Wood Ducks

Chester and I saw a pair of Wood Ducks the other day while walking along the Red River.  They were a long way away and it was a cloudy day, so the pictures aren’t the best – but they are just such beautiful birds that I had to show them. 

Wood Ducks May 25

Wood Ducks May 25

Wood Ducks May 25

So far on Africam today, we have seen Lion, Elephant, Wildebeest, Nyala, Waterbuck, Giraffe, Woolly-necked Stork. Kudu, Bushbuck, Black Eagle, Spurfowl, Side-striped Jackal and Duiker.  Click here to see all of the pictures from May 27.

Lions and Bears

This is my last post and pictures of the African Lions who have been at the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg here.  The pair and their 2 month old cub have been sent home to Ontario.

I had been hoping to get pictures of the cub when I was there earlier this month, but the cub was nowhere to be found, although both of the adults were out enjoying the sunshine.  I found out later that the cub had been pulled from them because the mom was unable to nurse him.  The baby was kept in the zoo hospital and was well looked after until the lions were sent away a couple of days ago.

I had been aware that the African Lions were just on loan while the zoo was waiting for the Asian Lions to arrive.  The Asian boys are now here and will be on display in a couple of weeks, once the enclosure is all cleaned and upgraded for the new arrivals.

This is the only Asian Lion pair (even though they are both males – brothers) that are on display in North America.  They apparently have smaller manes and are smaller than their African cousins.  I’m going to miss the African pair though, as they have grown up here.  My first pictures show the male with a very small mane, so he has really matured since they arrived.

Construction is taking up a large part of the zoo now.  I had no idea that the Journey to Churchill would be so large.  Right now a lot of area that used to have animals has been demolished and the animals have been moved to another location in the zoo or have left completely.

The Black Bears are vacationing in Alberta and will be back once their new home is ready.  We do have a couple Black Bear cubs, but for some reason, the zoo is planning on releasing one (Makoon) into the wild at only 5 months of age, which seems too young for him to survive.  The other one will be sent to another zoo at some time.  I have no idea how or why they have decided the difference in the 2 cubs.  They were both born in the wild, but one will live in captivity and one will probably perish at a very early age in the wild.

I am not up to date on any happenings with this, but I do know there is an online petition to convince Manitoba officials to send Makoon to a sanctuary in Ontario, where he could be kept for an additional year before being released.  This would give him a much better chance to survive.  The release is currently planned for June this year.  Click here to see more information on this and find a link to the petition.

My bear cub pictures are not great, since I had to take them through the bars of the cage he or she was in, but they are somewhat in focus in a couple of pictures.  The camera prefers to focus on the thick chain link instead of what is in between the links.

Bear Cub May 2012

Bear Cub May 2012

Bear Cub May 2012

Lioness May 2012

Lion May 2012

Lioness May 2012

Lion May 2012

Another Ducky Day

Chester and I found both Mallard and Wood Ducks on our walk along the Red River yesterday.  The Wood Duck did not cooperate much, but I managed to get a 1/2 decent picture of him.  The female Mallard cooperated, but I tried to use that extra zoom and ended up with blurry pictures.    I do have to be careful, but I used the post to support the camera and thought I had done ok until after looking at the pictures on the computer.

Mallard May 24

Mallard May 24

Wood Duck May 24

I hope the Wood Duck is standing guard over the nest and we’ll soon be seeing lots of ducklings.  

Back to Africam, where so far today we have seen Elephant, Nyala, Duiker, Fiscal Flycatcher, Giraffe, Waterbuck, Zebra, Kudu, Black Eagle, Hamerkop, Impala, Hadeda Ibis and Helmeted Guinea Fowl.  Click here to see the rest of the pictures from May 25th.

We can now take videos on the cameras and one of the sightings on the 24th was a Porcupine.  This is something we do not see every day.  You can see the Porcupine video here.  Look around there a bit and you will see some of the recent lion and leopard sightings also.

Rowers on the River and Chester

The rowers were out on the Red River in full force when Chester and I went for our walk yesterday.  They seem to treat the river the same as a highway and they keep to the right – so when I saw them, they were on the far side.  Once they get as far as they are going, they move over to my side of the river to return.  I don’t know if this is something that the rowers have come up with on their own – or if it is common practice among boaters and rowers alike.

Rowers May 22

There were these 2 long boats plus a lot of individual boats going this morning.   I’m guessing that this is a class of beginners.

