61 species of birds in the garden during 2018 Every year we keep detailed lists of the birds we see in our garden - admittedly we do have advantages over some home owners in that we designed and plant and maintain with wildlife in mine, we have a lot of native species and we [...]
Christmas Bird Count 2018 - Hard, cold work The CBC this year was very cold (mostly windchill) with virtually no snow and all the birds keeping well down and sheltered and so extraordinarily hard to find and count. As usual, J and I were working CBC Route #2 south of Hudson which takes us [...]
A "Whaaat the heck is that ... ??!" Moment We have been extraordinarily lucky, helped by cunning garden design and planting, over the years to get the high garden bird count that we have amassed but this afternoon we were sitting quietly having a cup of tea when J grabbed her binoculars and called "Whaaat [...]
Birds, flowers, butterflies and photographs High summer is one of the very best times to go wandering in the arboretum because for the most part you have it to yourself and that means the wildlife is much closer and more easily observed. We saw birds close up today that usually stay well away from [...]
(1) The value of wildlife gardens And so we come to a new gardening year and more opportunities for making our own small or large home patches welcoming to wildlife. We will get to what has been happening in this garden shortly (snow mostly ) but it’s an opportune time for us to pause [...]
A Good Year Thus we come to the end of another year of wildlife gardening in our small suburban "nature reserve". We have enjoyed telling you, week by week, what we have done and seen and enjoyed and we know from comments received that many readers of the journal have found something to interest [...]
You will be receiving this on Christmas Eve … whether you pause to read it immediately is another matter but whether you do or not Jean and I wish you all, gardeners, wildlife gardeners or just occasional visitors, all the best for Christmas and the days and months that follow. Apart from one faithful [...]
Well, that’s is finally that. A small fall of snow last Sunday followed by a mid-week twenty-four hour dump and we think we can say that the gardening season is over and now we can just look forward to welcoming and commenting on the visits by our birds and squirrels and other neighbourhood creatures. The [...]
Last Sunday overnight rain turned to snow by Monday morning. Not much, but the first of the winter and well distributed with the remaining leaves carrying small loads of snowflakes … the leaves were still on the Acer japonica (now almost gone at the end of the week) and the white snow on red [...]
A mostly sunny and unusually warm week turning to cloud and some rain on occasion. The seed in the feeders has started to go down again due to the resumption of feeding by the usual suspects such as Blue Jays, Northern Cardinals - lots of them - Black-capped Chickadees and House Finches, the latter [...]