Bruce Spanwing Moth A couple of days ago we saw a pale moth flying across the garden - late November, snow on the ground, temperatures around zero or below - and shrugged as it flew away. This morning we got a closer look at it, or a relative. I am reasonably confident that [...]
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 [...]
As the weather cools down (thank goodness) the first tints of autumn are beginning to appear and many leaves are starting to look tired. We have a large bank of mixed dogwoods on the southern edge of the garden and it is full of juvenile Song Sparrows, Purple Finches, House Finches all searching for [...]
Finally - birds are returning, flowers are starting to appear, albeit in small numbers, and buds are swelling as we draw close to the first week of May and the “Great Greening” of spring. The first daffodil to flower has appeared and plenty more are putting up buds. It’s a funny thing, back in England [...]
A quiet week in the garden with several cold nights, very cold nights to make everything keep its collective head down. Nevertheless, signs of approaching spring with birds such as the American Crows and Northern Cardinals making obvious signs of looking around for mates and nesting sites to make more American Crows and Northern [...]
7 January 2017 A moderately cold week to start the new year with a great dollop of heavy, wet snow followed by freezing rain in the middle of the week so that the snow cover is rather crunchy and sitting on a layer of ice. It will be doing what it is supposed to do [...]
A team of highly trained garden gnomes from the Sparroworks Wildlife Co. are spending December digging and delving in the internet and re-landscaping this website (www.sparroworks.ca) with the intention of (a) making it more pleasing to the eye and (b) launching a weekly Garden Journal starting in January. If gardening, especially wildlife gardening, [...]
A new year and a new birding challenge (several in fact) started with bright sunshine, a clear blue sky and temperatures hovering around -20C. It promises to be more like -28C by tomorrow morning though with windchill of -42C plus some snow so we will take the sun and today's more balmy conditons, thank you. [...]
Every December the "Friends of the Morgan Arboretum" hold what is loosely known as a Winter Solstice celebration, mostly intended for short people and their parents. There are games, seasonal films, craft workshops, hot chocolate and cookies and a guided walk (led by the good folk from the Sparroworks) to see if the Chickadees will [...]
Had a busy twenty minutes today in the garden this morning with birds flapping all over the place including Yellow-rumped Warblers (about twenty) and a nice Blackburnian amongst the regulars. Almost every bird was there because of the presence of the pond and waterfall - worth all the effort of installing because they certainly attract [...]