Tuesday 14 July 2015

Wildlife in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Animal Tales

There is plenty of wildlife in Canada and I've only seen a very small part of it so far.

I'm visiting Ontario, staying in the suburbs of the City of Hamilton. There are numerous parks, gardens and of course miles and miles of waters edge.

I haven't seen a bear (yet) actually hoping I don't see one, well not up close anyway. I would like to see a moose and I'd love to see a Mountie on horse back, but so far I've only seen the police in a car or on a bicycle. I'm not sure a blue one counts.


The squirrels here are black, not grey or red like I'm used to seeing and they are very active and not at all frightened by humans or traffic.






There is a wide variety of birds including Turkey Buzzards but I've not really focused much on taking bird pictures. I saw this Robin at Cootes Paradise and there were some Red Cardinals in the gardens, but moved too quickly for photo's.



I did get several shots of the Canadian Geese, which usually I ignore as I saw them frequently in South Africa and even out on the lakes in the desert in Dubai, but seeing them in Canada makes them seem a little more interesting.







I've spent most of my time trying to catch a picture of a chipmunk, I've had more failures than successes.



tah dah...got one


I've seen plenty of Butterfly's and of course dragonflies with all this water.





At the Royal Botanical Gardens they provided nets and fact sheets and challenges for children to complete and there was a Malaise trap for collecting flying insects with minimum impact of the environment




There were numerous bug boxes with instructions 'DO NOT TOUCH' and it was nice to see an interactive bug box with larva present, with opening doors and head phones so you could listen to different insect nosies.




The family I'm staying with have two dogs and just before my arrival they changed their dog food. Both dogs were moulting excessively for a week. A google search showed thousands of complaints, so the food was changed back and the dogs stopped shedding within 3 days. Apart from the hair loss there were no other changes in behaviour and they don't seem to be bothered by the change of diet again.



13 comments:

  1. What a great collection of Canadian animals and I am so glad you got your chipmunk photo. I also really like the dragonfly and it is like some-one painted it's wings with paint splodges!
    Many thanks for adding these great pictures to #AnimalTales.

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    1. i had literally 100's of missed shots of the chip junk and as many blurred dragonfly shots

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    2. But you got there in the end - yay for digital cameras!

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  2. Wow, some really amazing shots there. I'm a big fan of butterflies but the dragonfly is also brilliant. #animaltales

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    1. the butterflies were first shot and i actually thought I'd missed them

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  3. These are some lovely shots, so many different and interesting one's. I do like the dog pictures. That's pretty scary buying a food that causes hair loss etc. glad it was changed back

    Angela x

    Angela recently posted Yoda’s Antics Week 8 http://wp.me/p5XRN6-1SN

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    1. those poor dogs the difference changing their food back was immediate

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  4. I love that little chipmunk.... great photo set and post. #AnimalTales

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    1. thanks Ian, he was tricky to get a shot of

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  5. Lovely photos. Canada is one place I would like to visit and now I want to see a black squirrel, so I really have to go.

    You've got me thinking about dog food too, we've recently noticed that our German Shepherd seems to be moulting excessively and I do believe we switched brands not so long a go.

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    1. I had no ideas Squirrels were black also, never given it any thought

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  6. Love the butterfly and dragonfly photos best of all. It's strange to see a black squirrel though I've heard they've been spotted over here now too. I did see a moose when I went to Canada but pleased to say no bears either :)

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