Meli-melo

This is a bit of a catchall post, thus the multiple categories.

Things are hotting up at work and the upshot of it all is that I have been asked if I want to assume more responsibilities along with more pay. This didn't come quite out of the blue, but it happened very suddenly, i.e. on Friday morning right before lunch. Of course I said yes. Duh. So that's kind of exciting. Onward and upward and all that.

Last night Phil and I went to the Spit to look at the coyotes. Yes, there are coyotes in Toronto, and yes we saw them. We had to wait almost two hours though. In fact, we had to decided to leave the spit when we saw them - a family of them, about six in all, three running along the road ahead of us. It was past twilight and quite dark by this time, so they were a bit hard to make out. They look like medium-sized dogs. They have light-coloured fur that's luminous in the dark, and bushy tails. They were not afraid of us - one sat down about ten feet away from us and watched us as we stood there on the road watching them. It's a shame it was so dark - I would have loved to take pictures, but the flash would have scared them for sure.

We also heard a Northern Hawk Owl. It has a ululating call that sounds like a high-pitched, panicked warbling "hoohoohoohoohoohooo!" We have often heard them when we go camping up north, but last year there was a dip in the northern rodent populations and a lot of northern owls have come south looking for food, so that's my guess as to why this one was so far out of its range.