The Smoke Has Lifted!!

Here is another first for this area! Two Mourning Doves! I have seen them elsewhere but never here.

They are not the sharpest photos, but were the best I could get under the circumstances.

The young Pileated Woodpecker is still in the area. It appears to be a bad hair day.

Mr. Crow is looking a little bedraggled to say the least. It is great to be able to get out now that the smoke has lifted and the sky has cleared. All the sources are predicting a bitterly cold winter for the Western Prairies. I sure hope they are wrong!

Fall is Coming! Too Fast

It seems that every time I go out, the signs of an early fall get to me. The Bohemian Waxwings are flocking up and decimating the berry trees.

 The Bees are getting pollen from the late blooming thistles. Not many wildflowers are still in bloom.

 Here are a few pin cherries the birds and bears haven't got to yet.

 The mallards are flocking up and appear to be getting ready to go. One good sign that spring may take a while is that the male mallards are still up north. Great idea that, head north, eat drink and party all summer while the missus raises the kids!
 Honey bees are still very active around the garden

 The Pileated Wood Pecker is still digging out grubs.

What say, am I wrong in predicting an early fall? 

Eagles

 

 This is kind of a bomb of Eagles. There were two of them hanging around some open water on the Athabasca River. It was very cold -30C and they were conserving energy.

At the end you can see three ducks in the river that were watching the eagles that were watching them

I almost got a good photo of a Pileated Woodpecker that was hastily vacating the area. Unfortunately, even 1/1600th of a second did not stop him in flight.

The photos will bigify if you double click on them

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello, Woody!

This is a fellow that you hear more than you see. He is a Pileated Woodpecker, one of the largest woodpeckers around, slightly bigger than a crow. We had a pair around today and I hope that they see fit to nest. They are very noisy in call, but extremely silent when flying through the woods.

Unfortunately, they do not frequent feeders, or I could get some real good close ups of them. Fortunately, I now have a camera that allows me to "get close" without getting close. Over the next few weeks,I will be looking for a rectangular hole in one of my poplar trees. If I find it, I will stake it out with the camera and a tripod. It looks like spring is here. The exotic birds are coming back!