White-eyed Vireo, Cardinals. (201512-Christmas) Christmas in Toronto this year yielded and excellent find.

Well Christmas in Ontario typically means Cardinals. I love shooting these beautiful birds. But the weather wouldn't cooperate. While the weather was very mild, the skies just never seemed to clear.

The males tend to be a little more tentative to reveal themselves. Even in low light they are pretty skittish.

 The House Finches were pretty constant visitors around the feeders at Sharon's too.

On Christmas eve we did have a little sun so I took a solo walk around the pond. The Mallards always look great in sun, and being citizen ducks, getting close enough for a shot isn't too tough.

The lighlight of the whole trip put in an appearance 0n this day!

This little White-eyed Vireo was a total shocker, but I'll take it. This is the one bird I was hoping to see at Cape Sable Island and didn't get the chance to.

I let the Toronto president of the bird society know of the sighting and sent him a photo so that the local Christmas Bird Count would be aware of its presence. As a first ever on the blog, it deserves a couple of images. 

On Boxing Day, I went looking for the Vireo but to no avail. I did however find this female Cardinal. I also found her feeding on these berries.

The local Mallards were also out. I include this shot as it is the first time I can remember seeing a Mallard swim backwards. I don't know what he ran into under the water but it spooked him into this unusual behaviour. 

On the 28th I headed out on a pretty crappy weather day for a short time and managed to find this Hairy Woodpecker with her prize for working the tree so hard.

So that was Christmas and the White-eyed Vireo. Even when visiting it isn't hard to put a little "wild" in your life. Like Nike says, "just do it!".

Turbo