Be careful what you wish for

This morning when I opened the front door in the dark, the front steps were covered in snow. Aha I thought, I did wish for snow yesterday. Seems like I got it.

Of course the dogs ran out and rolled, wiping their faces first and then shoving a shoulder deep and then flopping onto the three inches or so - not a lot for this area, but a lot for an overnight snowfall. Great white fluffy flakes were coming down, blowing in from the east. I joined them, pulling on my boots and filling two feeders with seed and putting it on the ground for the little ground birds. Much to my delight as daylight just began to reveal the arrival of all kinds of birds, the male cardinal showed up. Since his mate had been taken by a hawk, I haven't seen much of that beautiful fellow. Of course when I found my camera he was gone. But nice to know he's visiting now and then.

The snow is now fine, hard to see, but it continues to fall. So shortly I'll be taking two very happy mutts out for a romp. I may not be driving much though because it looks as if the roads haven't been ploughed. I saw the trucks yesterday laying on the slip-preventive strip of chemical on hills. So while I was moaning yesterday, this was not unexpected.

A goldfinch a redpoll tackle the niger feeder - I don't often photograph the birds that use this one but the redpolls and chickadees are regular visitors.

This morning on the deck there is a pair of dark eyed juncos which I haven't seen before. Perhaps they have been part of the gang of sparrows, house, tree, white-crowned, or have just arrived from further north.

In any case I am delighted to have had my wish granted. And really hope that you get what you wish for as well. It makes life so full of magic and hope don't you think?

Breakfast visitors

Early morning is always breakfast time here at Union Church. Breakfast has a few regulars - Bliss and Spirit the dogs, Christopher and Eleia who though they've often been out all night hunting for mice and moles are usually hungry for boring kibble much to my surprise- and a few irregulars.

Most recently there have been a few of the irregulars moving into the regular category - which has intrigued me. It never dawned on me that mourning doves for example will eat sunflower seeds. However I have a pair that tried to nest in my driveway - don't know where they went to do that, perhaps just moved a few feet further up the road on the gravel shoulder - but they attend the feeder under the weeping birch every morning.

They don't get on the feeder very often, but it does happen.

Usually they wait for the other larger birds - the pair of grackles for example. Nobody seems to like grackles because they tend to maraud feeders, but I don't mind this pair that greet the arrival every morning of seed for their consumption with loud clicks and krrrs. They scatter seed to the ground which the ground feeders like some sparrows, certainly the mourning doves and occasionally a blue jay will gobble up and I'm sure there are many I don't even see. There is always seed left under the feeder, and cracked hulls. I rake up piles in the spring, and continue to remove the small hill every month.

I keep thinking I will put the feeders away for the summer - there is plenty of wild and natural food around - but then I so enjoy watching the goldfinches, the purple finches, the rose breasted gros beak threesome among the many different ones who greet me daily. They each call.  I'd like to think this is good morning but in reality is likely "hurry up where have you been - I'm hungry!"

And I guess that's what breakfast is all about - early morning sustenance to carry us through the day. I hope that you enjoy your breakfast as much as the natural world does. Even my fishes (if you could see the video I posted the other day) enjoy their breakfast.

So here's to breakfast - whatever time you enjoy it - midnight or 5 a.m. May everyone everywhere enjoy it every day - and because there are people all over the world who don't, this holiday weekend in North America - let's try to help those who don't, somehow, some way. If we each gave a couple of dollars a week to a food bank, or dropped a dollar into a street person's cup - we might begin to lessen some of the sadness and poverty everywhere.

Here's to breakfast and reaching out!
PS - the fishes in the new little gadget I've added to this page will follow your cursor. If you click in the square, you'll give the fish some food - they will race to it and devour it... someone was incredibly clever in designing this - and isn't it appropriate for this particular blog... if we could only click on something and provide some rice, wheat, whatever good food we could?

Early mornings in the Valley

The sun's rays just begin to caress the tops of the hills and set the skies aflame. Snow glued to the branches will drip away slowly as the day progresses, but our mornings start long before that.

We've already been out  -when the sky was just beginning to lighten - putting the bird feeders in place for the day. Raccoon marauders love the black oiled sun flower seeds as much as the birds do, and prowl the perimeter of the property when it gets dark, then darting in to cadge a meal. It drives the dogs insane and their barking makes me similarly crazy. So into the back of the car with the feeders at night and out in the morning.

