On Thursday I drove up to the Carden Alvar for what will probably be my last trip up there for the season.
I entered the DVP at 5:00am and there wasn't a cloud in the sky; it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. By the time I reached the 401 I saw clouds in the distance and when I reached the Stouffville Sideroad I was in heavy overcast. I knew then I should have turned around and gone somewhere else or done something else. But I persevered. As a birder it was a decent day, I saw quite a few birds, I heard a few birds I didn't see, but I was having no luck with my camera. I finally stopped at Box 85 to get some shots of the nesting Bluebirds.
Over the last couple of years and my previous trips up there this year, I have taken quite a few shots of the Bluebirds perching on a page wire fence so I wanted to get some shots of them on a branch. Like most of the boxes along Wylie Road other photographers have placed branches nearby as perches for the birds so I took advantage of the one that had already been set up here. The problem is that as often as not, the birds went straight to the fence anyway. Two and a half hours later I had managed to get three decent shots (I had taken a lot more).
It was really amazing watching mom and dad tirelessly fly in with meals for the chicks inside the box and on many occasions they actually had more than one bug in their beaks. They were grabbing multiple bugs and worms per trip to maximize the flight time too and from the nest. I wonder if they grabbed a bite to eat for themselves once in a while.
As I was driving south to McNamee on my way home, this Upland Sandpiper popped up onto the fence post and posed for a couple of minutes. I guess he was feeling sorry for my lack of production for the day.
