Tits or Chickadees?Not sure how I had missed this after a lifetime looking at creatures but I recently came across a photograph of a small bird and thought "funny looking Chickadee". This was the bird: It didn't take me long to work out that it was similar but different - here [...]
Do you know just how varied is the wildlife on the West Island in Winter? West Island Wildlife is an occasional webzine. It is FREE and fully illustrated, and has the intention of introducing readers to the surprisingly varied wildlife and native plants to be found on the West Island of Montreal. Following the [...]
Best time of the year Well - almost :) Faithful followers of this journal will recall that we spend three to four months each winter visiting and walking around the nearby bird observatory in the snow and deep cold to top up the feeders and to take a census of what birds [...]
Garden Birds - November 2020. During this "lockdown and go nowhere" year Bird Protection Quebec have replaced their weekly guided birding field trips with a series of interesting virtual alternatives. Basically, they have been saying, here’s a challenge, go and do it and then tell us all about what you found. For the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
After over a week of unseasonably cold northerly winds that held spring bird migration back things changed overnight and we are in a south-westerly air flow that's a bit warmer. Quite a change and we have spent half the day glued to the windows watching the garden, especially the waterfall, as bird [...]
May-Day turned out to be a very birdy day in the (locked-down) garden starting with ten or a dozen White-throated Sparrows who stuck around all day and were busy singing to the accompaniment of more of their kind in gardens up and down the road. You can never have too many Sparrows. [...]
Gradually the snow is melting and daytime temperatures are mostly a touch above freezing point )well below at night) - even the very first snowdrop shoot has popped its head up. The early returning birds have appeared - principally huge clocks of Canada Geese and plenty of male Red-winged Blackbirds strutting their [...]
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 [...]