Hello from Manitouwadge, in Northwestern Ontario. I will soon be contributing to Bird Canada on the 20th of each month, mostly about bird sightings in, near or around my yard but sometimes, maybe my flowers too! Just so you know, I am nowhere near being a professional birder or ornithologist …
The past month I’ve been hitting the birding pretty hard trying to capture as much of the spring action as I can. A highlight of the month for my first ever trip to the famous spring migrant trap – Ontario’s Point Pelee National Park located on the northern coast of …
Have you seen the cartoon – on Facebook recently – with two crows sitting on a beam in the middle of an expanse of lawn, looking off into the distance, for … something? Being a lover of both birds and words, I laughed like crazy. Not everyone does, apparently. Crows are …
Well, things continue to hot up around Calgary as more and more returning birds make their way north. This time of year I like to go visiting ponds and sloughs all over Calgary and its outskirts as I never know quite what will be around. One returning species that I …
On the brink of becoming an official card-carrying senior, I find myself embarrassed, more and more often, at the things we humans do. As a younger person, I was rather optimistic about the world. Now I’m not. Now I wonder, every ten minutes, what are we thinking? What are we …
Well spring migration is really kicking into gear since my last post, and it’s been great to see swags of species coming back to southern Alberta each week. Many waterfowl species are in making their way through, from the American Wigeon, Canada Geese, mergansers and Mallards: I was also quite …
I’ve been feeding the birds in my backyard ever since that morning eight years ago when I noticed several black-hooded birds hopping around the overgrown garden of our new home on Gabriola Island. They made an odd, metallic chip, chip, chip noise that forced me to sit up and pay …
Due to a combination of vacation, multiple family commitments and unfavourable weather, I haven’t got out birding that much the past month. That said, the few forays I have made have been reasonably productive so I can’t complain. A real highlight was getting to see a second Northern Pygmy Owl …
Great Backyard Bird Count Sets New Species Record Nearly half the world’s species identified in four days New York, NY, Ithaca, NY, and Port Rowan, ON–Participants from more than 100 countries submitted a record 147,265 bird checklists for the annual Great Backyard Bird Count and broke the previous count record …
By Sharon McInnes Earlier this month I went to San Miguel de Allende (SMA), in the mountains of central Mexico, to attend the 10th anniversary SMA Writers Conference, where keynote speakers included Gloria Steinem, Jane Urquhart, and Alice Walker. It was, in a word, fabulous. On my first day in …