Monday Morning at the Cottage

I enjoyed a rare Monday morning at the cottage this week when I took the day off after the Stanley Cup party the night before.  While I was there, I noticed that a regular Monday is a lot different than a holiday Monday - it's much quieter, there is less human activity on the road and out on the lake and nature seems a lot more active as a result.

There was a constant parade of birds and squirrels flitting across the lawn. These crows were having a very noisy conversation until I interrupted them.

I went down to the lake to see if I could get a closer look at this family of ducks, which turned out to be mallards.

We've had pairs of adults mallards for several years now but I don't recall ever seeing any baby mallards before so I was quite excited.  They seemed to have no fear of me at all and actually headed in closer to shore as I approached, which means someone has been feeding them and they've come to associate humans with food - not a good thing.  When I didn't make any move to feed them, they swam about for a bit while momma duck had a bit of a cleaning of the feathers session and then they headed off down the shoreline.

As I turned back to the cottage, this butterfly almost landed on me, before finding a spot on a nearby lily.

Isn't it gorgeous? It's a tiger swallowtail, according to the insect book I rushed inside to search through.  I can't say I've ever seen one of them before but maybe I just wasn't looking, as they are apparently quite common in eastern Ontario.

Ah, nature!