Quick photographic post from the past week

Life lately has been quite hectic with little time for other activities, such as blogging or photography, because the "official" deadline for thesis submission happened last Friday.  On top of that, I have teaching, marking assignments, doing my tax forms, writing abstracts for presentations/conferences, planning to meeting potential PhD supervisors, reading papers, and writing/editing my thesis.  Therefore, little time for anything else, I am afraid.

I still managed to take some photos here and there though.

Saw this hawk out in the backyard last Saturday.  I think it is a Sharp-shinned Hawk, which I have seen around the neighbourhood before.

For the last lab of the semester (first Friday of April) that I am TAing, we will be conducting waterfowl surveys along the Otonabee River.  Since not everyone is a birder, we went out for a quick lesson in waterfowl identification at Little Lake on Thursday.  It was a very cold and windy day that day.

I think all that time I spent biking on the trails in Richmond had paid off because identifying all of these birds are pretty simple for me.

Pair of Hooded Mergansers.

On Thursday, we saw: Greater/Lesser Scaups, Ring-necked Ducks, Buffleheads, Common Mergansers, Hooded Mergansers, American Coot, American Wigeon, Mallards, American Black Duck, Canada Geese, and Common Goldeneyes.

We also saw this Bald Eagle scaring all the waterfowls, as well as we heard a Merlin calling around us.

Below are photos I took this morning while walking to school.

Male NOCA singing.

BCCH looking down at me.

Chickadee flying away.

Mew Gulls (?).

Last week we had a period of warm temperatures above zero degrees, and then I saw people wearing t-shirts and shorts, as well as smaller critters emerging, such as wasps, spiders, and flies.  But then the following (cold) day I found a dead wasp on the ground.  This weather is not stable enough to be out and about yet, I think.