fall harvest

It is certainly fall now, with the leaves in full regalia and the mercury plunging steadily. And with fall comes harvest of kinglets and sparrows and chickadees and woodpeckers! Many Golden- and Ruby-crowned Kinglets can be seen now fluttering and twittering in the trees, as well as hanging upside-down in our nets! And when you get one, you're more than likely to get half a dozen or even more. Maybe Kinglets were not in mind when "a dime a dozen" was forged but it readily applied...

Sparrows of the North have also come down on the battered shores of Georgian Bay: the White-crowned Sparrows have been around already for a few weeks, all adults sporting their namesake diadem, while the young still need to deserve their own by surviving the winter, exhibiting only a shy and modest brown cap. On Tuesday 13, the first American Tree Sparrow was caught in our net, with a few others seen hopping freely in low shrubs. Delicately marked and very elegant indeed, this sparrow is one of my favourite! Another sparrow with a bicoloured bill, albeit much bigger, appeared from its northern haunts the following day: a very rufous Fox Sparrow was caught on Wednesday 14! Another one was also caught yesterday.

Various Bald Eagles, in all kind of attires, are seen quite regularly, like the 3 immatures seen at once one early morning, or the adult perched on what is (very) locally known as the "Eagle Tree", actually 2 Red Pine Trees offering their strong horizontal limbs on a strategic location, high on a bluff, overlooking wetlands, basin, and Georgian Bay.

The first flurries have been thoroughly enjoyed too! Crisp air, sun competing with clouds, leaves falling in nets, frosty morning: it is fall indeed.