Day 19.287: Morning at the cemetery

Exile #2 and I seized the day with a pre-breakfast walk at the cemetery today. Here is some of what we saw in the morning sunshine:

We saw some birds too - a good variety albeit nothing very unusual. I'll save them for another day.

Day 19.284: Wordless Wednesday: fall

Day 19.280: Birds at/near the beach

Our nature group gathered at Fortunes Rocks Beach in Biddeford this afternoon. We spent some time at the beach and at two nearby ponds. Here is some of what we saw.

Bufflehead

Ring-billed gulls

A fly walking on the surface of the pond - likely from the genus Hydrophorus

Our crew today

Northern pintail with mallards

Green-winged teal

Admiring the Montauk daisies (and the insect life attracted to them)

Wonderful bursts of color in the foliage all around

Blackpoll warbler in a crab apple tree

Blackpoll warbler

Ruby-crowned kinglet

Dunlin

Northern gannet

Dunlin with white-rumped sandpipers

Merlin

He sat on top of this rock for a few moments, then a wave dislodged him

White-winged scoters

Red-breasted mergansers

Surf scoter

American herring gull

Day 19.278: Bradgate Park

I joined three walks with the dogs at Bradgate Park - on Monday morning and afternoon and on Tuesday morning before we left. Here are a few pictures.

Such a beautiful place. 

Day 19.262: Oh, Canada…

I forgot to mention that after the late night concert fun on Sunday night, I started Monday very early to fly to Toronto for another short work trip. 

I’m a bit out of practice at international travel apart from visiting the UK. Funny to think that almost all work trips were international travel before the Exile. Anyway, I made it and then waited at international arrivals for my colleagues,

…before driving a little way out of the city to the location of our meeting. The area is full of strip malls, but I managed to find a pocket of nature to walk to with my camera:

The walk took me past this house-sized house advert.

A closer look revealed it was hiding a - perhaps less attractive looking - house:

…and then we found a little town center with a little more character for dinner:

Today was meetings all day and tomorrow I get another early start to head home.  

Day 19.257: Things with wings

Have you ever seen a dragon fly?

What about a dragonfly?

These are from our Saturday afternoon nature walk:

Black-tipped farmer

Meadowhawk (possibly autumn meadowhawk)