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 [...]
Snowy Owl on the Winter Solstice We spent all of a very cold (-14C) and breezy Winter Solstice doing "our" route as part of the annual Christmas Bird Count. There were not as many birds as we usually expect - the absence of Snow Buntings was particularly badly felt as they are favourites [...]
On Saturday morning, Bird Protection Quebec organised a birding field trip in the Arboretum to which Arbo members were invited and which several joined. For my sins, I was delegated to organise and lead the outing. I don't go on many field trips (I have problems with more than six people together at once) [...]
Text here Guelder Rose Two varieties of Viburnum are in flower at the moment, the one to the front is Viburnum. opulus var. opulus (European Guelder Rose), the taller one behind, is a North American native - Viburnum. opulus var. americanum aka V. trilobium (High-bush Cranberry). Gorgeous complex flowers followed later by bunches [...]
** Perhaps a few too many posts here recently of multiple, featured photographs ... henceforth they will be displayed in a single post that's quick to scan and only takes one click to open. In Town Tonight The Baie-D'Urfé town hall lit up for the 2018 Winter Solstice [...]
Snack time The red berries on the Viburnum bushes are being eaten early this winter ... with some of the outside staff putting in excess energy to reach them. EXIF data Copyright © All images are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 [...]
The Third Man ... ? This is Place Jacques-Cartier in Montreal with the town hall at the top of the hill. It was strangely calm and quiet after the alien mothership had beamed up all the tourists and buskers. There were only two people in the whole square, sitting on that bench to the [...]
Elves or Gnomes? Looking south from the path beside the "Bobolink Field" in the arboretum. Always a bird-rich and interesting part of the trail system. EXIF data 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 [...]
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 [...]
Yesterday we were invited to join a small supporters outing and information session hosted by the Nature Conservancy Canada at the wonderful Kenauk Wildlife Reserve between Montreal and Ottawa. This is our favourite place on earth bar none so naturally we jumped at the chance. Apart from simply "being there" once again being enough [...]