Here we are, almost the Ides of March and relatively balmy weather that won't last. Colonel Danforth Park in Scarborough follows Highland Creek down to the lake but the Kingston Rd. entrance to the park is barricaded until mid-April because of the steep incline the road takes and the lack of winter maintenance should there be ice on that incline. I had to intercept the trail from a Lawrence Avenue bike path via Beechgrove Ave. after parking on a side street. Not many people down in the ravine, which is just the way I like it. Unfortunately, in mid-March there is not much bird activity even though we seem to be ahead of time this year. I could immediately hear robins and cardinals upon descending into the ravine but by the time I reached creek level it became quieter and then the sun came out for a while. I spent most of my time off-trail in the woods. There was no sign of an early visitor such as a Hermit thrush or Winter wren. The most abundant birds deep in the woods was the woodpecker. I must have spotted ten Downy WPs, three Hairy WPs and three Red-bellied (M x2, F x1). A couple of Downy WPs spent most of their time on the ground searching for insects and nuts. None of the RBWP came down to ground level. Soon the sun was swallowed by clouds again. I then heard a Pileated WP calling but I couldn't see it. Upon leaving the park I spotted an enormous Pileated tree hole that must have been a foot high and several inches wide. I noticed that there were a lot of Hemlock trees in this park so I took a photo of the needles, which are short, flat and soft. While walking along the creek I spotted a merganser sitting on a rock in the middle of the stream. It was fairly far off at the spot where I could get down to the banks of the creek and also be free of intervening twigs. I had my 1.4x TC attached but even then it was still too far away, so I also attached a 2X TC giving me 840mm f11. This was stretching things too far for a lens with only a 3" objective lens in front so I focused manually with life-view engaged and 5x digital magnification, using a protruding tree root as a brace. To make matters worse the light was very low at that point and I needed to deliberately under-expose just to get the shutter speed up even at ISO 800.
Hemlock needles
Enormous pileated hole
Fresh wood chips from woodpecker hole
840mm f11 far away at creek level
420mm F5.6 closer looking down from above
