Ok last week I got it all wrong, what I thought was a swarming turns out that it might have been a occupation of the field! Soon after a whole bunch of other birds showed up! and they stayed for quite a while. It was raining and raining but there was a short span where I caught a break to get a few quick pictures. As I approached some would fly a little ways further and others would follow. Something like a buddy system where you have to stick with another bird. Kind of reminded me of the wave in a stadium. Either way I protected my camera under my jacket and bird watched in the rain for about twenty minutes as more and more showed up! Birding at it’s best. Fall is in the air and these birds feel it too. of course elections are going on all over Canada so this just might be a convention of sorts to elect a new bird leader!! Hope you are enjoying Bird watching and the fall colours.

Until next time Happy birding!

I have been very busy this last month and have taken lots of pictures and have many ideas for future posts and it feels good to get back in front of the site.

It has rained here every day now for a week! To top it off it is harvest season so the local farmers are not happy. So do you know what farmers do when they can’t harvest? They get together at a local coffee shop. What does this have to do with birding you ask? Well all these seagulls seem to have gotten a tweet (pun intended) that the farmers are gone. Do they come to the fields for a vacation from the beach? It could be that they come here for peace and quite. I’m serious. If you think about it the waves are almost always loud especially when it’s raining. So it stands to reason that they would like it here. How the word gets out though is beyond me. Maybe they invented social networking!! I am also an avid people watcher and the more I watch birds the more similarities I find between them. Maybe if you call somebody a bird brain, it could be a compliment.

Until next time Happy birding!

“Look I think someone had a baby!” I exclaimed as I saw the heron. “Ok It’s not that close to a stork but it made you look. “ (Picture eyes rolling)Some people have no sense of humour.

This was one of several that I saw today as we went out on the lake. On our way back there was a white one in the distance that I would have loved to get a picture of but nature was calling from a different area and I would not have enough time to come back. Afterwards, I looked it up and it appears to be a blue heron but I can’t be sure. I am not familiar enough with them and the picture is not clear enough for me to compare it to the pictures in the guide. But I’ll call it a Blue heron anyway until someone can tell me otherwise.

I wonder, if you see “stork” does it mean that someone had a baby or do the chances of having one go up dramatically when you see one? Also does it work the same way if you think you saw a stork but you only saw a heron? Something to ponder for next time.

Until then Happy birding!

When you are into birding you tend to notice things about birds that the average person may never see! Today was one of those days; I was sitting on a picnic table in the shade when several seagulls wandered nearby hoping to get a few free crumbs or fries. This is when I noticed something different about the one. It had something on his/her beak. It seamed that it got it’s nose pierced! You heard me right! I mean what is the world coming to where even the birds want to be cool? Yeah for a minute I thought, Oh the poor bird, me and my daughter tried to catch him but he was to cool for us and kept out of our reach. I looked closer and it appears to not hurt it, but just somehow got caught in it’s beak. I think it was on purpose as a way of rebelling against the establishment! It’s a hip teenager that wants to prove a point! I think if my teenagers were to want to be cool I’ll just show them how ridicules it looks. Better yet I happen to have a three prong hook here in my tackle box, Doh it’s missing where could it have gone?

Were we ever that young once? I must say that our generation had it all together J When people see the pictures there is one of two reactions 1. Poor thing, or 2. COOL! I’ll let you decide which side you are on.

On a side note there is always the question: If the seagull lived by the bay instead of the sea would it be a baygull? J Have a great day and I’ll see you next time until then Happy Birding.

Yeah we’ve all heard of the boy who called wolf but a Killdeer? You know what I’m talking about. You are walking along when you see the killdeer with the injured wing. I move, I mean you move closer to investigate and possibly help the poor critter, only to find that the bird is a little scared of you and runs away dragging it’s wing the whole time and whimpering with pain. Say it with me! Awe the poor birdie. I must help the poor thing. You move closer as it writhes in pain and again as you move closer it musters up enough strength to move just out of reach. What! Now there is another one and it too is hurt. Wait a minute this is just too much of a coincidence that they both have the same injury on the same wing! I’ll bet they have some swampland or a bridge in Florida to sell me as well. How many times will they pull this off before they really get hurt and everyone that has fallen for it in the past will walk right past them and comment or congratulate them on how realistic it looks.

Anyone else ever fall for the old bait and switch? Oh I knew it the whole time but sometimes it’s fun just to humour them. See you soon. Until then Happy Birding!

Wow it’s been a busy couple of weeks! I was involved in an accident that totalled our van, then moved into a new house, looking for a new van, and teaching. It felt like I was running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off! Between dealing with the insurance and changing everything to our new place, there seemed to be no time for birding or this website. Then when I did find the time, the server was down as some of you might have also found. If you did then thank you for coming back.  I found out that even though you are traveling through the day at full tilt and you think that you couldn’t possibly have time to notice anything else, you get a pleasant surprise! My van was fully loaded with things from the house and I was making another run to unload. I came to a stop at an intersection in the country and was waiting for a few cars so I could cross, when I looked over and saw a couple of American gold finches as they landed on a thistle. The male stood watch as the female started to enjoy one of the thistle flower! I looked in the mirror to make sure no one was behind me, when I was sure that there was no one there, I quickly scanned the van hoping to find the camera. Time seemed to stand still as they were taking turns eating the flower. They were only a few feet away and they didn’t care that I was watching them. I pictured that they had left the kids at home and this was a the first chance that they had to get out and were on a date night! but alas all good things must come to an end and they had to get back to the kids. As they effortlessly flew away I realized that I too had to get back at it, but now it seemed to go easier and I couldn’t wait to tell of the blessing that I had just received! See you soon! until then Happy Birding.

