Ontario Adventures

So we moved to Ontario. Why? Many reasons: my education, it was way past time, since I've been trying to move out east for more years then I'm ever putting into writing (seriously, no!),...there's a possibility I didn't believe I could keep annoying the Alberta wildlife forever and not get eaten...the list goes on! But regardless of motivation, here we are: Ontario!

First impressions: It's hot, really hot; this is the longest summer I've had in a 14 years! Which is awesome, for me. Czari's just happy to sleep through it. He's got an air conditioner that he's fallen in love with and spends the hot days basically wrapped around it.

It's also more abundant in terms of the wildlife available to enjoy/annoy. So far we have found raccoons, coyotes, wolves, deer and FAR too many bugs. Not kidding about the last one! The house I'm renting is in a forest (YAY! So cool! but wait...there's more!) and every night I have the local insect traffic running through my house - I've tried: closing the lights, poisoning them, shooing them away and finally developed a new hobby of just stomping on them since they're not getting the message - I feel I'm making some progress but have a sneaking suspicion it may just be the weather getting colder as we are entering October...possibly).

Current backyard... :)))

You may wonder how I managed to find wolves...well, I have a gift you see...

I do live in the city and did not travel anywhere near the more northern parts of Ontario where one might expect to find wolves. However, as previously mentioned, I am special, so I quickly mapped out all the parks within a 2 hour driving distance. I then narrowed this down to all the wildlife reserves, and then checked all of them out until I found one that felt all "homey"...aka, like Kananaskis. In my defense, the website distinctly said the wildlife part refers mainly to frogs. And there were a TON of frogs, so many that they would just throw themselves at your legs as you walked past. I liked the place and it seemed safe enough. So I proceeded to go have fun at sunset as per my usual routine. Half an hour into my hike, as the sun disappeared, a familiar sound drifted towards us from across the lake: howling wolves. No, not coyotes. I know because I've heard coyotes before; definitely NOT coyotes. I was back in my car in 15 min, after the most productive evening run I've had in a while. Czari? Well since they were across the lake, and he couldn't beat them up, poochie was content to just keep running around beside me. Moral? Internet is sometimes wrong. Yes, I realize it seems obvious. Like I said, I'm special.

And so begins the next chapter in our adventures blog...

Doggy may have underestimated the depth of this river and fallen in, head first, 5 min before this picture was taken...I may have spent those 5 min laughing my head off at him...sometimes, he's special too. He was trying to find a racoon...He didn't succeed. Look on his face as he got out of the river with fallen maple leaves on his head: Priceless!

The Raven situation

My dog can talk to birds...yea, it's like that. It's not nearly as crazy as it sounds.

Now we all know that Ravens, crows, magpies etc. are very intelligent animals. Since they also happen to be carnivorous, its been well documented that all birds from the Raven family group share a rather close bond with carnivores. For anyone whose surprised by this type "wolves and crows/ravens/etc" into google.

What they usually fail to mention is that birds are not at all picky in terms of species. Basically as far as I can tell they're thinking goes: if it looks like it could lead to a meal, follow it and collaborate!

How do I know this? Well, there's been a few "signs" shall we say...

The first instance was about 3 years ago. I was happily hiking with my dogs and enjoying nature. Czari was still very young, not even fully grown yet and he was having a lot of fun sniffing bunny tracks in the snow. I was enjoying how the snow sparkles in the light and Zuz was busy being Zuz, aka running around like a maniac in the same vague direction I was going and swimming through the snow (there's a slight possibility that I purposefully choose a route through deep snow once in a while...its hilarious! and it tires her out, so win-win!). At some point Czari gets all enthusiastic and disappears into the forest. He comes back with a rabbit... and 3 magpies! Yes, I know, he's that good!!! No, just kidding :P. The rabbit was his...the magpies were volunteers. LOL! The scenes though was quite interesting and bewildering to me, I had no idea what was going on. The magpies, landed on the trees and stared at him for a minute. He sat down to eat. The magpies landed closer to him on the ground. He continues eating but moved over a bit. The magpies got closer and started picking at the snow around him. He shooed them off the way he does with Zuz sometimes when she tries to steal his food, but he's not too concerned about it. Got up, snapped at them a bit to get them to move farther off and continued eating. Zuz looks at me all confused, I look at her and shrug..."I guess you're no longer the only annoying creature trying to steal Czari's food."

Zuz in all her glory! :)

 
Once Czari finishes he gets up, the magpies start making excited noises and fly up around him, and then he goes back into the forest to see if he can find more rabbits. the magpies follow on his tail.

Roughly 20 minutes later we are at the end of the trail and I call him back. The magpies are still following him but stop and land on some trees at the edge of the forest. I briefly consider the fact that if I keep coming to this exact spot I believe I can easily make myself some magpie friends. After a minute of fantasizing about running around with my bird palls (I may or may not have had some epic nature tune singing in my head at this time) I decide that maybe it's better not to bend the rules of nature too much...mainly because I'm afraid of coming home covered up in bird poop, and with my own personal cloud of magpies. However, my prudent choice did not stop Czari from figuring out and watching for birds to provide clues in regards to quick meals.

Which brings us to the Raven Situation. No, I do not have a pet raven...at the moment. However, it did take me quite a while to convince my dog that although ravens and crows are quite handy to communicate with we are not going to follow every one of them. Even if they want us to. Even if for instance they pass by us, and on a tree, make lots of excited "cra"s and then proceed to fly in a certain direction, stop on a tree and repeat. They're not very subtle. As soon as Czari starts following they fly further off in the "right" direction and keep going, so on and so forth. It took about 30 seconds for him to put together this pattern and figure out it leads to potential food and for the next 6 months I watched out for crows with some suspicion.

Now not all interactions are positive. For instance it also only took a few seconds for my dog to figure out that sometimes the birds are all excited because they already found some food and can't contain their enthusiasm. And he's got zero problems going out and stealing their food and coming back with a deer leg and a very angry Raven flying at his head. This particular one was quite huge. And after much "discussion" : Czari growls, raven flies at him very angry, Czari growls again and finally the Raven lands all puffed up and angry on a tree next to us and just stares at us. I ask: "What the hell are you doing?!" and for a second actually expect a reply... Afterwards the raven stares at us for a little bit and sticks around but eventually leaves when it's clear the fun is over. Though it did come back a few times when we went back to that area. And no it wasn't a random coincidence. I have an ongoing tally in my head regarding close-up monitoring  of my presence by anything including giant black birds and there was clearly a giant black bird following be around the next couple times. I figured that was it's territory and it was still not quite sure what to do about us. I ignored it and eventually it lost interest. And eventually Czari made peace with the fact that we can't follow any and all birds, even if they want us to and it leads to food. Yea, I know life is rough.

Now if that sounds a little out there...it doesn't even come close to the shock I had when I realized Czari managed to piss off a squirrel so much it climbed a tree branch above his head and peed on us! It didn't actually land on us (thankfully) but the intent was clear and punctuated by the most indignant squeaking I EVER heard. But that's a story for another time ;).