Yesterday was a very wet day indeed (and the start of the long holiday - Journée des patriotes ) and today is unseasonably cold and very windy so great things were not especially anticipated for the novices birding walk that J and I (ably supported by the presence of a couple of experts from BPQ [...]
Terribly cold today and grey and utterly miserable but being stalwart types we headed for our regular weekend wander in the arboretum inadequately attired (well, it's May) and actually had a good bit of birding. hard birding but we enjoyed the presence of a Great Crested Flycatcher in the middle of Pullin's Pasture, a Rose-breasted [...]
It's been a mixed bag of weather this past week but at the moment is mild and wet ... as a result the lawn is more of a meadow with forgetmenots and violets all over the place while the star shrub/tree, our Amelanchier canadensis - is in full bloom. There is a row of these [...]
In a hanging plant basket just over the garden fence a Robin has decided to build a nest. By virtue of making use of the high tech building materials (plastic) she seems to have created just the right environment and has hatched three active little sprogs ... elsewhere, the flowers are blooming and all is [...]
A fine day and we were up and aout early to see what had arrived in the arboretum before breakfast ... well, the first warblers of the year (Yellow-rumped), Eastern Phoebe, early Tree Swallows were checking out the nesting boxes, a Hermit Thrush was skulking in the litter below some junipers, Brown-headed Cowbirds and other [...]
I cannot recall quite what it was that was originally the "abomination unto the lord" but if it wasn't Dandelions, then it should have been. A nastier, sneakier, more unpleasnat plant with ambitions for world domination would be hard to find and so today the annual wars have begun with several sacks-full being uprooted and [...]
Very noisy with a big flock of red-winged Blackbirds and assorted friends ...
Spent a couple of hours in the Arboretum for the exercise and also because it's "my day" to take pictures for the Year in the Arboretum project today. Glad we went ... we were supposed to have rain this morning but instead we had cooler weather with sunshine. Ottawa - not far away - had [...]
Garden firsts f0r the year today included Golden-crowned Kinglets and a White-throated Sparrow (a very handsome chap). Also seen were a Northern Flicker, a gand of DE Juncos and all other other regulars. We thought the new birds were early this year but our records show that they arrived only one day different last year [...]
A lovely sunny (unseasonably) warm day to end the week with the promise of a fine weekend BBQ's in the offing. We have had a small flock of Cedar Waxwings around the garden most of the day and as we had our post-work cups of tea they came down to enjoy the running water in [...]