Chasing Blackbirds
cedar vale ravine - APRIL 29, 2022
There are two bridges spanning Cedar Vale ravine: a busy four-lane at Bathurst St, and a pedestrian crossing further north. This is Glen Cedar bridge. It was originally built in 1912, then completely rebuilt in 1989 using the original plans. It’s a beautiful, wide wooden walkway with nice views down into the ravine. Which is why I was there.
I have a video in the works on fledging birds and I had seen nests from the pathway in the ravine. What a nice opportunity to get up to treetop level and ideally film some active nests from an ideal perspective.
No such luck - the leaf-bundle nests I could see were inactive. But as so often happens, serendipity rewarded a little patience. I’ve also got a video on red-winged blackbirds on the back-burner. Almost directly below me, a few of them were chasing each other through a stand of bleached bullrush stalks and I was able to catch some of their drama. Since all I really had footage-wise before this morning was red-winged blackbirds on branches trilling (beautiful but repetitive), this finally felt like there was some meat on the bones of whatever I end up doing with them.