It’s not often that I see deer in the morning in the back field behind me, most of the time I see them at dusk and they seem to follow a routine pattern along these Caledon hills and fields. However this one early October morning I saw two deer outside and managed to snap a few photos of them as they munched some breakfast in the field. Snapped with my super zoom lens and adjusted only the contrast of the photos in Photoshop, click on the images to view larger photos.

    

The Cedar Waxwing bird, a new arrival this year to my Caledon backyard or at the very least I never noticed them until now. These Cedar Waxwing birds started hanging out on this one dead tree and would eat some berries from a bush further below. I took these photos with my big 50-500mm zoom lens and enhanced the lighting on the Photomatix software. Cedar Waxwing birds breed in open wooded areas in North America, principally southern Canada and the northern United States areas. These birds’ most prominent feature is a small cluster of bright red feathers on the wings, the tail is typically yellow or orange depending on diet. The Cedar Waxwing eats berries and sugary fruit year-round, with insects becoming an important part of the diet in the breeding season. For more info on Cedar Waxing birds, click here. Also to see larger photos of each image click on the photos.

I caught this Red Squirrel red handed invading one of my bird feeders. This little guy has a home further back on my Caledon property but occasionally comes around to raid the bird feeds.

Red Squirrel’s actually known as the American Red Squirrel is one of two species of tree squirrel currently classified in the genus Tamiasciurus and known as pine squirrels. It is a medium sized (200–250 g) diurnal mammal that defends a year-round exclusive territory. The diet of these tree squirrels is specialized on the seeds of conifer cones. As such, they are widely distributed across North America wherever conifers are common, except on the Pacific coasts where they are replaced by Douglas Squirrels. Recently, American Red Squirrels have been expanding their range to include primarily hardwood areas. For more info on the American Red Squirrel click here.

I took this picture with my new zoom lens I recently bought, a Sigma 50-500mm lens which is actually 1000mm max focal length equivilant under the 35mm film standard. For a larger picture click on the image above.

Not the greatest picture but I stumbled upon this deer near my property earlier this year. He was suprised to see me and not about to wait around for me to take another picture, he bolted two seconds later with lightening speed.

This young House Finch eating on one of our many bird feeders was born earlier this spring in front of our house. Every year there is a pair of house finches that builds a nest in one of the shrubs near our front entrance, this year they had three young ones that hatched and now flying around on their own. Photo was taken by my finance with the Olympus 70-300mm zoom lens, click on the image above for a large photo.

This young male deer (antlers) was walking alone in the field behind me around sunset. He was aware of my presence but did not scare away while I’ll snapped a few pictures with my camera and zoom lens. The deer population in the Caledon, Ontario area appears to remain fairly high. Be sure to keep an eye out at night when driving down some of the lesser traveled roads, I have had a number of deer jump out of the woods in front of my car.

This slithering intruder, an adult milk snake some how snuck into garage last month. This was the first different kind of snake I have found around my property other than the more common garter snakes. After taking some photos of him we set him free back into the field behind us.

The Milk Snake is a species of king snake, there are 25 subspecies among the milk snakes including the commonly named scarlet kingsnake. The subspecies have strikingly different appearance, and many of them have their own common names. Some authorities suggest that this species may be split into several separate species. They are distributed from southeastern Canada, through most of the continental United States, to Central America, down to western Ecuador and northern Venezuela of northern South America. Milk snakes grow 20 to 60 inches (51 to 150 cm) long. Across the wide range of this species, habitat varies. Typically, milk snakes live in forested regions, however, in some regions they can be located in open prairies. In various parts of across its distribution, milk snakes often abide in rocky slopes. For more info on Milk Snakes, click here. Click on the images above and below for larger pictures.

I managed to sneak up on a small group of deer to get these pictures, they were caught off guard but did not spook immediately, I was still able to get snap a few pictures before they took off back into the woods. Pictures were taken in north-east Caledon, click on the images for larger pictures.

With the much welcomed unseasonably warm weather this Easter long weekend across Ontario and the Caledon area the wildlife is literally buzzing around everywhere now. While sitting on my deck enjoying a few beers I managed to capture this Red Tailed Hawk flying around over the field behind me, a few times he flew right over top of me. I was able to grab a couple nice pictures of him that show off his feathers quite nicely, click on the photos for larger versions. Photos taken with my Olympus 70-300mm zoom lens, for more info on Red Tailed Hawks click here or two see to previous close up photos I have taken of them click here.

Found this large bee’s nest or hornets nest in the woods, not sure exactly what kind it is.