18 January, and after a weekend of heavy snowfall we went out to enjoy the countryside on the West Island. Considering this in Montreal, it's very pleasing to have such places within a very short distance from home. Lovely deep snow with a thin and crisp topping to wade through - thank [...]
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 [...]
A Project Perhaps? We were walking near home recently, as we do every day to keep things working as they should be, and went along a short stretch of a road separated from the Autoroute 20 (that's the very busy and noisy road to Toronto) by a dense but narrow stretch of trees [...]
West Island Wildlife #1 A new venture ... A 14 page illustrated "webzine" to introduce readers to the amazing variety of wildlife and plants to be found in the green spaces, parks and gardens of the West Island of Montreal. This is the first of what is hoped to become an occasional [...]
Playing with Light I was driving along the lakeshore in town (the lake being a widening of the St-Lawrence River) a couple of days ago about 7:30 in the morning when I was struck by the light on the water. Normally I would have had a camera with me but I was [...]
Thyme-leaved Speedwell (Veronica serpyllifolia) Working in the Fritz Garden (where the community grows vegetables for food banks) a few days ago, and preparing to plant tomato seedlings I was caught by this tiny gem of a wildflower looking appealingly at me and pleading not to be “weeded”. What could I do but [...]
Species #9 to #15 Dates: 8 -14 March 2020 These were the "Lifeforms of the Day" for the second week ... they originally appeared on this Facebook page. If you would like to follow that page you will get a new species to enjoy and learn about each day until some embuggerment or [...]
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 [...]
Walking in the Snow with Birds There was some gentle snow overnight on Wednesday and so we had to go out and make the most of it Thursday morning. The temperatures were not too cold (they will be exceptionally cold by the weekend) and we had a good tramp. This wooded and [...]
Feed the Birds Every Thursday in Winter we start a morning's birding by visiting the nearby MBO bird banding station and filling the bid feeders followed by taking a census of the birds to be seen in the cold snow. This is quite a special thing for us - the station is [...]