wordsfromanneli

Thoughts, ideas, photos, and stories.

Category Archives: Birdwatching


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This Place is for the Birds

This spotted towhee has been living here for quite a while.

His wife is somewhere nearby but she’s more camera shy.

She looks much like her flashy husband, but her colours are slightly muted.

They have been nesting on the ground inside my fenced garden, usually under the thick rosemary bush. But this year I cut the rosemary back quite a bit, not thinking I was making the usual nesting area less inviting.

So the towhees chose the messiest corner of the garden where I had not weeded, and put a nest in the mess. I let the poppies grow up in the raised bed, thinking it would hide the weeds until I could get to them. Little did I know I was also helping hide a towhee nest.

I sneaked in there with my camera and got a picture of one towhee baby still in the nest. Mother had flown out when I came close but she went right back after I left. Now I’m hoping the baby will make it through the next critical days and weeks.

There’s no question of catching up with my weeding in this part of the jungle now.

 

Please click on the links below if you would like to take advantage of smashwords’ e-book sale. My e-books are 50% off during July.

The Wind Weeps  

Reckoning Tide

Marlie

Julia’s Violinist

Orion’s Gift


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Red-breasted Sapsucker

Air is cold, I’m shivering,

Legs so skinny, quivering,

Ants or beetles, if you’re near,

Eating you would bring me cheer.

 

Not much sap is dripping down,

Though I’ve drilled holes all around,

Maybe though,  an ant will scurry,

Running off in such a hurry.

 

I’ve no chocolate to coat it,

Nature simply won’t promote it,

But the crunchy flavour’s good,

With a hint of fir tree wood.

Watch me skipping round the tree,

Eating ants and bugs with glee,

Little holes, the bark endures,

Graciously, my meal ensures.

 

 

I apologize for the background noise of dogs barking and garbage trucks backing up somewhere in the world outside my own little world.


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A Cool Change

A thin layer of snow covers the usual feeding grounds of ducks, geese, and swans. While the nearby preferred agricultural fields are frozen over with snow and ice, the birds find food and shelter on the edges of the salt water.

The estuary of the Courtenay River holds a lot of bird life. Depending on the wind direction, waterfowl can find  sheltered indentations in the shoreline where they can forage for food in the shallows. Rather than feeding on seeds and bits of plant roots when cold weather freezes their usual fields, they make the switch to marine vegetation and bits of animal matter (shrimp, crustaceans) that they find in the tidal areas of the shore. Once in a while, a faint ray of sunshine warms their backs on this southern exposure in spite of the cold day.

 

Looking upriver at Comox Bay

Looking outwards to the spit

 

Mainly widgeons and dunlins.

In these very short video clips you can see a swarm of what I think are dunlins flying in to land near the beach. Although it is a very small flock, it reminds me of those murmurations of birds, when they fly so close together in an incomprehensible formation without crashing into each other. If you make the videos full screen you might be able to see the fine snowflakes blowing around as well

 

These mallards are close to shore for several reasons.  They have slightly more cover in case of predators (better than being “a sitting duck” in the open water), and there is probably more food available in the shallows where they can probe the sand with their bills and find small beach creatures to eat. At high tide there is also marine vegetation that is available only at this level, lifted up by the rising water.

They are in survival mode for now, waiting for a good low pressure southeast system that will bring wind, rain, and warmer temperatures, thawing out the farm fields that offer their preferred diet. I hope they are all lucky ducks.


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Hawkeye

The row of trees provides a perch,

For birds of prey whose sharp eyes search,

The flooded fields that are so fine,

For waterfowl who wish to dine.

 

The foggy drippy days drag on,

I ate a mouse, but now it’s gone,

It’s not enough to fill the gap,

Too cold and wet to take a nap.

These leafless trees don’t camouflage,

No chilly bones do they assuage,

Perhaps a meal of ducks is best,

But snatching one will be a test.

The watchful drakes stand on alert

While others forage in the dirt,

“Don’t bother wasting energy,”

They tell the hawk, “We’ll just fly free.”

 


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Solstice Solace

Hi Folks,

My name is Vera. I’m a varied thrush. You may think I look a lot like Roberta the robin. She’s my cousin.

Here’s Roberta the robin this spring, looking a bit ruffled up against the wind.

