Category Archives: birds

  For those who gain their insights into the natural world from seasonal decorations, Christmas trees are uniformly conical, snow crystals are always stellar, and turkeys display in the fall just in time to be decapitated for the Thanksgiving table. … Continue reading →

  Ospreys have returned. On April 7th, Derek Kite saw two; the next day, I saw this one. At this time of the year, some ospreys are passing through to northern climes, but this one, sizing up a nest, will … Continue reading →

  I was away from the Lake for a few days, but continued to take pictures. While these five bird portraits are from afar, each is of a species I have previously seen and photographed locally, some quite recently. I … Continue reading →

  Tree Swallows are back and competing for both mates and nesting sites.  Tree Swallows don’t build their own nests but make use of cavities previously carved by other birds, often woodpeckers. The cavity in the piling, below, was made … Continue reading →

  Coyote: A bird in the mouth is worth two in the bush.

  Some postings tell a story or develop an theme: sound of orange; halo presages rain; goose raspberry; uncinus; frost flowers bloom…. But, sometimes I merely record a collage. This is one such: a collection of birds seen in the … Continue reading →

  This has been a good winter for the Varied Thrush, and now numbers are increasing through migration.  In silhouette, the Varied Thrush looks like its cousin, the American Robin (also a thrush), but they differ in several ways. While the … Continue reading →

  Normally, months will go by without my noticing a single Ruffed Grouse. Today, I saw two. They were three kilometres apart (as the grouse flies).  The first grouse to be seen was, to my mind, comical. It moved at … Continue reading →

  Sometimes March 20th or 21st is proclaimed as the official first day of spring. This, of course, is nonsense: no officials have ever proclaimed this—and why would they? Further, the idea is silly: spring arrives slowly and at a … Continue reading →