Last year, we saw some Baltimore Orioles now and then. Usually, just a flash of brilliant colour, and they were gone.
So we were pretty excited to see them showing up at the bird feeder in May, and being able to finally get some pictures!
They are now regular visitors, and we just love them! What amazing colours!
Yesterday, I posted a picture of a common grackle. I almost posted it together with this picture, but on closer inspection, I realized this was a different bird!
This is a brown headed cow bird. The body looks a lot like the grackle! The differences are in the beak (which is shorter on the cow bird) and the eye (which is yellow on the grackle).
I’ve never been much of a bird watcher, but I’ve been trying to make sure I accurately identify the birds we get out our window. In the process, I’m discovering that, for a lot of them, it’s really hard to be sure what I’m looking at! Some are so similar, it’s easy to miss the little details that separate them. Usually, I don’t see the differences until I’ve uploaded the pictures and started to process them for here!
This was taken towards the middle of May, when the rose-breasted grosbeaks first started showing up.
From a single male and female pair, we now get whole bunches of them, visiting us.
This is another one of those birds local to our area that I’d never seen before until we moved back here.
Yesterday evening, we had someone watching us through our kitchen window.
Big ole Nicky the Nose is making himself at home! Just look at that face! Just look at that…
… eye…
I went looking at some better pictures we got of Nicky, just to see if this is normal. :-D Turns out that his right is eye, indeed, slightly smaller than the left, but not normally squished up like that. Not sure what’s going on in this picture! :-D
Meanwhile, while doing my rounds this morning, I discovered this, in the bird bath.
Yup. That’s a layer of ice on there. Not a thin one, either!
It’s June 2, and we’re still going below freezing overnight!
This is going to be rough on people’s gardens. :-(
We’re supposed to get a high of 16C (60F) today, then tomorrow, we’re supposed to hit 25C (77F), with possible thunderstorms by evening, and stay high for the next week or so.
So… the weather we typically would have been getting in April.
If we’re going to have thunderstorms on Monday, we’ll have to do something about the gates we’re working on. Not good weather for paint to cure outdoors!
The Re-Farmer
This is what greeted me when I went into the sun room this morning.
Two kittens came running as soon as I opened the door, but the rest were looking a lot more sluggish and sleepy! :-D
I’m quite amused by the one kitten’s face sticking out from under the tool dresser. :-D
You may notice some changes on the blog over the next while. We were finally able to upgrade our account, and now have the refarmer.ca domain name set up.
Hopefully, in the next day or two, I’ll be able to start up my critter of the day photos, now that I have plenty of storage again! :-)
The Re-Farmer
Today, the girls and I headed into the city for our monthly shop.
We took advantage of the trip to accomplish a few things, and ended up going to 5 different places covering half the city. It made for a long day, but we accomplished what we needed, and then some.
Continue readingI have a whole bunch of things to share with you today, but the first thing I want to share is some good news. Our van didn’t need to get any work done on it today!
Continue readingA couple of photos from the last day of April; by this time, we were seeing lots of white throated sparrows visiting the feeding station.
I just love the pattern the lifted feathers are making in the second shot.
The Re-Farmer 