Playing in the snow

I’ve been distracted this weekend, at my parents’ new place; between the regular chores and fussing about the computer situation, I haven’t been looking at things closely enough to blog about them. I also haven’t been out too much, preferring to stay within the comfortably warm house. Though beautiful and sunny, today was a chilly [...]

The Tree of Great Peace

Readers of The Glade will know that I’ve spent the last couple of days effectively computer-less. I still haven’t decided on a solution to the issue, but at least I’ve diagnosed the problem. It seems that my power supply and motherboard/processor went, so I’ll be in the market for a new computer. The question will [...]

Today at Kingsford – Air traffic

Here at our new home, human-made sounds are unusual, rather than the norm. In the city, of course, you’re constantly surrounded by the sounds of humanity: traffic, car horns, sirens, lawnmowers, your neighbours. Even at my parents’ old place, even though it was rural, a major north-south regional highway was just a kilometer away, and [...]

An interview with the author

A quick post to say that this week I’ve been featured on the Nature Blog Network’s weekly blog author interview segment. I’m flattered to be just the 10th person they’ve interviewed, along with the likes of Julie Zickefoose, Greg Laden, GrrlScientist, Roundrock Pablo, and others. What an honour! Read more by heading over to the [...]

Today at Kingsford – Sawfly cocoons

These were the things that prompted me to start looking more closely at the branches, and lead to the discovery of the mummified caterpillars. I just noticed the one at first, a little tube tightly affixed to the side of a small twig, right at the crotch of a couple of branches. The closer I [...]

Mummified hornworms

When out walking Raven the other day, I came across some little cocoons on a small sapling. Ordinarily I would probably have missed them, and I’m not sure why it was that the first one caught my eye. But I saw it, and stopped, and took some photos. And then I looked at some of [...]

I and the Bird #92 – The picnic party

‘Twas the middle of winter deep,
When all sane critters are fast asleep,
This Canuck sent invitations
For a snowy celebration.
“Join me for lunch!” the invite said.
“The drinks are free!” it further read.
And so they came, in ones and twos
- free drinks, of course, they can’t refuse.
First to arrive, from overseas,
A motley crew of Indianese.
Worn out, I think, [...]

Today at Kingsford – Ruffed Grouse trail

This is a follow-up to my post here, where I mentioned the prints in the snow left by a departing grouse. Yesterday I took Raven for her walk to the same spot where we’d encountered the grouse before. Once again, we accidentally flushed three grouse – in a slightly different spot, but same general area.
What [...]

Tracks left behind

The thing about winter is that, despite the lack of insects and plant foliage, there will never be nothing to look at when you go out for a walk. If nothing else, there’s always animal tracks. Usually squirrels, who frequent feeders but are also often observed bounding about the forest, from one tree to the [...]

Here and gone again

I’ve been taking Raven out regularly, trying to vary up our destination a bit to keep things interesting. Some days I’ll take her down the road, sometimes to the north, others to the south, to one of the spots I feel comfortable letting her off-leash. Since the lake has been frozen, another option has been [...]