Around Town

A walk-about today got me to the Athabasca River to enjoy the Canada Geese. (Noisy bunch). The weather was about +5C with no wind, so it was a great day for walking. Daphnie and I did 7 miles yesterday, and 4 so far today.

 I think they were happy to see some sun and feel the warmth.

 Can you guess which is the female?

 On a lighter note the Common Sparrows were pigging out at the feeder.

 So too were the Red Polls. Welcome back to the frozen North!

 The mail Red Poll was staying close to the female.

Improvements!

 It was a great day with the temp actually getting up to +4C . Time to take the dog out for some exercise.

We took the camera and did about 4 klicks looking for wild life, but found nada.


Not even a bird was to be found,

We wandered along some bush roads for about an hour. It was a great time out. Quiet, Peaceful, and warm



 I have to put out a couple of photos from the front window, just to show that all the birds are not frozen.  


This Hairy Woodpecker had
just finished at the suet container.
 The Pine Grosbeak similarly had pigged out on the sunflower seeds

The little Red Poll was so fat it could hardly move.








This guy enjoyed getting his photo taken. At least it seemed so!

It should be possible to bigify the pictures

Now it Feels Like Spring!

We have all sorts of geese and things showing up now that the weather is warm. There were several hundred on the Athabasca River today.

 
 The fields along the river were also full

 

 

They were having a good feed until I showed up.

 
Even a squirrel showed up and let me know he was not happy with my presence. (Or maybe it was Daphne that he was upset with)

This is our equivalent of an iceberg flowing down the river.

A few ducks showed up. I don't know if they had migrated or overwintered in the open water.

 
Geese, geese everywhere

It was a nice balmy day at +12C or 54F for those that are not bilingual.

Had to throw in this Redpoll. He kept following me.

A Doggone Good day!

Actually, it was several good days! A 5 kilometer walk with the dogs was very good for all three of us.

 There was lots of snorfelling. What they were looking for I don't know. Maybe mice.

 Daphne was the first to lose interest.

 At home, the Red Polls were posing.

 The Hairy Wood Pecker was back. He hasn't been around for a few days.

 This was a new addition to the feeder. The dogs put the run on her pretty quick.

 Then on the way home, I spotted this lady riding in the field. I stopped to take a picture, and got an invite to a Cutter ride. My first ever! It was fun! The pony's name is "Annie".

 Yep, I could get to like this! Too bad horses are a thing of the past for me.

Feeder Day

It was a crowded day at the feeder with the Hairy Woodpecker showing up again.

 

The larger of two look alikes, the Hairy Woodpecker is a small but powerful bird that forages along trunks and main branches of large trees. It wields a much longer bill than the Downy Woodpecker's almost thornlike bill. Hairy Woodpeckers have a somewhat soldierly look, with their erect, straight-backed posture on tree trunks and their cleanly striped heads. Look for them at backyard suet or sunflower feeders, and listen for them whinnying from woodlots, parks, and forests.

 There were about 50 Red Polls lined up in the tree waiting for me to put the feed out. They are getting to be very tame.

 As energetic as their electric zapping call notes would suggest, Common Redpolls are active foragers that travel in busy flocks. Look for them feeding on catkins in birch trees or visiting feeders in winter. These small finches of the arctic tundra and boreal forest migrate erratically, and they occasionally show up in large numbers as far south as the central U.S. During such irruption years, redpolls often congregate at bird feeders (particularly thistle or nyjer seed), allowing delightfully close looks.

 The Pine Grosbeaks have been around all winter in a flock of about 100.

The pine grosbeak (Pinicola enucleator) is a large member of the true finch family, Fringillidae. It is found in coniferous woods across Alaska, the western mountains of the United States,Canada, and in subarcticFennoscandia and Siberia. The species is a frugivore, especially in winter, favoring small fruits, such as rowans (mountain-ashes in the New World). With fruit-crop abundance varying from year to year, pine grosbeak is one of many subarctic-resident bird species that exhibit irruptive behavior. Inirruption years, individuals can move long distances in search of suitable food supplies, bringing them farther south and/or downslope than is typical of years with large fruit crops. In such years in the New World, they may occur well south of the typical extent of winter distribution, which is the northern Great Lakes region and northern New England in the United States. This species is a very rare vagrant to temperateEurope; in all of Germany for example, not more than 4 individuals and often none at all have been recorded each year since 1980. (From Wikipedia)

Female