A Blue Jay

I was surprised the other morning to see a blue jay. It may have been at the feeder but it flew into a spruce tree as I approached the window. This is the first blue jay I remember seeing in my yard. I saw another one last year in a farm yard. I have not had another sighting since.

We drove to our farmer friend who lives near the east end of Riding Mountain Park. I did not see many birds on the way but there were several ravens and also some gulls standing on ice that had formed in a slough! I also heard one flock of geese going south while at the farm. They have not all left yet. Indeed, last week I saw some American hunters at Shoal Lake and they were in the restaurant where we had lunch and were talking about having located some flocks.

Juncos beginning to disappear

This is a photo of a slate coloured junco at the feeder taken a week or so ago. The last few days I have seen none. There may still be some around but they are not here in any large numbers as they were earlier. The weather is getting quite a bit colder and there is even a few snowflakes being blown around by a strong wind today.
If it weren't for house sparrows and chickadees the feeder would be completely vacant. The sparrows sometimes come in large groups but the chickadees are always alone or at most with one or two others.

Bird traffic slows down..

I ran out of sunflower seeds and used wheat and canola as bird seed. It is not as popular as the sunflowers. I now have more sunflower seeds and put some out but the traffic has not increased too much. However there are still some chickadees visiting and a few house sparrows. A squirrel also is busy putting seeds in his cheeks and hiding them somewhere!

Downy Woodpecker visits

For two days in a row a downy woodpecker has been visiting. The woodpecker visited the feeder at least once. Usually they stay in the spruce trees hunting for insects under the bark.

There are still many large flocks of geese migrating south. On a trip to Brandon on Wednesday we saw at least half a dozen very large flocks. There was also one large flock of blackbirds. I thought they were long gone. In one field there were gulls spread out all over the field.

At the feeder there are still plenty of juncos. Chickadees are common again and nuthatches also visit regularly.

Two kinds of juncos?

I am not sure which type of junco is which. I believe the lighter one such as that in the photo is the slate coloured junco. There are others that look darker and I assume they are the dark-eyed junco. They stay around the area for about a month or longer and then once the snow and colder weather comes the disappear within a week or so.

Robins in mountain ash trees

A few days ago I noticed birds flying into and out of a mountain ash tree on the perimeter of our property. The mountain ash has bright orange berries in the fall. I was surprised to find that the birds were robins. The next day we visited a farmer friend who also had mountain ash trees and there were robins there as well. Perhaps the robins rendezvous in mountain ashes and feast on the berries before starting south. They had better start soon as there is a winter storm warning for parts of Saskatchewan tomorrow and some of the snow may drift over here!

Large flocks of geese on their way south...

This is a flock of snow geese. I have heard several flocks of geese this evening flying overhead even though the weather is very windy and rainy. This time of year flocks of snow geese often are seen in the fields just as in this photo that was taken--but not by me---near The Pas Manitoba. By the honking I think that the flocks I am hearing are probably Canada Geese.

White crowned sparrow

There was a white-crowned sparrow this afternoon feeding below the feeder. This is the first one I have seen for a long time. Some poor house sparrow today was caught by a hawk right near the feeder. The sparrow actually bumped the window before being caught by the hawk. It happened so fast that I could not see what type of hawk it was. Afterwards when I went out on the back porch a bunch of sparrows flew out from underneath. I guess they were hiding there!