Leave it to Beaver(s)

Sunnybrook Park in Toronto was a great place to be today - we released a Northern Goshawk who has been in care for quite a while.  It only took a moment for him to shake off the "yuck" from being in the hospital and start to manuever through the treetops in his old neighbourhood.  It was an amazing sight.

Unfortunately his speed was too much for my 70-300 and I ended up with a lovely shot of his primary feathers but not much more.

The Beaver is North American's largest rodent.

As I wandered through Sunnybrook I found these two characters. 
I was focusing on them and saw a dog enter my viewfinder - he was about 8 inches from the nose of one of them!  They are unbelievably strong and I was worried that I was going to witness a terrible scene!

Fortunately the dog sniffed and retreated.  In speaking with his owner later I learned that this dog goes to visit these beaver every day - he is so intrigued by them.  They have become acclimatized to humans and other animals and could have cared less about the dog's presence.

After about 20 minutes of watching them, they both disappeared under water so I went to check out the area where they had cut down several trees close to the bank.  Suddenly one was about 10 feet away from me.  I hadn't heard or seen him surface again - he must have done so very close to the shore where I had no visibility.


 I didn't dare move as he snooped around for more...you guessed it...wood.  At one point I thought he was coming after me but I realized I was no match for the tasty branch he was really after.  He carried it back into the water and began to eat.  It is really cool to be close up for this.

So I didn't find the Goshawk but it was a real treat to spend part of my day with these two amazing creatures.