What caught my eye

Covid restrictions eased off during the month with vaccinations taking hold. Places of interest opened again, some with restrictions and we "hit" some of our favourite spots.

(Scroll over the pictures to read the captions)

Mud Lake was on our rounds as usual.

The ducklings are growing in size, the adults are in various stages of molting

Mum mallard and 3 growing juveniles

Younger mallard juvenile

Female wood duck

Young female wood ducks "in discussion".

Male wood duck in full molt

Male mallard going through molt

Summer flowers were in bloom, some seemingly earlier than normal.

Milkweed

Purple flowering raspberry

Saint John's wort (medicinal)

Waterlily

Meadow-rues

A few other Mud Lake eye catchers

(I didn't notice the second frog in picture #2 until I got home!)

Bull frog

Bull frogs

Land snail

Cabbage white butterfly

Great blue heron

With our annual pass in hand we headed back to Parc Omega....

We arrived an hour or so after opening so the full welcoming committee was on hand. The youngsters were off to the side not ready for the action yet.

Elk

Elk

Juvenile elk

Other juveniles were keeping close to their parents as well.

Fallow deer fawns

Fallow deer mum and fawn

Fallow deer fawns

Young buffalo

Large antlers and horns.

Elk horns aren't always balanced, alpine ibex do not lose their horns, they just grow constantly.

(Ibex is one of the few animals we avoid as they tend to put their front hoofs up on the car to ask for carrots.)

Unbalanced antlers

Alpine ibex

I wanted the bear to stop and smell the roses (lilies), but no luck.

Black bear and tiger lily

A male red-winged blackbird constantly chirped to let it's last fledgling know where it was. A phoebe had caught a small butterfly and was on its way to the nest.

Male red-winged blackbird

Juvenile (fledgling) red-winged blackbird

Phoebe

A raccoon was raiding the food station again and we were serenaded by the arctic wolves (and others?) howling.

(See/hear following video)

Raccoon

Arctic wolf howling

Parc Omega has an extensive collection of large wood carvings.

Turtles

Elk, deer, turkeys, eagle, wolves and moose

On the way out there was a good view of the toll keepers at work welcoming visitors.

I love the three heads in the car at the left.

Upper Canada Village relaxed their visiting rules as Covid restrictions eased. There was still no visiting inside buildings and without a season's pass only timed entrance tickets were available.

The Village People were available, in reduced numbers, to provide the verbal stories. (And because there were so few visitors, they were very happy to talk at length about almost any topic.)