Someone Flipped The Winter Switch! Hello again! It is most definitely winter up here in NW Ontario. In the past 3 days, we’ve gone from heavy rain to heavy freezing rain (about a 1/2 inch worth!) and now to blowing snow and about -15C wind chills. I had to bring …
Birding this past month in the Calgary area has – due to a variety of weather patterns – presented a lot of opportunities to photograph many species under different conditions. A particular favorite of mine is the always striking Wood Duck: An increasing number of Wood Ducks have taken up …
Hello! And welcome back to the T.O. Backyard here in the Bird Canada Blog. This month I’d like to share something a little different, stepping entirely away from our backyard. I call this blog “Giving Back” because that is what it is about… giving back to the birds. My wife …
Imagine you’re a bird in flight, high in the sky, heading from your wintering grounds in South America to the Boreal Forest, along with a dozen other birds. You make the journey every year because that forest is your breeding ground. Migration, built into your genes like the colour of …
Hello again! I sure hope everyone has been enjoying this wonderful autumn season. I dearly love autumn …. I just wish it would last a little longer. Like spring, it seems to be gone in a flash. Our tree colors are pretty much finished already and at least half of …
This August I had a very enjoyable week of camping with my family out on the prairie lakes and east of Calgary, during which I was able to photograph a number of migrant shorebirds as they passed southward through southern Alberta. Weather-wise, we were pretty lucky with only the one …
Thanksgiving weekend in Canada is just about a thing of the past, and now so is fall migration for 2016. The last couple weeks the birds have been passing through southern Ontario, heading on their journey south. It’s a treat for us to catch sights of any of these birds …
Islands and birds. An island full of birds. Birds in flight over a tropical island. Lovely images, right? But there’s more to it than meets the eye. I count myself incredibly lucky to live on an island, Gabriola Island, in the Salish Sea just off the coast of British Columbia. …
Ah, August…. for me this used to just mean the end of camping season is around the corner and that is NOT a good feeling! These days however, I now know August means the southward (fall) migration of many bird species, including many that in southern Alberta we only ever …
“Hot” is the only way to describe August, much like the whole summer of 2016 here in Toronto, Ontario. Just trying to keep cool and deal with it is what most of us are doing. While it has been rather quiet a few things of interest have happened around our …