Part of my backyard consists of piles of topsoil that will eventually be used to raise the entire yard up. Until this year I had been using a weed whacker to control the weed growth, but I had heard from somewhere that in order to attract monarch butterflies, you need to grow milkweed and thistles. So this year I decided to let them grow, quite possibly to the chagrin of my neighbours. It’s true! Several species of butterflies do come around to enjoy them. But what I liked most about it is that birds love it too and they are an unexpected fringe benefit! I observed several birds starting to harvest the seeds. One in particular is the gorgeous house finch that looks like his head has been accidentally spray painted red. I have attempted, for several weeks now, to get him on camera but he continues to elude me. This week you will have to use your imagination. He comes in on the tall thistles and looks around before dropping straight down out of sight. He’s hidden for about ten seconds, and then he takes off, circles around and does it again until I show up with my camera. I may have to invest in a remote trigger to catch him. If I do catch him I will definitely post him here.

I wonder how many birds I could lure here if I stopped mowing the yard altogether? I could sell the idea that I was going green! But alas I am not that good of a salesman and all good things must come to an end. As the thistles are sending their fluffy seeds a drift in the neighbour’s yards, I am sure that this will be the only year that this will be allowed or more precisely “tolerated” and that is why pictures were invented. Correct? I will not give up, hopefully I’ll get that picture, yet.  Hope to see you back here soon and until then Happy Birding!

Wow! Birding can really be done anywhere. Today I was waiting at the bank when I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up to see a sparrow that was very busy bu

ilding a home under the edge of the roof of the bank! You could tell she had been busy already due to the straw sticking out from behind. She was not to be hindered and she always stuck her he

ad out to make sure it was still safe to come out before she would dive out to return shortly with some more building materials. Of course like all construction zones there has to be somebody either holding the slow/stop sign or leaning on a shovel, and this one was no different. While the one was doing all the work the other was taking it easy close by. I wonder if the grass that was brought was not good enough so he just said “fine do it yourself!”. I think some one is sleeping on the couch tonight.

or maybe it was the birds version of Brinks and this is an automated teller and they were just refilling the bird cash and the the bird keeping watch was armed (winged?). Hmm.which one do you think it is?

Who knew that you would need this much imagination to be a birder? Until next time Happy birding!

Hello All!

This week not so much about birding, I am also a people watcher and sometimes there are people that need to be recognized . So bear with me as I go off on a tangent. Today is a holiday here in Canada and officially a day of freedom for me!  This week I went to the college for my final report and so I went for a stroll around the campus, it’s actually quite nice. I hadn’t noticed much as my nose was stuck to the grindstone. Luckily I had my camera along as I saw a young family of ducks. “Hmmm, I wonder if the College has all their ducks in a row!” They had just come from a swim in the pond and were taking a nap or preening themselves. I had the lens at full zoom as I slowly made my way closer to snap a few pictures. I fully expected them to take to the water as I got closer; the dad was keeping a close watch and was ready to sound the call if needed. The kids were content to sleep, but as I came into focus on a duck. I noticed that he was sleeping with one eye open! What a sneak! I guess if I saw something that was twenty times bigger than me coming at me I would do the same. Just for the record these ducks were definitely not in a row! For the last two years I have been taking courses at the college, then for the last year I decided to join my wife in a course that she was taking. She was taking a course as a professional interpreter and she needed a language partner. So I signed up. Wow is all I can say, this weekend course had more homework and was soo much more difficult that the course that I was taking. The teacher had high standards and expected everyone to strive for these same high standards. It was often quite frustrating because of the lack of resources that were available to our language, but we persevered. At the end I must say that as tough as the teacher was, she was very dedicated to her students, the college and to the profession that she was teaching. She did not expect anything from us that she was not willing to do or has done in the past herself, she put in many more hours than was required of her and it showed in the quality of her work. My wife and I often find ourselves saying “this person or that person needs to take Yolanda’s course” or “would this meet her standards?” There have not been many teachers that I can honestly say have influenced me as much as she has. I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you Yolanda for your dedication, enthusiasm, and having your ducks in the best row I have ever seen! May your future endeavours bring you much success.

I hope everyone has a great Canada Day! Until next time Happy birding!

Most of the time I like to watch the birds but this weekend the birds were taunting me.  Maybe I should start at the beginning. I got an invitation to share a crop of cherries if I would help come up with a solution to keep the birds from eating all the cherries from a couple of cherry trees. After brain storming and searching on the net, we decided to buy some netting and cover the trees. This involved precariously balanced ladders, scissor lift and pokey branches that often grabbed the net at inopportune moments! It all worked great until we got a thunderstorm with high wind gusts that took off our netting and left the trees exposed to some hungry birds!

Today I went to see if we could salvage any of the harvest, what I saw was a bunch of birds helping themselves to a feast! Not much left at all, the small tree had already been stripped of all its fruit and they were feverishly harvesting the other. I might have gotten 30 cherries or so. I’m sure this will be funny next week but right now I am a little disgusted.

The money that we invested and the time that we put in putting up the nets have been a lesson learned. Next year I think that I will go to the nearest fruit stand that sells cherries, invest my money into a huge box of fully ripe sweet cherries, bring a lawn chair, my camera and a cold drink. This way I can sit in the shade; enjoy a cold drink and cherries as I take inventory and pictures of the beautiful birds as they help themselves to the unprotected bounty!

See you later and happy birding