St. Catharines -- May 21st, 2012

On the way to visit Jane's Mum, we took a short diversion below the Burlington Skyway to check out the Cormorants. It had been years since we last had a closer look. Their numbers are growing, much to the dismay of many of the locals I'm sure.

Dead trees always make Cormorant colonies easy to spot. Their feces kills trees pretty quickly.

They're a scruffy lot. I don't think they're very interested in housework.

Their nests are barely large enough for their size.

Wild Phlox (officially Dame's Rocket) makes this a beautiful fishing spot... just across from the Cormorants. I wonder if the fisherman enjoyed the "Phlox".

We stopped to smell the flowers as the saying goes. Wild Roses are hard to beat for fragrance.

 

We went to Niagara-on-the-Lake to pick up some British fare at the Wee Scottish Loft, then drove down to the lake for the view. The Toronto skyline (CN Tower, etc.) is about 30 miles across the lake-- vs about 90 by road.

The clouds caught my eye more than the Chestnut tree.

We'd never looked closely at the blossoms ("candles") on Chestnut trees before. We'd assumed they were just white, rather than multi-colored.

We ended the day with a cool walk (from the breeze off the lake) on the pier at Port Dalhousie... just outside St. Catharines. A few 100 others joined us.

The long weekend was perfect weather-wise.

- fini -