SPARROWORKS – an Illustrated journal
For the irremediably curious
Wildlife, gardening, gardening with wildlife, photography and occasionally other things.
If you are interested in seeing only photographs, and nothing else, then please … Visit our other website.
Pink Valentine Squirrel
Messy Eater Blood on the Snow We’ve noted before that the berries on the native Viburnum triloba are eaten in the fall while those on the similar European species (Guelder rose) are left until well into the New Year. Obviously those of the native species are more palatable while the Guelder rose berries need to [...]
Nature Baie-D’Urfé
"Community Wildlifing" A few days ago I “launched” a new project in oour town that I have called Nature Baie-D’Urfé. I like nature and spend almost all my free time doing things that involve interacting with nature, be it gardening or wildlifing. But more than that, basically I am a nerd. I am one of those irritating (but [...]
Lunchtime Acrobatics (video)
As faithful followers of this journal will have gathered, there are a lot of squirrels around here. Although most of our gardening is designed to provide food and shelter to birds and insects it is a given that squirrels will take advantage ... as do raccoons and skunks and mice and all sorts of creatures. The berries are [...]
Deer and Forest Biodiversity – What is Normal?
What did forests once look like? It has been understood, taken as gospel, that the “Bambi Factor” which prevents hunting and management culls of too large deer populations is leading, in large parts of eastern North America, to a severe loss of forest understory as out of control deer eat pretty well everything with reach of their [...]
Squirrel Appreciation Day
The 21 January each year is Squirrel Appreciation Day - as we were reminded throughoout the day by numerous emails and FB posts from the various conservation organizations that we support. A couple of days later this rather scruffy black-form gray squirrel visited the garden in order to do some appreciating of his/her own by making a [...]
Northern Hawk Owl
Ten Years Ago If you are a birder or a photographer, please don't get excited - this bird was found ten years ago and the photographs were serendipitously resurfaced whilst I was cleaning out unrequired pictures from my too large digital archives. The Northern Hawk Owl (Surnia ulula) is a very rare bird to be able to [...]