Roberta came down from the hills with her friends and family last week and so did all my varied thrush friends. We’d been in the conifers in the hills, picking at berries and bugs, but then the snow came and covered all our food.

So we huddled in the woods until the worst of the weather blew over and then found out where Roberta had gone. Well, we all congregated at Anneli’s house and at some of her neighbours’ too. The bare patches of dirt had bugs and worms we could pick at, and the houses along this road had a lot of mountain ash trees growing, so we ate some of those red berries they grow.

It feels like snow will fall again,

Although we birds prefer the rain,

I’m eating berries from the trees,

Though some are icy from the freeze.

 

When bare spots popped up through the snow,

My friends and I knew where to go,

We found some tiny bugs to eat,

The little spider was a treat.

 

The yard across the street has shrubs,

We hide in bushes eating grubs,

When rays of sun warm up the lawn,

A worm that peeks out will be gone.

 

The mountain ash’s berries fall

The sun ferments them one and all,

My cousin ate more than a few,

And then into a window flew.

 

Yes, life is hard these winter days,

But it is just a passing phase,

With winter solstice we will find,

That happy days aren’t far behind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Stop Picking on Me!

“Hey! Squirrel! What’re you lookin’ at?”

“Wow! Does it hurt? You know … where the feathers are missing on top of your head.”

“Nah … Gets a little cool and wet when it’s rainy, and I got a sunburn the other day, but otherwise, it just lets air get to my head.”

“So does that mean you’re an airhead?”

“Course not! And stop picking on me.”

“Looks like someone else was picking on you. What happened?”

“I don’t know for sure, but some big bird dive bombed me when I was so focused on getting the bugs out of a tree and I forgot to look up every few seconds. See the holes where he tried to grab me?”

“Yeah! That’s amazing. What are you going to do about it? About the hair loss, I mean. I’ve heard Rogaine is supposed to work.”

“It’ll grow back soon enough on its own. I figure if I stay up higher than anyone else and keep my head up, no one can see the damage to my helmet. That way I can keep the incident under my hat.”

“Good luck with that. I can see the bald spot from here.

And you know I’m a chatterbox … but I’ll try to be nice. No promises though.”


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Wilma the Pileated Woodpecker

Wilma is a pileated woodpecker. She doesn’t have the red slash that the males have under their cheek. Wilma is a juvenile. Her red topknot is not yet fully developed.

She is hungry for insects, her main food.

“Oh, look! There’s Anneli’s garden,” says Wilma. “She’s always complaining about the bugs in it. I should check it out.”

“Now let’s have a look. Yup! Lots of weeds, so that’s good for my bug search.”

“Just got to make sure that dog of hers isn’t around. That Emma can be a real nuisance.”

“Okay, first raised bed. Hmm … nothing but stray poppies and weeds. What gives?”

“And over here, she hasn’t even planted anything … other than a few rocks.”

“These oriental poppies look pretty. Buzzing with bees inside them. But I’m looking for bugs, not bees.”

“Okay, so that was a bust. I think I’ll just stick to my roaming around and around these fir trees, and maybe check out a few stumps.”

“By the way, you want to hear my dad calling? He is magnificent!”


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Location, Location, Location

A few days ago, David Kanigan posted photos of a Canada goose nesting on a dock.

https://davidkanigan.com/2021/04/20/and-the-show-goes-on/

Please visit it to see this post.

I had mixed feelings about this goose’s choice of location. It’s right out in the open, and so vulnerable to predators and the weather. I hope for, but don’t expect, a good outcome for this brood. Still, if she pulls it off and any of her goslings hatch and survive, the goose will deserve a medal for bravery and stamina.

I thought of this goose nest when the Captain came home from a trip up the BC coast, having taken pictures of a goose nest in a very remote location. This is how it should be. This goose nest is beside a river, but somehow the goose knew about rivers rising in the spring, and it has placed this nest high up out of the reach of a flooding river.

The nest is on top of this tree stump, out of sight, and out of reach of the spring run-off in a rising river. It is sheltered from aerial predators by the new growth on top of the stump.  Being up high would also give it a slight advantage over animals that might threaten it from ground level.

But even with all of the advantages the goose has with this remote nest,  it is probably at just as much risk as the town goose in David Kanigan’s blog post.

Thank you, David, for showing the city goose as compared to my country goose. I hope they both manage to bring off a nice batch of goslings.