Birds, Birds, Birds

While out on the wild flower walk, we also saw lots of bird life ! Actually, this first bird, a female House Finch, was seen at our house just before we left for the wild flower walk.


At Cherry Hill Gate, the entrance to the RBG Hendrie Valley, we saw a male Downy Woodpecker and a Black-capped Chickadee that we did not itentify in terms of sex.

This male Northern Cardinal brightened up our evening a lot with his bright colours.

Églantine was the photographer for each of these photos. (There are some advantages to being the co-leader. One does not always have to be near the front of the group.)

Wild Flower Walk # 1

Our first wild flower walk of the spring brought out 8 people who found 7 cultivated plants in flower and 8 wild flowers in bloom:

Christmas Rose (Red Hellebore), Crocus, Cornelian Cherry Dogwood, Scilla, Winter Aconite, Brevipetala Witch Hazel, & Ruby Glow Witch Hazel were cultivated; Hairy Bittercress, Lesser Celandine, Common Chickweed, Coltsfoot, Purple Dead-nettle, Silver Maple tree, Periwinkle, and Skunk Cabbage were blooming in the wild.

Winter Aconite

My camera and I were so excited about finding this Winter Aconite (Eranthis spp) that we almost crawled inside it. Our snow is almost gone, for now, for today anyway.

April Snow Continues

We woke up to snow again this morning. I think it will soon be over and these tulips certainly hope so too.


I found another tree starting to bloom in spite of the cold this morning. This is a Trembling Aspen.
One other sure sign of spring was an Eastern Phoebe looking for a way to get into our barn. I was sorry to not have the camera with me at the time.

Home Again

Églantine and I have just returned from an art inquiry holiday in Malta. Temperatures there were between 14 and 19 degrees Celsius most days so it was a bit of a shock when we returned to Ontario just in time for the temperatures to drop below freezing again with wind chills of -14 degrees Celsius along with snow flurries. Nevertheless, it is great to be back home again sitting with morning coffee, a new art magazine, our familiar books and sculptures, and a warming fire in the fireplace.


We had expected to see spring flowers on our return, and there are a few around but under a dusting of snow right now except for the tree flowers.

Here is our first tree flower of the season which even beat the willows this year. It is the Silver Maple or Acer saccharinum.