As we get ready for a walk, instead of carousing as they usually do, the dogs sit nicely for me while I try to get a picture. Spirit, ever attentive being a black lab, and worried or wondering why I want him to sit and not play the way I usually do, stares into the camera lens with his nearly black eyes. Bliss, bored and somewhat resentful that he's not playing glances at the birds nearby on the ground. I'm sure he's wondering if he can catch one, or thinking how good the game is going to be when I release them from their sit.

One of the games that Bliss plays is with the birds. There are several very smart little chickadees that come to the feeders, grab a seed and then make for a nearby bush or tree. The game is that Bliss runs to the foot of a tree, looks up into the branches until he sees one, then begins to prance and bark. The chickadees make for another tree. He chases after, spots them or it, and begins to bark again. This game of tag or hide and seek is a favourite when Bliss is waiting for me to fill the little toboggan with wood for the fire, or fill the feeders, sweep the walk, shovel snow, clean snow off the car, any one of a number of little outdoor chores before a walk or a ride in the car.

And the little birds wait too - high in the branches of one of the elms that line the edge of the property. They gather in a huge flock which seems to be growing. In this photo I count about 60. It seems, as they swirl and float from tree to deck to feeder to tree to bush and back, that there are hundreds.

There are feeders on all sides of the house. Filled mostly with suet and black oil sunflower seeds, but also niger seed not particularly a favourite in winter because they are so small, but they empty all too quickly and need daily replenishing.

And finally the bigger birds take their turn. The mourning doves, one of the many that dwell in the spruce tree on the west side of the church, was brazen enough this day to continue its search for seed on the deck. More often they leave and flee for the safety of the trees across the road at the tiniest movement in the house or nearby. The blue jays - the gang of thieves I call them - boisterous, raucous and full of joie de vivre, tackle all the feeders, jay-size and finch size, it matters not. If there's seed, they're sure to be nearby.

All in all the bird family that frequents this property is a pretty large number, and they show up early in the morning, returning every two or three hours for another nosh. There are American tree sparrows, white-breasted nuthatches (sadly no rosy breasted ones that I've seen this year), chickadees, house sparrows, American goldfinches, house finches, purple finches, at least half a dozen blue jays and maybe more, pairs of downie, hairy and red-belly woodpeckers, many soft cooing mourning doves, dark-eyed juncoes and once in a while hawks come to call. My neighbour says there is a goshawk hanging around. The sharp-shinned is a regular visitor and grabbed one of a pair of starlings the other day - in breeding plumage already and with red legs - that was all that was left - a pair of wings still attached to the collar bone and two red legs, claws curled in the snow amidst a lot of feathers. Sad but part of nature.

The pair of ravens that dwell in the small valley across the road behind a neighbour's home, call to me regularly in the morning as they head out across the fields. Their distinctive throaty call lets me know all is right with the world this day.

And today since the sun is shining, and it's calm and full of the sound of wings and occasional bird calls, I know all's right with the world this morning as well. Hope it is in your neck of the woods.
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And my apologies for not posting every day as I have in the past. These last few months have been busier and often it's more difficult to get access to the internet to write. Bear with me. I think of it every day as it's such a delight, and the people who comment are always so kind and have the most interesting blogs for me to follow as well. I'm sure I'll get back to regular posting soon. Enjoy your day everyone.

That was a short spring!

So much for spring!

Yesterday the winds were so high I nearly got blown off my feet and had to hang onto the car at one point. But walking with the dogs in a field protected by woods, it was pleasant - warm even.

Today back to reality!

It's too blowy and snowy out there this morning so I grabbed an image from a year ago, to show you what the front will look like if the sun shines again  today

It has been an extraordinarily gray winter.

In did notice however that the mourning doves are grateful for the seeds this morning and yesterday I was able to shovel up buckets full of wasted seed and put them on the edge of the field for the rabbits.

On our walk, the dogs rousted a huge hare - I've never seen Bliss run quite so fast. He was about ten feet behind the bunny when it went over a hill and out of sight. It was five minutes before both dogs returned, tongues hanging out. They collapsed soon after, glad to catch their breath in the back of the car.

So it will likely be cold for another few weeks, but definitely spring is in the air. Can hardly wait.

Stay warm and safe today.

Winter birds need seeds

Common visitors to my feeders in winter are the mourning doves, goldfinches,  and sparrows. They feed from the ground, though I've seen a mourning dove hanging on for dear life to a small feeder or get itself trapped inside a hopper feeder when it's frightened and can't figure out how to escape...a friend of mine calls them Norma Jeans, after the reputation Marilyn Monroe had for being a ditzy blonde - so untrue. She was smart as a whip about her career, not personally perhaps. However the mourning doves truly are not the brightest of the avian population. But lovely soft, beautifully-feathered creatures indeed.

