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.
Let it Grow
Mid-summer Progress Report We are now in our second full year of letting what was once a scrappy lawn have the freedom to just grow while we wait to see what's there and what has arrived. Mid June is a good half-way stage in the process of creating a "mead" and to pause and record what is happening. [...]
Virtual Mid-Summer Birding
Bird Protection Quebec regularly has guided birding field trips each weekend but, with social distancing and groups being forbidden for the past ten weeks they have organised "virtual field trips" restricted to the birds in our gardens. These have been surprisingly popular with many more people taking part than ever come out in person. This week there [...]
Mid-Summer Sunset
Golden Light Three years ago a group of Arboretum volunteers created the "Canada 150 Trail" to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the creation of Canada.Quite by chance it was found this year that the Birch Alley that forms part of the trail is directly oriented towards the setting sun for the few days around mid-summer's day, the [...]
Back to the Arboretum
Chalet Pruche from Birch Alley After three months being officially closed the arboretum is gradually opening up again, starting with members only. This morning we made our first visit for three moths or so under bright blue skies and pretty well had the place to ourselves. It was glorious. Of course, all is not perfect [...]
New Summer Resident
Great Crested Flycatcher A garden resident this summer where we have several tall trees from which it can sally forth any after passing flying food. It's been around and calling for a couple of weeks but only now did it pose for its portrait. Great Crested Flycatchers are sit-and-wait predators, sallying from high perches (usually near the tops [...]
Weekly Photographs
A while ago I started experimenting with a website (blipfoto.com) that encourages people to post a single daily photo as a sort of visual journal. I found that I could manage the discipline of doing this ... but I think it's better to share the daily pictures somewhere that I can fully control the content and make it [...]
