Bluebirds in Mid-Winter !!! It's the 17 January, the sun is shining from a clear blue sky, temperatures are -16C (with windchill -27C) and there we are, sitting in the warm reading the papers when a small bird lands in the viburnum bush just outside. A quick glance, not expecting anything other [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Sparrows are perhaps my/our favourite birds. From the point of view of nostalgia I would say especially the House Sparrows that I grew up with but otherwise one of the great things about living in Canada is the number of other sparrow species (most of them more strictly Buntings, but we won't go [...]
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 [...]
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) [...]
One of our most enjoyable activities each year is spending the winter servicing and filling the bird feeders at the local bird banding station and recording the birds that are in the season when the nets cannot be put up. This year we started a bit earlier than usual after the first decent [...]
** 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 [...]
“December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers. But there were cats.” – Dylan Thomas, A Child’s Christmas in Wales That sounds all very nice, were DT not to have spoiled the image by then going on to write “Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we [...]
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 © [...]