Barb Castell is a birder who lives on an acreage SW of Calgary, Alberta, near the community of Priddis. The location is in the foothills, a transition zone between the prairies to the east and the mountains to the west. It is a great place to see birds, including some …
My First Book of Canadian Birds by Andrea Miller (text) and Angela Doak (art) Hardcover Children’s Picture Book 7 x 9 inches/32 pages Nimbus Publishing ISBN: 978-1-77108-635-0 /$22.95 Publication date: October 1 2018 My First Book of Canadian Birds makes me wish I had a three- or four-year-old grandchild. This lovely …
Even though it’s not officially Fall for another couple weeks, the turning of the calendar to September feels very Fall like to me. For most, it means the start of school, but for us it means the start of the departing of our “summer guests”. Though I enjoy all …
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 …
March and April are always interesting months in our backyard. The calendar says Spring arrives, but Winter puts up quite a fight to stay around. The first of our Spring/Summer migrants have arrived, Red-winged Blackbirds and Grackles. We’ve been making sure the feeders are well stocked to help them out, as …
On the day before Valentine’s Day, GROWLS (Gabriola Rescue of Wildlife Society) held a wonderful event in celebration of Bald Eagles. Aptly-named Love is in the Air: An Eagle Affair, the day included a tour of eagle nests and a talk by provincial biologist Ian Moul about the Gabriola Eagle …
For my first post of 2016 I offer you a photo display of some of the birds seen on the 2015 Christmas Bird Count (CBC) on Gabriola Island. The photos are by five Gabriola photographers – Shannon Gresham, Garry Davey, Zulis Yalte, Eileen Kaarsemaker, Douglas Green – and me. Prolific …
I don’t know how long he’d been in the garden room. Maybe hours. Busy in the house, I’d decided to take a break and work on the 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle my grandkids had left for me to finish, just that morning. (It’s a bit of an addiction.) As soon …
Hello again! This is not the busiest time of the year in my yard but there are still a few visitors making an appearance lately. It’s quite noisy in the yard these days, actually, because we are being overrun with Grackle and Starling juveniles. When you get 20 or 30 …
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 …