Hello and welcome back. This week I wanted to share some images I took in late summer of a bird that I’d never seen until this point – a lifer! I’d been studying the song of the Grey-cheeked thrush thanks to my friend and birding mentor Reid. He has been incredibly helpful in teaching me what to look for and …
This week I have some very special images to share with you of juvenile Canada Jays. I’ve only encountered juveniles a few times in my outings and it is always a treat to spend some time with them. A pair of Canada Jays will stay together as long as both birds are alive. They breed in frigid conditions …
I had a chance to dig through some birding photos from 2012 and stumbled across some images I completely forgot about. Here are a few of images from my yellow-headed blackbird stash. If you have never heard these birds they aren’t hard to recognize. They nest in marshes which are also home to red-winged blackbirds. While most of …
This week I thought I’d share some images of a hardy local who spends the winter with us. While many of our beloved songbirds enjoy the warm southern climate, we have a a few tough birds that stick around and keep us company even in the dead of winter. One of these is the boreal chickadee. Boreal chickadees are …
This week I have some images of Semipalmated plovers that I stumbled across quite by accident. I know very little about these birds so I did some reading to learn more. This encounter was only the second or third time I have had a chance to observe plovers. Plovers spend time int the North where they breed in arctic …
This week I’m sharing a story about bald eagles that I spotted quite by accident while out kayaking a couple of weeks ago. I was out on the lake early and as I paddled out I spotted one eagle high up in a spruce tree. It was coincidence that I spotted them as one is quite low to the ground …
I’ve been working through culling my 11K+ catalogue of bird images and came upon these images of a young grebe and I thought identifying juvenile grebes would make a good post. As I looked at the first few images I couldn’t tell what type of grebe this was. I wondered if there was a way to tell the difference between …
I’m pretty sure I spotted a Great Crested Flycatcher this past weekend! These guys are not common around Yellowknife so it was quite the event for this birder! A new lifer Yahoo!
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 …
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 …