It is now 10 weeks since Chester’s last seizure!  He spotted and stalked a bunny not far from home on our walk yesterday.

The Prey

They Prey Has Been Spotted

The Stalking Begins

Of course Chester has a leash on, but the leash distracted from the picture, so I removed it.  I don’t usual doctor pictures much, and I kept the original with the leash on in case anyone complains that my dog was off leash.  We have a leash law in the city for dogs and cats.  Since cats don’t normally walk on leash, its more of an indoor cat law.  That explains why we have so many bunnies in the city now.

So far on Africam today, we have seen Leopard, Kudu, Waterbuck, Nyala, Elephant, Impala, Starling, Terrapin, Zebra, Warthog, Black Eagle, Warthog, Cape Turtle Dove, Helmeted Guinea Fowl, Wildebeest and Side-striped Jackal.  Click here to see all of the pictures from May 23.

Mallard Pairs

I guess finding a good and safe place to nest must be difficult for Mallards (or any ducks for that matter).  The pairs set up territories and defend this area from other ducks – especially same species ducks from what I can tell.  I did see a Wood Duck beating up a Mallard duckling that got too close to her babies one time though.

I was watching a Mallard pair swimming along when another male Mallard chased them away.  I didn’t get a picture of the chase though – just the pair out for a swim.  Then I found another Mallard pair who have chosen (for one reason or another) to nest away from the river – although not too far.  They were hanging out at a little puddle on the street.  I don’t know if they were hanging out there because they couldn’t find a suitable space on the river or if they just prefer a residential nest. 

Mallards May 21

As I watched this pair, they crossed the street and went into a yard.  I had trouble getting better pictures of these two because we were fairly close and as far as Chester was concerned, they were as good as bunnies to chase.  This is one of the reasons, I seldom get bunny pictures too.

Mallards May 21

Mallards May 21

Chester watches the ones in the river, but doesn’t try to chase unless we are past the area where there is the large drop down.

So far on Africam today, we have seen Leopard, Black Eagle, Elephant, Nyala, Vervet Monkey, Kudu, Wildebeest, Zebra, Helmeted Guinea Fowl, Cape Turtle Dove and Duiker.  Click here to see all of the pictures from May 22.

Jail House Rock

We spent an enjoyable evening at Celebrations Dinner Theatre on Sunday.  As you may have gathered from the title, it was Jail House Rock and so many familiar singers from several years back were there in person to sing for us. 

Headlining the show were Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley, with appearances by June Carter, Dusty Springfield, Jerry Lee Lewis, Grace Slick, Johnny Rivers, Eric Burden, Nancy Sinatra, Roy Orbison and Bobbi Gentry.

The show was dated in 1967 and held at the Moose Jaw Jail, where John Storm, the Guitar Doctor was being held for not paying his taxes.

The shows at Celebrations are always a lot of fun and this one was no exception.  The music was great and the singers were wonderful!  The serving staff are always part of the show and their interactions are a lot of fun also.

To top it off, one of the meals offered was prime rib.  This used to be a regular selection there, but it suddenly disappeared some time ago.  For several shows, I moaned about it on the comment card, but gave up awhile ago, thinking it was gone forever.  This time I commented on how great it was and hoped it would be back again very soon.

The show is almost over with less than a week to go, and the next show – Starting June 1st is Ghostbusted.

I just looked at the schedule and realized that the shows only run for 2 months each now.  I’m sure they used to go for 3 months.  This explains why it was so crowded there on Sunday.  It has been awhile since I’ve seen a full house in the crowd, but with less shows, the audience will have fewer dates to choose from.  With fewer shows, they will run more in a year – instead of 4 shows per year, there will now be 6.  I’m not sure when this change happened, but it must have been very recent – maybe Jail House Rock was the first.  There is also very little down time in between shows now.  There used to be about 2 weeks and now it is just 6 days from when Jail House Rock ends on May 26th and Ghostbusted starts on June 1st.

Jail House Rock

So far on Africam today, we have seen Elephant, Waterbuck, Wildebeest, Impala, Nyala and Zebra.  We are still (im)patiently waiting for the outdoor camera to be installed and working so we can watch our Cheetah Salome and her cubs again.

