Winter Birds

Winter is here.  I know; not technically, but never-the-less, we are freezing so that means only one thing --stay indoors!  It is pretty difficult these days to muster up the strength and enthusiasm for a brisk walk.  That leaves only one way to enjoy the beauty of nature -- from the window.  And I have been doing a lot of watching these last few weeks!

Nuthatch

We have a variety of bird feeders set up in our yard. Consequently we get a variety of birds.  I have even seen some new ones -- male and female pine grosbeaks!  The male of these birds are an eye-catching red, not quite as brilliant as a cardinal.  This prompted my mom one day to excitedly call my dad to come see the tree full of cardinals!

Pine Grosbeaks

Also seen these last few weeks have been these birds: red polls, nut hatches, a magpie!! (at our feeders!!),

Magpie!

downy and hairy wood peckers, chickadees, blue-jays, and of course the common sparrow.

Hairy Woodpecker

As I mentioned before, this is window viewing, so some of my pics are taken through a window.  Sometimes I am lucky enough to open the door without a loud squeak to frighten away the bunch.

Downy Woodpecker

Chickadee

These have adopted our yard. They are everywhere!   Tomorrow my class will make a treat for the birds in their yard.  This is always a much enjoyed and appreciated activity.

Yellow Warblers

A pair of yellow warblers decided that our scrawny thunder-child flowering crab would be a fine place to build their nest.  Sitting in our living room one windy rainy evening, I was amazed that a yellow bird, goldfinch, I though, was actually starting to build a nest in the tree as I was looking on.  Back and forth it flew, from a large evergreen back to this tree, collecting spider web and grass and industriously working at making the stuff stay together on little more than a fork in the tree.  "Good luck", I thought.  After this evening, this wouldn't sound like such a good idea anymore.

Well, the bird did come back and pretty soon there was the neatest little nest in full eye-view from our window, if you happened to know it was there.  It has been quite interesting watching the progression, from a shy squirmish bird to not noticing us there at all, from eggs to these hatchlings cooling off in the heat.

These birds grew amazingly fast, from feathery down to soft feathers in like three days.  Soon the nest spilled over with these tiny birds, and they are tiny, about a quarter sized now and managing to fly a few feet to a tree when we try to put them back in the nest after dropping out.

 On Sunday, a misty rainy day, they decided to move out!  The nest was just too small to hold the lot.

 We wouldn't have noticed them around if not for the fussy parents trying to ward us off with broken wing antics.

This little guy seems to like the ground.  We put him in the tree and there he was, back on the ground again.

These fledglings are the sweetest things, you can't help but want to hold them when you see them.  They are still around, hiding in the shrubs under the windows.  It will be nice to see them safely fly off on their own.

Field's Trip

I am sitting in a classroom and the only sounds I hear are the wind blowing and a lawnmower in the distance.  This is a rare day indeed -- the first one this term where I get the school to myself.  Granted, I had my kindies this morning.  They didn't get to go on the much anticipated field's trip to Winnipeg.  There are seven of them.  That is too many five-year-olds to keep an eye on, the trip to Winnipeg too long and who knows how kindergartners will sit through a few Imax movies. 


It was the parents' decision to keep them home.  They will get a local fun trip some time this week.


I took the opportunity of having them alone and did an art project which we have been waiting to try -- Plasticine art  by Barbara Reid.  She has a series of great videos and written instructions of her techniques on her website.  There is also a gallery of student art to view which my students enjoyed immensely.  


So here are our master-pieces!  I must say I expected to work a few days on these, but this is kindergarten...and we just DO!

Now, I must get back to work.  I have started on end-of-year clean-up.  I know I should do reports, but I find I work better in a cleaner environment!

Cedar Waxwing basking in the evening sun

Annual SEEDS Bird Count

Every year our class participates in the SEEDS annual bird count.  The weather was great these last two days so we got our recording things, binoculars, and camera and headed out.  From past experience we know that nobody wants to carry bird ID books after the first 5 minutes so those are left behind.  We try to cover different areas on the place.  It is a wonderful opportunity to observe not only birds, but also plants and insects.  

These are some of the insects we saw on our walk.  The butterfly is a monarch.  We saw several fluttering past.  On one of the dandelions is a wasp and a bumblebee.  We know it's a wasp because its body is smooth.  It has no hair like a bee has.  Its stripes also go up and down instead of sideways.

Some of the blooming plants seen were the white Canada anemone, common silver-weed, and of course dandelions.  Today was the first time this year that we saw lady slippers.  We do not pick them so that other people can also enjoy them.  We also want to make sure that we will always have them.

These pictures show the difference between the red-winged blackbird male and female.   The brown bird is the female.  We also saw the common blackbird, however this year we did not see any yellow-headed blackbirds which are very common in our area.

