Southern Ontario’s Winter Bounty

I had hoped to get out to photograph some of the different ducks overwintering on Lake Ontario at some point over the last couple of weeks, but a number of pressing work commitments have kept me pretty much chained to my desk. I’ve no regrets, since the back yard feeder …

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Are you in the GBBC?

Show how much you care about birds by participating in the 21stannual Great Backyard Bird Count! Simply count birds for at least 15 minutes on one or more of the count days (February 16-19, 2018) and report your sightings online. Around the globe, tens of thousands of volunteers – of all …

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Notes From a Northwestern Ontario Backyard – January 2018

Hello and welcome to a brand new year! I hope everyone had a peaceful & enjoyable holiday season. Unfortunately, I have to start off my first post of 2018 with some bad news: the Brown Thrasher that was visiting my feeders throughout December has sadly perished. We believe he was …

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Summer flash back – Birding Alberta’s Dinosaur Provincial Park

Birding outings this past month for me, with frustrating head colds either side of Christmas and local temps hovering around -20 celsius for extended periods, have been both limited and unfruitful! As such, my short post this month takes us back to the warmer weather of last summer during our …

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Winter in Southern Ontario

How many times have we heard the expression be careful what you wish for? Last time I wrote an update for this blog  I was lamenting the lack of migrating birds and the blah fall weather. I even said I was looking forward to a change. Well, we got it. …

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Notes From a Northwestern Ontario Backyard – December 2017

Hello again!  My deepest apologies for being so sporadic in my monthly postings. This kitchen rebuild/renovation my husband and I have been working on since last March has taken up nearly all of our time. I will sincerely try to post more in 2018. I have to say it’s been …

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Southern Ontario’s Waiting Game

For many children, the last few weeks leading up to Christmas are a period when time stands still. Or at the very least, it seems to move a lot slower than usual. Weeks feel like months and days feel like weeks in that all-too slow march up to the big …

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Winter Birding in Calgary and the Foothills in Pictures – Part 1

I know it’s another month until winter ‘officially’ begins here in Calgary, but the snow and sub-zero temps have already arrived and the winter birding in Calgary has begun in earnest. I like the coming of winter, not so much for the temperature, but because it means I can chill …

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Southern Ontario’s Continuing Bird Vacuum

The unusually variable weather pattern that has characterized autumn 2017 in southern Ontario has continued on without too much change. Although the days are growing shorter and the nights are getting long, bird migrations – at least in our area – seem to continue in more of a trickle than …

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Notes From a Northwestern Ontario Backyard – October 2017

Hello again and Happy Autumn/Halloween! I cannot believe what a warm autumn we’ve been having.  It’s been wet, yes, and it’s been windy, yes but it’s been quite amazing to have 20C temperatures the week before Halloween. Oddly enough, in the middle of these warm temperatures, we also had our …

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