This week I’m sharing some images of Spotted Sandpipers. If you live near water or a marshy area you have likely seen or heard their lively staccato whistles or seen their bouncing bottoms. Spotted Sandpipers are really interesting birds. I had no idea how unique they are until I started doing a little research. During the spring migration, female …
This week I am sharing some images of a young Yellow-Shafted Northern Flicker who was exploring my wheel well and doing a bit of yoga atop my tire. I was out kayaking and as I approached the shore I noticed a few flickers on the ground grabbing insects from the shoreline. As I approached, most of them flew up into …
This week I’m putting forth my opinion on a very controversial subject here in the north – wolves. The big topic of “debate” centres around the emotionally-charged subject of using a wolf-bounty to help protect caribou. There are so many issues at play in this topic it becomes very difficult to unravel however I am going to try and set …
Things are getting pretty quiet around here as birds make their way back south. We are in the middle of the fall migration and mornings are much quieter of late. This week I thought I would share some images of one of the more common birds we see around Yellowknife in the spring and summer, the lesser yellowlegs. This …
This week I wanted to introduce you to the Eastern Kingbird. Kingbirds are regal-looking birds with a black cap and grey back. The easiest way to ID them in the field is to look for the white bar across the tip of their tail. They are members of the flycatcher family and are extremely agile in the air swooping after …
I usually take my son camping at the end of June into the early part of July. This year we went to Kakisa and Sambaa Deh which is in the Deh Cho region of the Northwest Territories. To get there, we have to cross the mighty Mackenzie River which is a wonderful spot for birding. A few years ago, …
Welcome back to the Sunday edition. I am getting behind on my photo editing so please forgive the delay in posting. I’ll try to get back on a regular schedule here shortly. I usually go camping in the last two weeks of June. For the past few years, it has been a pretty good stretch of time to avoid …
Well well. Look who came to visit my cat yesterday. A gray catbird that’s who. And yes, it does sound just like a cat in a tree! Gray Catbirds are relatives of mockingbirds and thrashers, and they share that group’s vocal abilities, copying the sounds of other species and stringing them together to make their own song. Fun …
I’ve been away camping for the past week (did you know the DehCho has a monsoon season?!). While I process the photos from my latest trip, I thought I would share some of my bird images from May. Getting good pictures of birds is hard. They don’t stay still for long and while they might come to have a …
Porcupines are not uncommon around Yellowknife yet I never really noticed that they can differ in colour. I am not sure if they change colour based on their age or if it is a natural variation in the species. The first porcupine was walking down the middle of the road in the evening and I hopped out to escort …