Birds of Manitoba - Craig & Rose: Birds, Bees, Marten and a Squirrel

Friday, 26 June 2015

Birds, Bees, Marten and a Squirrel - 23 June 2015

Had a few interesting encounters this past week.
While at Fort Whyte on the 16th we came across a Goose and 9 Goslings. We waited while they exited the bush and slowly made their way down the path toward the pond. We soon realized that there was a second similar sized gaggle coming out of the bush. We waited as they too slowly made their way toward the pond. The second group joined the first group and stopped on the foot bridge. We soon realized that a lone gosling was trying to make its way to them but we were to close to the spot where the gosling would have to exit the bush and it was frantically running back and forth in the bush trying to find a way to its gaggle. We moved back about 20 feet and the gosling made a frantic dash to the gaggle. Once the gosling joined the gaggle they once again started their slow walk to the pond.
On the 17th we went to the spot where we try to get photos of Belted Kingfishers and Swallows.
We discovered that a pair of Yellow Bellied Sapsuckers had a nest in a hollow about 15 feet up in a tree that is right next to our spot. We heard peeping coming from the nest last week and this week the nestling has been sticking its head out of the nest to be fed.
While getting some video of the action we heard clucking from the river. We stopped the video and walked over to the river bank where we could see something dark moving on the river bank about 40 feet away. As it got closer and came out of the bush we realized it was a Marten with another clucking in the bush behind it. It was moving fast but we did get manage to get a few not so good photos. We had a hard time keeping the Marten in the viewfinder so all the shots are blurred and some were only of the front or rear half of the Marten.

Link to the Sapsucker Video. It runs for 34 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4N4V6bQ71g