Apparently, some things are so ingrained you don’t even realize they’ve taken up residence in your brain. Earlier this month we took a vacation to Florida. In contrast to what we left at home, it was very green, very hot and very wet. Coming from a western Canadian winter, the …
Not all fishing trips are successful. This fish-less osprey is drying his wings in the wind after a failed attempt. Taken in Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Florida February 2010.
BirdLife International initiated the Important Bird Area (IBA) program in the mid-1980’s. The main goals of the program were to identify, conserve and monitor the world’s most critical places for bird populations. IBAs are priority areas where threatened, restricted-range, biome-restricted and congregatory birds occur. Birds are the best documented, and …
We took a prairie birding drive yesterday, looking for snowy owls. Naturally enough, this post is therefore about black-billed magpies. This is the countryside where we looking for owls. White owls. Some trips they are easy to find, perched on power poles, fence posts, graineries and hay bales. Some trips …
While I have been birding as long as I can remember, I am relatively new to photographing birds. Now that I’ve finally moved into the world of digital cameras. I’ve become a picture taking fool. Some of my photos are even decent shots, and I love the surprises I get …
As we near the end of the decade, some birding bloggers are compiling lists of various bird sightings over the past ten years. I thought that sounded like a fun idea, so here’s my list of my most memorable birds. Not all of them were lifers, but all of them …
Today is one of those days Canada is famous for. During the ‘warmest’ part of the day, the temperature here in Calgary was -28C, which equates to -18F. There is not the tiniest breath of wind, and a light snow has been coming down intermittently throughout the day. Yesterday evening …
In 1900, to oppose the so-called “side-hunt” wherein groups of hunters competed to see who could shoot the most wildlife on Boxing Day, American ornithologist Frank Chapman asked North Americans to head out on Christmas Day, to count the birds in their communities and submit the results as the first …
Bird Studies Canada is entering its seventh season of Short-eared Owl monitoring in Ontario. North American and European researchers are working together to learn more about this poorly-understood species, which appears to be declining across its global range and is classified as a species of Special Concern in Canada. Bird …
Birds of many different families mimic the sounds they hear around them. Blue jays give a perfect rendition of the call of a hawk, which as sent me running to the window with my binoculars more than once. Crows have been heard to imitate the whine of a dog, the …