Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: tree-top

Wow, there are only 8 new photos showing from My Contacts and it is already 11:15 am.. Strange. Is everyone busy or is it yet another Flickr glitch? This morning, I have added 6 photos from our trip to Pt. Pelee, Ontario, and Tadoussac, Quebec, in May 2018. I am trying to add any images in roughly the order in which they were taken. These 6 photos were all taken at Rondeau Provincial Park on 8 May 2018, Day 2 of our amazing trip. Formed in 1894, this is Ontario’s second oldest Provincial Park. A delightful place! We were at the Visitor's Centre over lunchtime and an absolutey delicious curry soup was available. As for marking my photos on my map, I have no idea exactly where we saw what, so I will place all the Rondeau photos in one general location, mainly to show where Rondeau Provincial Park actually is - NE of Pt. Pelee, further along the coast. Also, a few of the photos may have been taken while driving to and from the park, back to our hotel in Leamington. "Rondeau protects one of the last remaining stands of old growth Carolinian Forest in Ontario. Apart from protecting 3254 ha of Oak Savannah, Carolinian Forest, Dune habitat, and Coastal wetland, Rondeau is one of North America’s best examples of a Cuspate Sandspit. Formed by the erosion and deposition of sand and gravel, the Rondeau peninsula extends into Lake Erie, and forms a protected bay which is important habitat for a variety of species at risk as well as providing many recreational opportunities. The peninsula, combined with the open bay, attracts migrating birds throughout the spring and fall, resulting in some of the best bird watching in Ontario." From Rondeau Park website. rondeauprovincialpark.ca/about-rondeau-park/ Four friends (four of the six friends with whom I went to Trinidad & Tobago in March 2017) and I left Calgary airport on 6 May 2018 and flew to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. There, we rented a van and did the long drive to Point Pelee for four whole days of birding. We stayed at the Best Western Hotel in Leamington, which is close to Point Pelee National Park. It fills up very quickly (with birders) and our rooms were booked many months ahead of time. Our four days walking at Point Pelee were very interesting and I, for sure, saw various things I had never seen before, including my very first Raccoon : ) Various friends had told me that the Warblers at Pelee were fantastic - so many and numerous species, and so close. Have to disagree with the "closeness" when we were there! I don't have binoculars as cameras are enough for me to carry around, so I know I missed all sorts of birds. Though my Warbler count was lower than my friends' counts, I was happy to at least get a few distant photos of some species. So many of my shots are awful, but I will still post some of them, just for the record of seeing them. Some photos are so bad that I doubt anyone can ID them. We covered several different trails at Pelee, and also drove to a few places somewhat further afield, such as Hillman Marsh. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the magnificent barn at this Conservation Area! I was in so much pain that I wasn't sure if I would be able to walk across a grassy area to take a few photos. However, it was so unusual and beautiful, that I reckoned I could try and move forward inch by inch - or crawl (ha, ha) if necessary. Another place we enjoyed was Rondeau National Park. One amazing and totally unexpected sighting just outside Pelee was a very distant male Snowy Owl sitting in a fieldl!! We walked every single day that we were at Pelee and the areas mentioned above, seeing not just birds, but a frog/toad, snakes that we suspect were mating, several Painted turtles, a few plants (including both white and red Triliums, that I had never seen growing wild before, and a couple of Jack in the Pulpit plants). The Friends of Point Pelee have food available at lunch time that one can buy. They also have a shuttle bus that one can take from the Visitor Centre all the way to the southern tip of Pelee, which is the most southern part of Canada. They have birding walks with a guide each day (there is a charge), but we walked the trails on our own, except for one morning. On 9 May, we spent the morning from 6:00 am to 11:00 am on a birding walk at Pelee with guide, Tom Hince, whom we had contacted while we were still in Calgary. At the end of our stay at Point Pelee, we had to drive all the way back to Toronto, from where we flew to Quebec airport. From there, we had a four-hour drive to Tadoussac on the coast of the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is such a delightful, small place and in a beautiful setting. One of our friends, Anne B, and her husband have a summer cabin further along the cliff from the few stores and port. She had invited the four of us to go with her from Pelee to spend a week at her beautiful home. What an absolute treat this was! We were able to meet some of her relatives, too, who also have built cabins out there. We were looked after so well, and we were able to see and photograph all sorts of birds and other things. We made several trips to see different places, including the Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Area, where we were able to see endless thousands of Snow Geese. Breathtaking! We also had two boat trips from Tadoussac - one was a whaling trip in a Zodiac, where we saw very, very distant Beluga and Minke Whales. The