Cats and Cardinals

We have cardinals living in the trees around the new Anchovy World Headquarters. They have no fear. I often see them on low branches and on the ground. They should, however develop some fear soon. As you know we also have a pride of felines around the place. That's Jerry and Shadow in the picture. The cats are having a ball in the back yard. It's like we moved to some kind of kitty-cat amusement park. I don't know if they've seen the cardinals yet, but I know they've heard them. Most of them have already chased squirrels, but fortunately, squirrels are very very fast. Hopefully, the birds will stay in the trees.

Great Blue Heron

I had a chance to watch this Great Blue Heron hunting this morning. What a beautiful creature. I took this shot on the Grand River above Fergus. The Heron was looking for unsuspecting brown trout in the shallow flat for lunch.

Salvelinas Fontinalis attacked

First, it shouldn't be any surprise to you, dear readers, that my brother was named after a fish. In fact, he was named after a brook trout, Salvelinas Fontinalis. It's true. Mom named him after a trout and me after an anchovy. I'm not bitter though, just saltier.

It turns out that Sal was attacked by a bird. Here's his story:

I went back into the woods and was again attacked by my buddy the
hawk. I got a good look at him and he is a northern goshawk. They are
reputed to be very aggressive nest defenders and apparently attacking
humans isn't uncommon. Recommendations for those nut cases who climb
trees to peek into their nests include heavy leather clothing and
helmets with visors. This guy took 5 runs at me yesterday with a
couple of them missing me by 6 inches after i had ducked. I had the
camera out and actually got 2 shots of him in mid attack. In the first
he launched from a branch about 12 feet up and was inbound at about 70
km/hr headed right at my face. In the second he started about 40 feet
up and came almost straight down at me I would guess at about 80
km/hr. This would be the view a rabbit would get about 1 second before
it died. Both photos are a but fuzzy because the auto focus couldnt
keep up with the speed of the thing and in both cases I had started to
bail out already when i pushed the shutter button. Lots of folks see
hawks in the distance diving straight down at prey. Not many get to
see what that looks like from the rabbit's perspective. The photos
arent very clear but I was pretty happy to get them.