The robin is a baby.  It is called a fledgling when it first comes out of the nest.  We could go real close to it without it flying away. The black and white duck is a scoup, and the last picture is of a mallard.  We saw many other birds but could not get any pictures of them.  All together we saw 1344 ducks and 854 seagulls.  Our grand total of birds we saw was 4559.

Written with help from my students.

Spring update

Well, yes...

these pictures were taken yesterday morning, May 2nd ...and a fine one it was too!

  You can see one of my students without a jacket in the picture.  I took  my class out for a walk.  We have been studying 'Air and Water in the Environment' for science.  What better way to learn than to go out on a spring morning and find the evidence.  We did find ice, water, and snow; however, there was not a cloud to be seen.

Lucky for us the weekend fury had passed...

leaving us with an interesting combination of snow, ice, and budding leaves on the Manitoba maple tree.

I liked the ice formations on the slough edge, evidence to water being wind-washed on the banks.  It was frozen over when we visited, and stones being skipped slid and bounced their way to a stop.

Northern Flicker (wood pecker family), 

a first real sighting for me.  

I have seen the bird around but never got close enough to identify it. I do need a camera with a better zoom!!

In my spare moments --

A patchwork quilt I am working on.

  It is almost done -- just in time for warmer weather.  I have been planning on a new quilt for a while now.  I learned how to do the binding stitch and am finishing it off by hand.  This is a quite enjoyable task; I am done one side and a corner (quite a feat, I must say).

More on it later.  This will be the first quilt I actually finish!

Wintery Grey Wednesday

The title should have read 'Wintery White', but I had to change it.  Things are really grey around here lately.  We are having such a classic winter.  Snow is constant, even if only a fine mist of it!  It should also have been 'wordless', but no -- I had to do a bit of writing!

How else would you know that this is a Hairy woodpecker and not a Downy woodpecker as I've pictured before?  They are almost identical but for the Hairy to be a lot bigger in size.

These are Bohemian Waxwings; my first sighted.  Or I might have seen them before and mistaken them for Cedar waxwings.  They cleared off the small crabs from our front lawn apple tree one morning this week.  The pictures were taken through a window.

On this picture you can clearly see (if you enlarge:) the yellow tail markings, grey belly, and the brownish red under-tail feather that are common field marks for identifying the Bohemian waxwing.

 Chickadees are always in abundance.

 The woodpecker again.

 These guys are hibernating for the winter.

And so are these ancient implements. 

They are still brought out and used for the potato seeding and harvest each year!

Back from our walk!

Christmas for the Birds

Taken through our kitchen window; a sap-sucker, I think:)  

The beak on this bird is too short for a wood-pecker. There was also a red-headed wood-pecker on a tree but I wasn't quick enough to capture it.
(correction -- this is a female downy woodpecker)

Our yard has been lively with the flittering of chickadees all winter, and more so the last few days.  I guess it helps to have a few different feeding stations set up.

Buffleheads -- Male and female pair

These are one of the most beautiful ducks around.  They turn heads for a second glance.  The male has the white markings almost like a crest on its' head.

This picture was taken with my humble camera and I like it.  :)

Click on the picture for a better view.

More Birds of the Wetlands

I like walking around the wetlands with my binoculars.  I never miss to go out and do the April/May Bird count for SEEDS with my students. 

In the last few days I got my hands on a camera with a zoom so you'll be presented with some of the images I capture.  

I'll admit, I know how to turn the camera on, zoom in and out, and focus!! -- That's it!  But for now that is all I need, as I am not that much into photography as I am in Nature.

Blue-winged Teal, male and female

Blue-winged Teal-- male

You can actually see the blue wing which is only visible when the bird is in flight!

Canvasback male

Following will be a few pictures of a mallard pair.

Beautiful!

...and a killdeer, 

I found it's nest -- empty still, and wouldn't have known it was there, had it not made such a fuss!

Wetland Wonders

Walk through the wetlands with me.  

We are surrounded by sloughs and pot-holes of many sizes.  With a borrowed camera around my neck and thunder clouds looming, I was out walking this afternoon.  I visited 5 different sloughs and caught a few of the water birds with the camera.  I had hoped for less common varieties, but it seems they have not all returned from the south.  I was surprised to find a few grebes mixed in with the common ducks.

Red-winged Blackbird, a sure sign of spring, always one of the first birds to return.

Seagulls!  'nuff said!

Seagulls again with canvas-back male and female.

Male mallard in flight.

Male Northern Shoveler.

Mallard again.

Canvasback pair and a red-necked grebe.

And another common spring sight -- boys in their Sunday best trying to launch a raft!