Belugas looked almost like the white wave crests - but they were Belugas. The other boat trip was to the Brandy Pot Islands, inhabited by thousands of Razorbills and Common Murres, which were new birds for us, and Double-crested Cormorants that were nesting in tree tops. That long boat trip (in a tiny boat named Juno) started off in the rain and dark clouds and it was soooo cold! Thermal underwear, layers of fleece and toque and gloves were needed. This day was arranged through a contact of Anne's and it was so much enjoyed! Of course, we anchored a distance away from the island and sat there and ate our sandwiches and took endless photos. It is forbidden to land on the island at nesting time. Anne, I can't thank you enough for organizing this holiday for us all and for inviting us to spend a week at your cabin. You worked so hard and it was so much appreciated by each and every one of us. Thank you for doing all the many hours of driving, too! Janet and Anne, thank you so much for compiling the lists of birds seen each day at various locations, and posted to ebird. These entries will be a huge help while I try and sort out where we were and when, and what species we saw. Miss your cookies and muffins, Janet, that you kindly made for us in Tadoussac, to go along with the wonderful meals that Anne planned and made for us : )

I wish I could remember where friends and I went on our last morning, 20 March 2017, on the island of Trinidad. When I Google the names of two bird species that we saw only in that area, the name Wallerfield Airfield comes up, so maybe that is where I took two of the three photos posted this morning, 27 February 2018. If I remember correctly, this photo of Orange-winged Parrots (?) was taken at the Asa Wright Nature Centre, very early that morning, before we set out for the drive. The photo was dark so I had to lighten it, giving me a grainy image. We saw several new species, mostly seen from a long distance. My photos of them leave a lot to be desired, but I am posting them just for the record. This adventure was only the second holiday of any kind, anywhere, that I have had in something like 30 or 35 years! The other holiday was a wonderful, one-week trip with my dear friends from England, Linda and Tony, when we went down south to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons in September 2012. I have had maybe half a dozen weekends away, including to Waterton National Park, which have helped keep me going. Six birding/photographer friends and I decided that we would take this exciting trip together (from 12-21 March 2017), spending the first two or three days on the island of Tobago and then the rest of the time at the Asa Wright Nature Centre on the nearby, much larger island of Trinidad. We decided to take a complete package, so everything was included - accommodation at both places, all our food, and the various walks and day trips that we could choose from. Two of my friends, Anne B. and Brenda, saw to all the planning of flights and accommodations, which was so very much appreciated by the rest of us. I could never have done all this myself! We were so lucky with our flights, as we were just in time to get Black Friday prices, which were 50% off! What a time we had, seeing so many beautiful and interesting things - and, of course, everything was a lifer for me. Some of these friends had visited Costa Rica before, so were familiar with some of the birds. There was a lot more to see on Trinidad, so we were glad that we chose Tobago to visit first and then spend a longer time at Asa Wright. It was wonderful to be right by the sea, though, at the Blue Waters Inn on the island of Tobago. Just gorgeous. The Asa Wright Nature Centre, on Trinidad, is such an amazing place! We stayed in cabins up or down hill from the main building. Really, one doesn't need to travel away from the Centre for birding, as so many different species visit the Hummingbird feeders that are right by the huge, open veranda, and the trees of the rain forest high up the mountainous road. The drive up and down this narrow, twisting, pot-holed road was an adventure in itself! Never would I ever do this drive myself - we had a guide who drove us everywhere in a minibus. I had read many accounts of this road, lol! There was enough room for two vehicles to pass each other, and the honking of horns was almost continuous - either to warn any vehicle that might be coming fast around the next bend or as a sign that drivers knew each other. The drive along this road, from the coast to Asa Wright, took just over an hour each way. I still miss the great food that was provided every single day at Asa Wright and even the Rum Punch that appeared each evening. I never drink at all, so I wasn't sure if I would even try the Punch - glad I did, though, as it was delicious and refreshing. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all served buffet-style, with a great variety of dishes from which to choose. To me, pure luxury. So very, very grateful to have been invited to be part of this amazing adventure. This is a video that I came across on YouTube, taken by Rigdon Currie and Trish Johnson, at many of the same places we visited on Trinidad and Tobago. Not my video, but it made me feel like I was right there still. Posting the link here again, so that I won't lose it. youtu.be/BBifhf99f_M I also came across the following 27-minute YouTube video of the flora and fauna of Trinidad, filmed by John Patrick Smith in February 2015. youtu.be/6HHBm9MIxnk