A Walk In The Woods

We all went on a hike on one of the many Royal Botanical Garden trails that run through the (surprising amount of) Hamilton wilderness. The one we went on is near the Nature Interpretive Centre, which is an educational centre for local schools and groups to use. One neat feature of this particular trail is that the chickadees and some other birds are quite tame and will approach you on the trail, looking for seeds (there's a bucket of them at the Interpretive Centre). All you have to do is hold your hand up, and make a "pish pish" sound, and they will come right to you, as demonstrated here by yours truly, a.k.a. the Bird Whisperer:


They're quite cheeky, really - you'll be walking along the trail and all of the sudden you'll notice you're being stalked by the chickadees, on the hunt for a free snack! With the kids, it's easiest if you place their hand in yours so they're not surprised by the little bird feet, as shown by Lucy and Tanya here (you can just make out the chickadee on their hands):


As we were walking along, we noticed lots of chipmunks trolling the path for dropped seeds. We bent down and sure enough, it didn't take long before we had them approaching us. Not surprisingly, it was our resident Gentle Soul that made first contact:


Here is Joely in full-on Snow White mode, with two chipmunks on the go. I started the movie as she was finishing up with one, and you can see another one approach her. It seems that the chipmunks can see in her what people do: