Some ravens and a month holiday

The temperature was minus forty this morning. I drove to Shoal Lake to the dump and saw about half a dozen ravens around the dump. On the way home I saw one lone raven at the peak of a huge mound of grain that has been left just standing in a field without any covering except for some snow right now!

At the feeder there were quite a few redpolls today and also black capped chickadees.

We will be leaving for the Philippines tomorrow so I will not be posting much until the end of March. I may do the odd post while in the Philippines but I may have a problem identifying the birds I see. I was surprised that I did not see that many different kinds in the city. The most common birds called maya maya look a lot like our common house sparrows.

No new birds

This is a rather fuzzy pic of a few redpolls at the feeder. Only redpolls, a few chickadees and one lone housesparrow are visiting today. We will be leaving for the Philippines the end of this week. I was hoping a few different birds might appear before we leave. I will try to post a few items about birds I see in the Philippines but I may have trouble identifying them.

Our house is in Legazpi with a view of the Mayon volcano. The most common bird is a type of house sparrow that looks much like our common house sparrow.

A few ravens

We just returned from a trip to Brandon and back. We saw very few birds. The largest group we saw was a huge flock of pigeons in Brandon itself! In the countryside we saw a total of three ravens and nothing else. Each raven seemed to be by itself.

Redpolls on the ground again

The redpolls are the most prevalent visitors to the feeder these days. Next would be the black-capped chickadees and finally the odd house sparrow. The only new species was a red breasted nuthatch the other day.

Red-breasted nuthatch returns..

For the first time I can recall this year there was a red-breasted nuthatch at the feeder. They were common late in 2008 but then they disappeared for a few months. There are plenty of redpolls these days plus more chickadees the last while. There are very few house sparrows.

Redpolls on the ground..

A few redpolls on the ground by the feeder. Only redpolls and a few chickadees plus the odd house sparrow are visiting these days. No new birds. However the squirrel seems to have found a mate and the two seem to be having a pre-spring frolic in the spruce trees!

More flocks of snow buntings.

This photo shows how well snow buntings manage to blend in when they are on the ground.
We drove just 14 kilometres to Shoal Lake and saw no less than four flocks this morning, two of them quite large. There is a bit of snow and blowing snow but the temperature is finally rising. The cold spell is coming to an end for a while!

More frigid weather.

Yesterday we drove to the next town and on the way saw one flock of snow buntings. The colder it becomes the more we seem to see. At the bird feeder there are plenty of red polls as well as a few chickadees and house sparrows.