Summer in the City

Ah Summertime.  A favorite time of year for most people spending more time outside and being social.  For birders, some of us embrace the slow down after Spring migration.  Others crash and burn, missing the Warblers and others that have long passed through, and are always ready for more birds. …

Continue reading

Notes From a Northwester Ontario Backyard – June 2017

Hello again and welcome to Lilac season, up here anyway!  I know in other areas, Lilac season is already over but we’ve had an incredibly cool spring & it looks like early summer, at least, will be the same. As promised, a report on my annual Birdathon, which I held …

Continue reading

Changes

Turn and face the strange Ch-ch-changes! – David Bowie I have more than once caught myself humming David Bowie’s 1972 hit Changes over the past few weeks. Spring in southern Ontario is very much a season of changes – from day to day, week to week, month to month. It’s …

Continue reading

T.O. Backyard – A Different View

Rob and I usually book two weeks’ vacation in May, and this year was no different. The big difference this year was that I was still recovering from a broken right foot, still in a boot-cast, and not allowed to do a lot of walking. Rob, the never ending optimist …

Continue reading

Curiosity

Although curiosity didn’t do much good for the proverbial cat, I have to confess it has always served me well, continually opening my world to delightful new discoveries. Most recently, this has come to include the joy of watching birds. Straight up – I don’t know the first thing about …

Continue reading

Notes From a Northwestern Ontario Backyard – May 2017

Hello again and welcome to the May Long Weekend! Spring has been very slow in coming up here.  We had a brutal ice storm at the end of April, just when many migrants were arriving.  It didn’t get too cold but we received nearly 6″ of ice pellets followed by …

Continue reading

Welcome back birds! – Spring birding in Calgary, 2017

2017 has flown by for me thus far. While I have been managing to get out and go birding, most of it has been outside of Canada – exploring some of the other wonderful avian species to be found in birding meccas such as south-east Arizona, Ohio and more far-flung …

Continue reading

T.O. Backyard – Spring Things

Hello! Welcome back to our Toronto backyard and slightly beyond. Spring is in full swing, migrating birds coming back to our region (or passing through, heading further north), and for some odd reason a winter species still remain here in early May. We just started a 2 week vacation so …

Continue reading

Notes From a Northwestern Ontario Backyard – April 2017

Happy Belated Easter to all! Spring is a very confusing season up here in Northern Ontario.  Temperatures can change by upwards of 30 degrees in 24 hours or less.  Last week is a good example of this.  On April 9th, we reached a daytime high of 21C.  The next day …

Continue reading

T.O. Backyard – Deck Birding

Living in Ontario, the first day of Spring is always welcomed to a birder, as it signifies that Spring Migration is just around the corner! But for me this year, the first day of Spring put my birding activities to a halt. A fall on the stairs at home gave …

Continue reading