Although delayed this year, we thought migration was probably over now as June starts and the temperatures being to climb. But no ... stalking the garden this afternoon trying to catch shots of bumble bees on the flowers that are all over our so far uncut lawn I happened to catch site of [...]
Spring migratory birds in the Garden I suspect that anyone reading this journal entry will already be aware of the pleasure we take in enticing birds to visit our garden. This week has proved to be the (slightly delayed) peak week for northwards migration soy can feast your eyes on some of the [...]
Pine Siskin An irruptive "winter finch" from the far northern boreal forests that some winters comes our way in the cold season. Lovely little birds. Metadata Copyright © All images are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA) License … which really [...]
Blue Jay Blue Jays are like teenagers, always flopping about and shouting. They also like very much to take regular baths and showers and as we provide a heated water bath for them in cold Québec winters, how could this smart fellow refuse the opportunity. Metadata Copyright © [...]
Right at the very northernmost limit of their range, two Carolina Wrens are settling in for winter in a garden west of Montreal. A serendipitous snatch of hand-held video. ** The first Wren appears from behind the dark chain-mesh feeder at about 12s and the second flies in to join it at 30s. I [...]
Feeder filling at the MBO Every winter at about this time we take a weekly "shift" at the nearby bird banding station (no public access so we can't share the location) to fill bird feeders and see what's about. Today was the first outing of the year and the coldest day with -15C (or [...]
Snow and some very good birds Apart from a few photographs of birds and flowers there hasn’t been much keeping up to date here with notes about the garden and its wildlife but now we have fully entered winter with a couple of decent snowfalls and a minus -18C night forecast before the end [...]
Rare visitors Today is the first day of this winter's Feederwatch ... after a pleasant morning with not much unusual, just the regular residents (Chickadees, both Nuthatches, Cardinals, Jays, Juncos etc etc) a gust of cold wind from the north deposited a Carolina Wren and Gray Catbird. Amazing. The Wren was using the seed [...]
Hermit Thrush - probably, but ... The garden is throwing up some interesting birds this week. Today's offering is a Thrush that spent some time around the pond late afternoon Saturday. It's "rusty" tail and clear white eye-ring makes this pretty certainly a Hermit Thrush ... but I was distracted bya fine white [...]
Pine Siskins Predictions have been that winter finches of several species are going to be coming south in some numbers this year due a poor cone crop in the boreal forests - well, it's started very early indeed with the arrival in the garden of a half dozen Pine Siskins (accompanied by a not [...]