Perhaps you can sympathize with this dog, frustrated with winter because it means all the sticks are buried in snow:

He’ll have to wait a little while yet. Although on the retreat, the snow and ice at Britannia Bay still have some fight left in them. They’re currently in that unpredictable state where one footstep might rest on the surface while the next sinks to the knee. This plucky dog who joined me for a while didn’t seem to mind the drifts, or the water in the small creek:

He had no trouble paddling across, but his young master ran afoul of a “sinkhole” deeper than his gumboots were high. This little creek is the same one that provided some interesting ice formations in previous winters, but no such luck this year.

The best sight of the day was likely the Cardinal here (same as above). He She (thanks, f.) made for a cooperative subject, and kindly tolerated my snooping for a few minutes :

Looks like I interrupted at lunchtime, too. The joy of getting close to birds is in the listening — and not necessarily to the song, but to the quieter vocalizations, the scrabbling of feet on bark, and at last the surprisingly heavy thwip-thwip-twhip of the wingbeats at take-off.

Although the sky was grey, I decided to head down to the waterline today. The goal of the trip was to see if anything interesting had washed up during the spring thaw, and I’m glad to report that beyond the usual riparian fare there were a few novelties to delight this beachcomber. The most interesting find happened to be the most colourful; what started off as a bit red cloth (buried in drift) turned out to be a flag:

Depending on which way you fly it, the flag could be either the Russian Tricolour or the Serbian National Flag. I’ll admit, though, that at first glance I wondered if it might be a French Tricolore, being just across the water from la belle province and all. Now, I just left the drapeau where I found it, even though the more considerate course of action likely would have been to rescue the sorry flag, tidy it up, and fold it. It seems slighted somehow, just lying there. But Britannia Bay is a haven for seafarers, and so a lot of the flotsam and jetsam along the shore is nautical in nature. Perhaps a wandering Russian or Serb will find it and take it home.

I also came across some more “organic” remains: a thoroughly dead seagull (sorry, no picture!), as well as a collection of shells (presumably left by a muskrat or some such creature),

…and a strip of animal fur.

One last image, a discarded baby soother:

Aside from the flag, the colour palette of today’s pictures is universally bland — with any luck things will brighten up a bit over the next few weeks.

On Tuesdays I take a friend’s dog out for a mid-day walk, and today I thought to head down to the water after the good pup “Oliver” finished his rounds. The last couple of days have been cool and overcast, but given the generally warm weather and rain over the last couple of weeks I was surprised to see that there are still some patches of ice out on Mud Lake. The buildup tends to be along the southern banks, which makes sense since they’re the ones most shaded from the sun. Meanwhile some creatures are doing all they can to capture as much of its warmth as possible:

These two Painted Turtles appeared to be facing each other on their separate logs. Many ducks were seen roving the shores, these all paired off except for one lonely fellow. As usual the Chickadees and Crows were in abundance, but I was most happy to see the White-breasted Nuthatches at work again:

For some reason I’ve come to love these birds. They’re great to watch as they nimbly make their ways around tree trunks, tentative yet industrious, with flashes of curiosity.

There were at least a couple of them in the area (east side of Mud Lake). I usually see them along the south side of Britannia Bay, but haven’t ventured over there yet this year. I did go down by the river though, over by the Britannia Yacht Club, and took photos of the water:

Today’s beach-combing yielded the usual odds and ends: an old running shoe, two empty bottles of Corona, and various shreds of plastic bags (which, at a distance, can look somewhat bird-like). But I’ll let you know if anything interesting washes up.

As previously, the most active species on the Bay today was the Kiteboarder.

Of course, I found a nearby sewer pipe to be somewhat more exciting:

That’s just one of the pipes that drain into Britannia Bay. Most times we’ve passed by this particular one there hasn’t been any water flow (it presumably provides some kind of overflow outlet), but today was a notable exception. The results:

1. Certain nearby stretches of ice that I traversed easily just the other day are now weakened, perhaps due to increased waterflow underneath,
2. Some neat ice formations were created on the nearby trees, obviously due to adjacent gushing, and
3. The air was noticeably colder (bitterly so) around this area, perhaps due to the extra moisture.

Interesting to note that the camera and my fingers froze solid (and thus stopped working) at roughly the same time. Although the Internet put the temperature at -10°C, I’m pretty sure it was much colder than that. Good thing for pockets.

Anyhow, it’s cold but I guess we’re all doing what we can to get by. Of course, there’s only so much room in front of the heater.