Wildlife at Tommy Thompson Park

Tommy Thompson Park, also know as Leslie Street Split is located on a man-made peninsula that extends five kilometres into Lake Ontario at the end of the Leslie Street. The park hosts a abundance of wild life and is important nesting ground for Black-crowned Night Heron, Double-crested Cormorant, and Common Terns.

Saw this little wild hare as I started my little hiking.

There are a few resident coyote in this park. This morning we encountered two. I did manage to get a photo of one of them. The other one was too far and too quick to appear on camera.

Eastern Kingbird, this bird has a beautiful white band at the end of the tail. Unfortunately I didn’t capture a shot with the tail faned out.

Black-crowned Night Heron nests here. Didn’t manage to take any good photo because of their positions on the trees. This is the only shot I’ve got that allow you to see the bird.

Double-crested Cormorant is one of the popular residents on Tommy Thompson Park. This is June and it’s stil their nesting and breading season. This one is on guard protecting its nesting branch.

This cormorant is carrying nesting material back to its home.

A pair of Brown Headed Cowbird. The female on the left and male on the right. As you can see it is named after the male, brown head and a mostly black body. Cowbirds are actually parasites like cuckoos, laying their egg in a host species. Saw both close to the cormorant breading ground.

There are a lot of terns nesting on the rocky shore line of Lake Ontario in the Tommy Thompson Park. This one flies up high and try to protect its nest by charging at me when I approached their nesting ground.

Look at the photo to the right. This tern has caught a huge fish off the coast of Lake Ontario and is flying away from all the other terns and trying to get the fish back to the nest. That was one big fish!

Here’s where Tommy Thompson Park is located.
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