People who know us know that we like to spend time with birds. This video (NOT made by me note) is the first in a series intended to educate Elementary School children from grades 3 to 6 about the important work that is done at the McGill Bird Observatory (MBO) in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec. [...]
Strolling in Winter near Montreal We were out a few days ago counting winter birds and thought a couple of minutes strolling through the snowy forest with us might be calming for your soul. Immediately by the start off this short walk there were four different species of Woodpecker in the trees [...]
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. [...]
Hudson Christmas Bird Count (Route 2) 2021 This is probably the 20th year that J and I have done the annual Christmas Bird Count centred on Hudson, and all but the first year we have censused the same route. It's unusual in that there is far more driving than walking - not a [...]
In Baie-D'Urfé, and in other similar towns blessed with lots of trees, we often speak of the importance of our trees. This extract from an excellent book about urban nature, speaks to that understanding and explains why providing small, replacement trees ("oh, they will get big in a few years") are not [...]
Temperatures have been up and down like a yo-yo recently and after a bit of snow last night this morning was one of the warmer times so the snow was giving off "snow mist" with a white hazy fog amongst the trees when we went out to see birds. A late lurking Tufted [...]
Snow - then a brief marginal thaw - and now cold again with ice. Only a week though to the winter solstice after which the days begin to lengthen again on the way to the return of spring. Before that, however, we have January and February and serious winter days ahead. [...]
Approximately this date but taken ten years ago at the end of the road - resurfaced from the archives. Never throw anything away, one day it will be of use. Last night there was a pretty violent wind storm with gusts up to 100km/hr and power outages all over the province ... thank goodness [...]
The beginning of December brings with it our return to winter birding tasks - tasks we spend all summer, especially during the too hot months, looking forward to. Regular readers will know that these duties involve weekly (weekdays for us, a couple of friends do weekends) visits to the nearby bird banding station [...]
Some simple suggestions ... Faithful readers of our posts will have gathered some ideas about how to attract wildlife to their gardens over spring, summer and early fall but now winter approaches and what do we do with all those native plants still standing tall? The neighbours are starting to look askance. [...]