Western Grebe

I managed to get my best pictures yet of the large black and white grebes that I have seen a few times and now I can say for sure that they are Western Grebes and not Clark’s Grebes.  The birds are very similar, but the one way that I now know how to tell them apart is that the Western Grebe has black around the eye and the Clark’s Grebes have white in that area. The black is a little higher on the top of the head on the Clark’s Grebes.  The Clark’s Grebe also has a bright yellow beak, where the Western Grebe has a yellow beak with a green tinge.  Until recently they were considered one species with a colour variation.  According to the range maps, the Clark’s Grebe does not come to this area though.

Click here for information on the Clark’s Grebe and click here for more information on the Western Grebe if interested.

Western Grebe May 17

Western Grebe May 17

Western Grebe May 17

So far on Africam today, we have seen Elephant, Zebra, Osprey, Black Eagle, Impala, Waterbuck, Oxpecker, Cape Turtle Dove, Nyala, Swainson Spurfowl, and Wildebeest.  Our Cheetah Salome has moved her cubs to another location, so we have lost sight of them for now.  Click here to see all of today’s pictures.

Critters

Finally after days of not seeing any critters on our walks along the Red River, Chester and I found a nice variety yesterday. 

There was a Robin, so high up at the top of a tree that I didn’t know what it was.  I actually thought it was a much larger bird – so maybe it is a giant Robin.  I was thinking hawk or falcon perched up there, but once I uploaded the pictures, I could plainly see it was a Robin.

Robin May 16

There was a Song Sparrow, singing on a bush close to the Red River – again too far away to plainly see and I didn’t even notice that some twigs were in between us, but he finally moved a bit for the last picture anyway.

Sparrow May 16

Sparrow May 16

You can tell that he looked at me here and thought “she’s not getting a great picture of me with these twigs in the way” – so he moved.

Sparrow May 16

Next, we saw a pair of Mallard Ducks.

Mallards May 16

And finally a Wood Duck came swimming by.  I haven’t seen much of the Wood Ducks at all this year, so it was nice to see him.

Wood Duck May 16

Speaking of critters – so far on Africam today, we have seen Elephants, Black Eagle, Gymnogene (African Harrier Hawk), Nyala, Kudu, Zebra, Waterbuck, Wildebeest, Giraffe, Impala and Helmeted Guinea Fowl. Click here to see all of the pictures from May 17th.

Chester

I want to thank everyone here who has been with me on Chester’s roller coaster ride with his seizures.  I know it may not be over yet, but today is 9 weeks since his last one.

It has been quite a ride and I was sometimes discouraged, but he remained happy and unconcerned himself – other than the actual seizure and the recovery time.

We still continue to have our walks along the Red River each morning so we can both look for critters along the way – Chester so he can stalk and chase them and me so I can take pictures of them.  His stalking and chasing does interfere with my picture taking, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

I took a couple of pictures of Chester yesterday, since there were no critters on our walk in the morning.

Chester May 15

Chester May 15

On Africam so far today, we have seen Impala, Baboon, Zebra, Oxpecker, Wildebeest, Giraffe, Elephant, Nyala, Kudu, Black Eagle (sitting on eggs), Blacksmith Lapwing, Lions and Salome the Cheetah with her cubs.  Apparently Salome took her cubs outside for some sunshine and fresh air today.  We couldn’t see them on the cam, but once they are outside more, the cam will be moved outside for us to watch them. 

Click here to see all the pictures from May 16th.

Back on May 15th, a Lilac Breasted Roller landed very close to the camera at Nkorho and I was able to snap a great picture of this beautiful bird, so I thought I would put that in here also.

Lilac Breasted Roller

Happy Birthday Angela

Today is my daughter’s 26th birthday.  Hard to believe how my life has changed since she arrived.

Happy Birthday Angela – hope you have a wonderful day and that each day gets even better.

We managed to find one Mallard Duck on our walk along the Red River yesterday.  He was just a bump on the log while he slept though.  I knew that log would be good for bumps. 

Bump On A Log May14

He must have been up late last night and never did look around while Chester and I were watching him.

We got back to our yard to find that the lilacs next door have now started blooming. 

Lilacs May 14

Lilacs May 14

Lilacs May 14

So far on Africam today, we have seen Nyala, Impala, Elephant, Warthog, Black Eagle, Kudu, Zebra, Giraffe, Waterbuck, Hadeda Ibis, Cape Turtle Dove, and our beautiful Cheetah Salome and her adorable cubs.  Before long we should be seeing a Black Eagle chick too.    Click here to see all the pictures from May 15th.