Diving ducks and berries

I saw a different kind of diving duck today, but couldn't get close enough to try to ID it.  It's bill is certainly different to the Long-tailed Ducks that are occupying the harbour lately.

 The long-tail ducks were having their own gathering.

 Meanwhile, it looks like recent high winds might have been too much for the newish "safe fish to eat" sign.

 Closer to home, the berry bushes have lost their leaves.

All the leaves are ... well, gone.

A late update -- I actually took this photo at Coronation Park on the first of the month, I'm just still working out a method for moving photos from my camera to my laptop in a timely manner.  It's not as easy as the phone (which had bluetooth). . .

Anyway, it was a lovely day and the trees were very stark against the sky.

The grass is still surprisingly green.  Maybe this week's predicted snowfall will deal with that.

Ducks

Someone was tossing popcorn to the ducks today, so they were all gathered around the end of the quay.

It was surprisingly warm — but it's funny how two months ago I wouldn't have thought 14C felt warm.

Little Norway

Photos of the plaques at Little Norway Park today.

The park is a large rectangle, and at the northeast corner is a circle with a stone at the center, then several plaques explaining what it's all about.

One side of the center stone.

Another side of the center stone.

The plaques first explain the stone.  The park was officially opened in 1987.

However it had been dedicated by Norway's king in 1977 (1987 was the date of its transfer to its current location).

And this plaque has insanely small type.  Essenetially: the exiled Norwegian Royal Air Force used this  area of Toronto as a training grounds during World War II.  The flagpole this plaque is mounted on is all that remains of the original base.

Waterfowl

Took the refurbished camera out on the walk today and saw many birds.

One of the little diving ducks we see a lot in winter:

And this seagull who was doing his best to ignore me:

And this pair of swans:

So, so far, so good.   On the stroll back off the quay, I noticed this object lesson in what happens when you leave your canoe out in the rain and snow:

Camera bit installed

So no scenery here.  I received the new CCD for my camera about two weeks ago and have since been procrastinating about tearing the camera apart and installing it.  Today was go day.

This is where it started to look hairy;

You can see part of what  need to replace here -- it's still
beneath a lot of other delicate pieces though.

But it got so much worse:

Bottom center is the CCD -- rectangular metal plate
with a tail of flex cable off its left-hand side.  There is
way too much flex cable in these things. 

It's back together now, and I took a couple test shots of the flat and things are decidedly not pink.  I'll take it out tomorrow and see how it works outdoors.

Here's a video of someone far more competent than me doing the same thing.  It's sort of amazing.

All the trees are bare

High winds the last few days have stripped all but a very few, very tough leaves from the trees.

There were a bunch of cold-looking seagulls.down on the benches/barriers and I tried to get a photo, but I startled them by getting too close with a dog so they're blurry and in-flight.