Pieces of nature

On Sunday, I drove out of the city to find nature. Here is some of what I found.

I noticed some interesting birds that I wanted to observe, so I wandered off the trail and knelt in some grasses - obviously not thinking at all - and then, minutes later, saw everywhere around me all sorts of three-leaved plants that were definitely not clover. Crap! Was it poison ivy? I couldn't tell, so I took this photo for later reference:

Later, after using the genius that is Google, I was pretty confident that this was not poison ivy (poison ivy does not have serated leaf edges like this plant does). I haven't broken out yet either, so I think I'm safe. Whew!!!

Here is a photo of a massive tree (a maple, judging by the leaves around it), which aren't so common around the GTA these days, unfortunately. My hiking poles, placed for comparison, are set to 110 cm (sorry, too tired tonight to do the conversion for you Yanks - just start using metric already, won't you???) :-D


Final exhibit tonight is this feather. It is about a foot long (sorry, I was raised near the U.S. border - I randomly crisscross between metric and Imperial. I also never know how I'm supposed to pronounce "Z" [Is it "zee" or "zed"???]). I'm not sure whether it's from a wild turkey or a grouse. Maybe it's even from a hawk? Anyone know???