One of the must do tasks for New Year's Day around here is to total up the number of species of birds that we have heard or seen in or from our garden during the preceding year. The garden list for 2021 topped off at a gratifying 76 different species of birds. [...]
Looking about you and learning about what you see About a week ago we wrote about our participation in the Nature Conservancy Canada “Bioblitz” during which we recorded all the species we saw in a five day period in our garden and the nearby roads and parks. The total came to 217. We [...]
This is a reworking of a post of mine from a couple of years ago. You will see, when you reach the closing section, that it’s very much a plea for enthusing novices of all ages, though especially the younger age groups, in the importance and joys of wildlifing. In particular via the [...]
Even the woodpecker owes its success to the fact that he used his head. —Author Unknown Continuing with the theme of occasional “Naturally Speaking” accounts of species you can encounter on the West Island of Montreal I am going to introduce a another bird. Botanists and entomologist friends of mine need [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Montée Biggar Bird Sanctuary Getting away from the garden this morning I visited a new bird sanctuary in southern Quebec that has been purchased by my very good friends at Bird Protection Quebec (declaration of interest - I was on the board for ten years, President for three and still run the grants and [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]