Loggerhead Shrike - Napanee Alvar

This weekend I was home in Kingston to see my family, and on Saturday, Dad, Caitlyn and I headed up to the Napanee Limestone Plains Important Bird Area on Nugent Road north of Napanee to see if we could find some Loggerhead Shrike.  Loggerhead Shrikes are an Endangered species in Ontario that favour alvar habitat, which are areas where the bedrock comes close to the surface, making soils quite shallow.

We drove down Nugent Road and after a bit of searching, a shrike flew right across the road in front of us and proceeded to put on a show as it foraged along the fence line!  We saw another one on our way back down the road!

 
We also saw many beautiful Eastern Meadowlarks singing away, like this one below.

We were pleasantly surprised to see this flock of 14 Wilson's Snipe fly over and circle us!

On Friday we hiked around Lemoine Point Conservation Area, and although it was a lovely day, we picked up 5 Black-legged (Deer Ticks) on our clothes!  As you are probably aware, these nasty little creatures can give Lyme Disease, so it is a good idea to do a thorough tick check of your entire body after coming home.

Deer Tick - somehow this one eluded capture for over an hour and popped up on Caitlyn's leg while sitting in the living room!

 When I arrived in Kingston on Thursday night, the moon was nearly full and the sky was clear.  I decided to try out the moon setting on my new camera and was really impressed! You can see lots of the craters too!  This was handheld, bracing myself on the car hood at full zoom.