Wild Animals of the Upper Beach

Growing up in Corner Brook, I was never really that far from wildlife. I remember getting the bus home from my summer job one day and all of a sudden there was a moose loping alongside, on O'Connell Drive. As I recall, that was a very moosey summer. One was also spotted on Broadway (yes, we have a street called Broadway in Corner Brook -- perhaps that explains why we also had such a strong drama group at Herdman Collegiate). The young boy who "discovered" the Broadway moose was interviewed on the evening news and explained that at first he thought it was a camel.

Anyway. Turns out we are not that far from wildlife here in Toronto either, albeit on a smaller scale. We recently got a new bird feeder and while it puzzled everyone at first, it soon became a hot spot for this red-breasted nuthatch, which I guess is a juvenile.


He swoops in for black sunflower seeds, which are almost as big as his bill.


Then he flies up into the Norway maple (awaiting its date with destiny; not sure where the birds will go then) and eats the seed. Here, though, he confers with a family member.


And we have several woodpeckers hanging out in the backyard. They seem to be enjoying our silver maple, perhaps a little too much.


Slightly bigger wildlife appeared in the backyard last weekend.


We think they were attracted by the little water feature that we installed a few days earlier. Two families set up camp in the tree and napped the whole day, soothed by the sounds of trickling water.


Eating dinner outside that night, we counted them as they left our tree for (presumably) greener pastures. There were eleven. I have never seen that many raccoons at once.


And then of course we have the more domestic invasives. We discovered a huge wasp nest in our kitchen wall last week and, unfortunately, had to have it exterminated. They had come in through the space around a loose brick, which we also had fixed once we heard no more wasp noise. And then this morning, the faintest of noises as something that survived tries to get out, and can't. We'll see how that goes, but in the meantime I am left to struggle with my new-found status as a mass murderer. Seriously.

Sorry, no pictures.

We do, though, have pictures of the other domestic invasives that we have to deal with a daily basis.



They have a rough life.