Lunar Bovine - Jason Cobill's Weblog » ottawa river

Giving the Trees a Trim

jcobill — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:57:28 +0000

As I was eating my strawberries this morning I saw what I thought was a new red dome on a building down the street – and then realized it was moving. Ponderously, the CTV balloon drifted out along the river, floating along at what looked like ladder-height most of the way. I wonder if the pilot is afraid of heights? I suspect they were just happy to get an unusual wind current blowing them along a safe route and thought they’d explore it.

Cardinals and Parrots

jcobill — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:18:54 +0000

Out by the river last night Natasha saw a bird with a red spot on it’s wing and asked me what it was. Being an expert ornithologist, I had no idea, so I stalled and told her it was a Cardinal. Except it was clearly not a Cardinal, it was a Red-Winged Blackbird. So she punched me.

Then, no more than 50 feet around the bend, up in a tree was an actual Cardinal. Not very difficult to spot, since it’s redder than a fire truck. I told her it was a Parrot.

Of course I wasn’t carrying my camera, so you get this artistic re-interpretation of the event.

(Edit: Kudos to Terri, a legitimate expert ornithologist club member, for pointing out my naming error – it was in fact not a red-breasted blackbird, and I knew that, but surfing through the bird directories on Wikipedia had me bird-brained.)

Windy Park

jcobill — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:10:59 +0000

Deciding we were made of tougher stuff than most, Natasha and I opted to test our winter survival skills by walking around Andrew Haydon Park knee-deep in the snow. Apart from one guy and his dog, it was a pretty desolate place. Any paths that may have been broken in the snow had long since been covered in snow drifts, and the wind coming off the river was pretty intense. Still, it was fun to take a (albeit far from leisurely) stroll around the ponds and up the little hill to get a look at the river.

At the top of the little lookout hill, we caught a view of this guy, scooting back and forth on his skiis with his kite pulling him. He mostly stuck to his side of the river, though – so he’s pretty tiny in the shot. It would be fun to go out on the river one day this next weekend and get some up-close action shots of the kiteskiers catching air.

Afterwards, we headed back to the car and took a drive down to Bank street to get a walk with a little less wind. Beautiful weekend for being outdoors!