Category: Birds
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The circuit . . .
The red kites have their circuit, and we have ours. It’s a bit of a longer walk, all along the dyke until the passage through the field leads to home, and especially in the cold and biting breeze, but well worth it. Sometimes, a photograph can more surely evoke the passage, but contemporaneous notes also…
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Peril in the joy . . .
Yesterday’s blog entry felt like an opening opportunity to investigate the depths of these springtime joys. And since I’ve challenged myself to see what poetic inspirations I can find on the general theme of ‘spring,’ I thought I’d have a quick go in the sonnet form. I’m a fan of the classic Shakespearean (sometimes called…
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Signs of spring, if you look
We ambled along the dyke path, through the Ken-Dee marshland, on a reasonably clement afternoon. I’d brought the big camera along so I could get close enough to the various trees lining the circuit, to try to spot some buds of incipient spring. The white fluffy willow buds looked ready to burst, and the oak…
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Love and devotion . . .
What else is there, when you’re fed and warm, but to be enjoying the moment? Kali often curls up on our laps in the evening hours, happy with the company of our warm and comfortable bodies, as she snuggles in for a long snooze. In cat years, she’s probably about our age; her hunting exploits…
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Joys of a quiet valley
Early in the morning, in the peaceful quietude of the valley where the Eastern Allen runs, it’s so good to be able to appreciate the softness. Not that life is easy, up here on the high fellsides. There are plenty of rigours that keep families scratching, and more to come as the cost of heating…
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Open-eyed wonder
Native to North America, the brown-headed cowbird (so named for its distinctive brown head, of course, and its habit of following bison herds when they were grazing across the great American plains) has recently been seen in the UK. Surely, however, an eager cowbird male would not casually travel to our garden to find a…
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Neither pink, pine, nor apples . . .
Okay, there’s a tinge of pink, for sure, but these otherwise misnamed fingerlings are the third successful crop we’ve begun to enjoy as summer moves along. The Alouettes, definitely pink-skinned, have been a disappointment, but the Charlottes and Harmonies are already very satisfying. The yellow flesh and nutty taste of the Pink Fir Apples make…
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Opportunism: not such a nasty word
Any biologist will tell you that without opportunism, few plant species would survive. Their entire reproductive strategy seems to be built on the chance that a wandering seed, among many that are lost, might find a suitable place to germinate and grow. Whether the distribution is by wind, by animal, or by bird, eventually the…
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From lake to loch . . .
A week ago I stood on the shore of Lake Ahmic in northern Ontario (the near north, as my father liked to say, south of North Bay on Lake Nipissing, north of Barrie), and said goodbye to the loons, a perennial favourite of my mother. A couple of days ago we sat on a strategic…
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Forget it, corvids . . .
We’ve finally finished sorting out Mr Duck’s patch with biosecurity netting. It turned out that the rails I had laying around were exactly the right size to be supports for the jackdaw-proof netting, and so the task was relatively easy to facilitate. The challenge has been that the jackdaws, especially if they go in two-by-twos,…
Roads to Joy 