Almost immediately after entering the park and paying our $16 entry fee we spotted two moose, a mother and calf. We have been to Algonquin before and on one occasion spotted one moose, but never two before, so already we were really pleased and it made the visit worthwhile.

Here is the mother and her baby.

We carried on driving through the park to the other end, then turned round. Next we went to the visitors centre where we ate lunch and watched the birds outside on the feeders.

Here are some siskins, male goldfinch and a purple finch.

After filling ourselves with hotdogs and fries (we went for the healthy option) we carried on and then spotted another two moose. We had to do a quick U-turn to get back to where I had spotted them and it was again a mother and baby. Soon after we stopped, the baby moved into the woods, but I managed to get a photo of the mother. As soon as we stopped, other people saw us and they too stopped. Before we knew it there were half a dozen cars parked up taking photos.

All the moose we saw were very patchy with their fur. They must be in the process of getting rid of their winter coats and replacing them with summer ones. This is something we had to do ourselves as it got really warm. T-shirt weather for the first time this year, yippee!

After spending a few hours at the park, we drove home and saw another groundhog. So the total animal count was 4 moose, 1 deer and 2 groundhogs, not bad at all.

Last night it was announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by the US. Not sure how I feel about this as it could have bad repercussions. I doubt his people will let it go without a fight – literally! It is good he is gone, but there are plenty more when he came from.

Also, today is election day, so hopefully everyone who is eligible to vote will. Will we wake up to a majority conservative government tomorrow, or another minority? It does seem that if it is a minority conservative that it will be with the NDP in second place not the expected Liberals. We will have to wait and see.

Today is the last day of March and it is once again snowing, but they promise that it will be temporary and that we will have sun over the weekend with temps around 10C.

Lots of grackles and red-winged blackbirds in the garden. The gold finches are also starting to change colour ready for the mating season. No sign of the cowbirds yet, sure they will arrive soon.  The deer are getting more absent as the weather improves, so we are not going to see too much of them now.

Our visiting black squirrel comes by most days. It is the longest any black squirrel has stayed with us. He comes by, eats for a while and then disappears. The reds don’t seem to mind him for some reason and let him stay, very unusual. We have lots of chipmunks about again, chasing each other round the garden frantically. The killdeer are back but we haven’t seen much of them. Hopefully they are nesting and will reappear soon, with chicks.

Visited a new mall (well new to us) last week. Fairview Mall in Toronto. It was pretty big and quite nice, not sure it is any better than say Pickering which is nearer for us, but at least we have explored it. It must be in a very Asian community as many of the people there were of Asian origin. It is also close to Ikea which of course we had to pop into whilst there. A bit disappointed as we didn’t find much we liked but did come back with a new kitchen mat which we needed.

Hoping to get over to the States sometime in April, but will wait for the weather to clear a bit. Might go to Syracuse, or perhaps Rochester. Time to stock up on summer clothes! Most shops are in the transition stage still so not all have very much in the way of summer stuff, but hopefully within the next few weeks that will change.

Lots of blackbirds and grackles are arriving and we have seen several robins. The geese are also about and the flock we have in the woods at the back of us have arrived and are honking happily. We have also had quite a few redpolls, pic below.

Chipmunks are up and about and frantically running around the garden and we still have the deer most days, but I’m sure their visits will be ending soon. But the raccoons are out and about. They are cute but a nuisance.

We are still waiting for the arrival of the killdeer who have come back every year we have been here to nest and raise their young. They usually arrive during the last two weeks of March so we expect them any time soon.

The junkos will be leaving us soon, no doubt. But it definitely feels more like spring now.

On another note I have decided against eye surgery at this time. The $4k price tag is too high to justify at the moment. I will readdress the issue sometime in the future perhaps.

Also daughter Stacey and girlfriend Amy will be visiting from the UK in May, so we are really looking forward to that. Planning lots of trips and adventures, so I don’t think our feet will touch the ground whilst they are here.

This means that we are literally just a few feet away from the baby whilst it feeds.

This is a video Chris took.

Since Christmas we have had plenty of snow, but not as much as many other places in the country or indeed New York state under the lake. We currently have about a 6 inches of snow outside but lots more is promised tomorrow night – could be another foot if the forecast is correct. We have also had really really cold temps. This photo was taken earlier this month – 17th Jan. With the windchill it actually felt like -36C.

This has led to several extreme cold weather alerts – thank goodness for heating!

The deer have been in the garden most nights and once again the snow tracks in the garden make it look like Times Square. Along with the deer we have lots of rabbits – five the other evening all eating bird food under the tree, squirrels, birds etc. We have had one unexpected visitor and that is a mole or vole, not sure which. He spent most of yesterday poking his head out of a hole and steeling the bird seed we had put out. Very amusing to watch. Here is a video I took.

Here are some pics of one of the many rabbits (hares really) we have in the garden.

The deer keep returning too. We now have a regular group of four who come by two or three times each evening.

We seem to have a very strange chipmunk in our garden. All the other chipmunks decided to call it a summer about a month ago and like other years we will not see them again until the weather warms up in the spring. However this one chipmunk seems to have decided to become a winter chipmunk. Even with 4-5 inches of snow on the ground he is still coming out of his hole at the back of the garden, running along the tree line and then sitting at the bottom of the tree eating bird seed. We have never seen a chipmunk do this before, very strange. Clearly he did not store enough food in the summer and has to forage in the winter.

This evening was also the first time we saw deer in the garden. We knew they were about as we had seen the odd track in the snow, but tonight we happened to look at the window as three females were in the garden. There was one large one, one smaller one and another very young one. It is probably a mother with two babies, one last years and one this years. I love seeing the deer as they are so beautiful and graceful to watch. Hope to get photos soon.

Last year the pair had four babies but they got killed by another killdeer that turned up unexpectedly, so we only had babies for a short while. Hopefully they will do better this year – perhaps the parents have bought baby sitters with them to help LOL. It will be interesting to watch the dynamics as they next and have young.

Other birds that have now arrived include robins and a possible sighting of the flicker, still to be confirmed. The raccoons are about as are the chipmunks and of course the squirrels are always about regardless of the weather. Since we haven’t had any major bad weather the deer are not about as much as they have been in the past which is a shame.

Talking of the weather  - it is all over the place lately. We really haven’t had a winter this year, just a few days of snow here and there and some cold days (including today), but on the whole nothing compared to the previous years we have been here. The weekend looks to be cold and rainy, but next week is looking warmer and sunny.

This is what our garden looks like at the moment.

Last night we also had the deer wander through and because it wasn’t yet dark I managed to get some photos.

I seemed to have pressed the shutter just as something spooked them…

We went to Kingston yesterday and purchased some new fish for our tank. They are very pretty and I will try to get some photos of them to blog soon. At the moment they are still a bit shy and skittish, so I will wait until they are more settled before making them pose for the camera!

Also, last week we went to Toronto for the Autoshow. We took some photos but I have not had time to look at them and get them on my blog. Maybe soon.