinforcing the dam to make the pond larger.


[5 - Southern end of Grenadier Pond]







[6 - Looking west from south end of Grenadier Pond to Ellis Avenue]



At Ellis Avenue and Queensway is the location to catch the Long Branch Streetcar to return to your destination or a cafe for a hot drink.


Source for birds: A Field Guide to the Birds of North America by Michael Vanner, pp.236-237.

Photo Credits: [1][4][5][6]-Grant MacDonald CC=nc-flickr, [2][3]-gmnonic CC=flickr.

26 comments:

Joshua said...

wow, yet another place I wish I was at.

Philip said...

Great post Babara
so nice to see the difference between the male and the female love the snow shots

Merisi said...

What a wonderful excursion into a winter wonderful populated by the beautiful cardinals!

Would you believe that there are no Cardinals here in Austria? I miss them.

Anonymous said...

Barbara I have only just caught up with the Premio Dardas award that you passed on to me. Thank you. I am indeed tickled pink. This post of yours is very interesting as was the previous about Hoarfrost, the atnmospheric photograph looked quite spooky.

Raph G. Neckmann said...

What beautiful birds! They must add such vivid points of colour in the winter landscape.

David Cranmer said...

Snow looks so beautiful from a distance.
- A Native New Yorker

alex keto said...

The sight of all that snow would get my kids excited about moving to Canada. They are already thoroughly jealous of their cousins in Massachusetts.
Last year in Maryland, we had one itty bitty snow storm and this year, so far, nothing.

pattinase (abbott) said...

It should only snow on spots like this where cars don't blacken it. Lovely.

Charles Gramlich said...

I just saw a couple of male cardinals at our feeders this morning.

Rune Eide said...

We don't have the bird called cardinal, and around here we don't have snow at the moment either. So I have had to settle for flowers and gulls today.

Thank you for sharing with us what we don't have!

Teresa said...

Hi Barbara, I love the winter snow scenes.

Can you watch the beavers in the summer? I think it would be a fascinating sight.

Linda McLaughlin said...

Lovely pictures.

Linda

Steve Malley said...

Oh, but those photos make my heart ache for Minnesota.

Of course, the winter wonderland seems more pleasant through the lens of memory and from the comfort of a *gorgeous* summer morning... :)

Travis Erwin said...

Beautiful shots. Especially love the colors in that last one.

Barbara Martin said...

Josh, you don't have far to travel for a week's vacation.

Philip, the snow should mentally make you feel cooler since you're in the thick of summer.

Barbara Martin said...

Merisi, I believe the only cardinals that went to Europe were as caged birds before the Migratory Birds Act of 1918.

The Northern Cardinals range of habitat is in south eastern Canada from the Great Lakes, along the St. Lawrence River to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. They are also in the United States from central area to the east coaast, and in all of Mexico and the Caribbean.

There are also other sub-species of cardinals.

Barbara Martin said...

Pam, you are very deserving of the award, and thank you for visiting the frozen north.

Raph, the birds also have a distinctive sound that my lovebirds have picked up on. In the summer when I can have the windows open they converse with each other.

Alex, the winter season isn't over yet. There could be a snowstorm in the spring works.

Barbara Martin said...

Patti, but that would take all the fun out of driving, and the shoveling, and the slipping and sliding while you walk.

Charles, the birds are lovely to see. Thank you for feeding your wild feathered friends.

RuneE, I have no idea why Norway isn't covered in heaps of snow.

Barbara Martin said...

Teresa, I will have a new camera by summer and will make one of my semi-monthly trips to see if I can catch a beaver in the water. They are very shy creatures.

Linda, thank you.

Steve, have you been doing any hiking or tramping in the hills?

Barbara Martin said...

Travis, I only just noticed there was a 'pink' sky, and I had thought it was a black and white photo.

Shelley Munro said...

Beautiful pictures, Barbara. The male cardinal is certainly a striking bird.

Cloudia said...

Kona on the Big Island (Hawai) has Cardinals for some reason. Another fine post. aloha-

bindu said...

Beautiful pictures. I didn't know about cardinals mating for life ... thanks for the info.

Barbara Martin said...

Cloudia, perhaps someone brought a couple of breeding pairs over to the islands and let them go. They thrive in warm places.

Bindu, they blend in so well with bushes and decaying leaves that sometimes it is difficult to spot them, especially the female. The male you notice right away with the tiny flashes of red.

Sara at Come Away With Me said...

Hello, I just stopped by from Brian's blog and want to say I love the photo of the red cardinal! Gorgeous color. We don't have those where I live; wish we did!

The hoarfrost photo in the previous post is fantastic too. And I'm loving the snow. Very pretty.

Barbara Martin said...

Sara, welcome and thanks for stopping by. Browse to your heart's content.