Our neighbour let us know that there was a northern saw-whet owl in a tree by his house. He had seen the smaller birds acting agitated, so he went out to see what was going on. I would never have seen it in the tree without him pointing it out to me. At first I […]
Yesterday, I saw a lone trumpeter swan on our lake. It wasn’t until I looked at the pictures on my computer that I realized that this swan was banded. It had large yellow tags on each wing. When I looked this up, I was directed to https://www.trumpeterswansociety.org where I was able to read about the […]
Loons are still one of my favourite birds to observe. Awhile ago we had more loons than usual on the lake, and I was able to get some pictures of them before they moved on. We have about 3-4 loons on our lake through the summer, but they don’t always spend time around each other. […]
We have a neighbourhood raven, whom we have named Bob. He/she started coming around here a couple of weeks ago, and is getting comfortable around people. Apparently, they are one of the smartest birds. Usually, the ones around here are very timid and won’t let you get near them, so this is unusual for us […]
When we were kayaking last week, we came across some mergansers who didn’t seem to mind getting their pictures taken. In fact they seemed to want to pose for me. I was able to get some photos before they grew tired of me being around them. Mergansers are also known as sawbills, fish ducks, and […]
Today we had a pine warbler in our yard. It was very fascinated with its reflection in the truck and kept coming back to check it out over and over again. Usually Pine Warblers stay up high in pine trees so they can be difficult to see. This obviously isn’t the case with this one. […]
The mergansers have come back to the lake. They are more timid than the mallards and the loons, so I was happy to get some photos of them. The ice was off of the shoreline, so the ducks were staying fairly close to shore. The male and female look very different. Immature males look similar […]
We have had a lot more mourning doves in our backyard this winter. They like to sit in the trees for a long time, especially when it is sunny back there. It’s a perfect opportunity to take their photos. They are very common, which means that we don’t think about them very much, except when […]
We have had a new visitor to our feeders. Apparently, it is a yellow-rumped warbler – Myrtle species. We haven’t seen any of these before, so it was interesting to see it here. The Yellow-rumped Warbler is one of the most common warblers in North America, and can winter farther north than any other warbler. […]
Pine grosbeaks are interesting to see. Today, one of our neighbours let us know that there was a flock eating crab-apples near us. We have seen them before, but not in large numbers the way we saw them today. The males are red and the females are grey and yellow. One of the largest species in […]