This group of red polls (Common and Hoary I think from the photograph taken by a friend - Sue Dickens) shows how important feeders are to most seed and berry eating birds in winter. When there is lots of snow - like right now where I live - their normal supply of food is buried. They then rely on Mountain Ash, (the Rowan,) other berry bushes and trees and on people to put out seeds. Pounds of seeds, tons even - at least that's what it seems like

Red polls are adventurous birds and travel in flocks. They don't seem to stay long, only one to three weeks in any given location, but they certainly add to the  landscape with their burgundy heads, pink breasts and white underwings. Such fun to watch.

Hope you find something fun to watch or do today - it's one of those good to be alive days.

Another snow day

Spirit (black) and Bliss (blonde) help me feed the birds on another snow day. We went outside about 7 which accounts for the darkness - it's still not completely daylight at that time. Both dogs watch for the Dread Red - the family of little red squirrels that have taken up residence underneath my house and torment the dogs daily by getting into the trees from the feeder faster than the dogs can reach them. I watched one day while a baby ran back and forth under the eaves for about five minutes until it finally lept into a tree, down the trunk and into a hole it knew about but the dogs didn't. Always something going on outside around here it seems.

As you can see it snowed last night. This image of the drive shed (where the original pioneers used to "park" their horses and buggies when they went to church - actually it's only half the size it was in 1870 when it was built) shows how the northeast wind has blown the snow around and up sealing it against the wooden wall.
Snow now covers the clematis vines  hanging onto some netting I'd nailed in place, as well as one of the bird feeders, all the shrubs and dead flower stalks with seeds still on them... and it continues to blow. This was taken from inside my "studio" around 7:30 this morning. Currently there is a mourning dove nestled out of the wind  inside the big feeder on the deck which my cat Eleia uses as her house and hiding place when the weather is better. Other tiny birds try to get seeds, digging them out from the deck where I've put some or where they've fallen from another feeder.

7 a.m. - Outside filling the feeders, and Bliss continues to look for the Dread Red, that naughty little red squirrel has the entrance to its home under my front entry about five feet from where Bliss is standing.

The snow has covered bushes and shrubs that I had cleaned off a couple of days ago to keep them from breaking. This won't be so easy because the snow started as rain and freezing rain yesterday. Tree branches and bushes are bending low under the weight of snow.

Two feeders - suet and seed - on the west side of the church which is my home, hanging in a Scotch pine. It's branches  touch the ground. The snow has blown up about two feet around the trunk and the Blue Spruce tree's lower branches are once again covered. I'll have to go out at least twice today to fill the feeders since the birds are having a hard time finding seed on the ground, it keeps getting blown in.
Many roads and schools are closed and no school buses are running anywhere in three or four counties. It's supposed to continue for another two days.... A typical Georgian Bay three day blow!
I'm staying inside today as much as possible. It's cold out there! but not as cold as my friend's home in Igloolik where her neighbour's home had its wall and most of its front door removed by a bear yesterday afternoon. Now that's winter scary.

Mourning dove calls

This lovely mourning dove called and called the other afternoon - much to my surprise. Usually I find three or four of them underneath the weeping birch, nibbling at the black oil sunflower seeds that I put out on a plate and a table for the jays, grackles and finches who don't want to attempt the tube feeder at my kitchen window. I don't often find them on the wire above my driveway, nor do I see a single bird. There was something more plaintive than usual about its call which prompted my finding my camera and seeing if I could get a shot.

These birds are not the brightest lights in bird-dom. A dear friend of mine had one that one spring made a nest in her basket of pansies right beside her front door, bothered not at all by the family comings and goings. My friend called her Norma Jean - quite beautiful and quite breathlessly wide-eyed about everything. That mum raised two young that hung around the driveway for the longest time. Many of us in my pottery group call all mourning doves Norma Jeans. Their soft colours and gentle calls make them a favourite, year round.

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An update on yesterday's post about two owl babies I thought were screech owls. I was advised by a bird expert who is involved with the Ontario Nest Registry Survey - (think I've got that right) - that the owlets were saw-whets. He was so surprised to see them and said the nest registry doesn't have very many listings for these owls and asked me to get the details. Even though these images were a couple of years old, I'm sure the information will be helpful since so many of our native birds are declining in numbers as their habitat disappears, they are predated or non-native species take over.

Since I write for organizations that are involved with recovery efforts for our disappearing natural world, I feel its important to spread the word - for all of us to do what we can wherever we can and when we can. A tiny bit goes a long long way - awareness is the first step....and that's the end of my seriousness for today - have a great day!