"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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Walking in the Snow with Birds There was some gentle snow overnight on Wednesday and so we had to go out and make the most of it Thursday morning. The temperatures were not too cold (they will be exceptionally cold by the weekend) and we had a good tramp. This wooded and [...]
The garden bird interest continues - after yesterday's unbeatable visit of a group of Eastern Bluebirds. Dark-eyed Juncoes. hardly uncommon at this time of year, we see them daily. However small, dark birds silhouetted against bright white snow are far from the easiest things to get decent photographs of. Well, no longer. [...]
Bluebirds in Mid-Winter !!! It's the 17 January, the sun is shining from a clear blue sky, temperatures are -16C (with windchill -27C) and there we are, sitting in the warm reading the papers when a small bird lands in the viburnum bush just outside. A quick glance, not expecting anything other [...]
Ten Days with Sherlock Holmes You will recall that 2020 is going to be enlivened by a daily Sherlockian quotation shared with the world via the medium of Facebook. But, as we know, not everyone is on GB or is not connected to the author of this journal so there will be [...]
Several weeks ago I shared a recipe for making tasty basic sourdough bread. Over Christmas and the New Year I have been experimenting and have amended the recipe with a few minor tweaks and suggestions. The revised method can be found at the following link: https://sparroworks.ca/sourdough-bread-basics/