How does your Garden Grow?

 Pretty good, actually after a month of unseasonably warm weather!  As you can see my rhubarb grows profusely.

The spirea is blooming as are my irises.

The cornflowers are just starting to bloom.

All the seeds have sprouted in the vegetable garden.  Squash in the front of the photo and peas next to the bed headboard.

My sour cherry tree is covered to keep the cherry fly out.

Lettuce and beans growing well in the raised beds.  Leo built me a fence to keep the deer out.  If you zoom in you can see I stapled copper wire on the boards all around the beds.  We shall see if it keeps the slugs away, but so far no signs of damage.

The flower beds are all weeded.  I spotted a clearwing moth mimicking a bee.  These are the best photos I could get:

Chilanko Marsh

 

For the second year in a row we joined the Naturalists for their Victoria long weekend field trip to Chilanko Marsh.

It was a hot day, perhaps that accounts for the relatively fewer birds that showed their faces.  Still lots of birds singing.  Most of Leo's photos were not successful, but he did take this picture of a western wood pewee.

Bird of the Day!

And nearby was a least flycatcher:

One of the not so great photos

We heard a sora call but it didn't come out to say hello.

This fleabane (?) was  growing in abundance.

We ended our outing at the old homestead where the birds were more obliging.

This brewer's blackbird struck a pose

And then another pose.

Compare to its cousin the great-tailed grackle, photographed at Roosevelt Lake, Arizona.

And a brown headed cowbird cavorted in the dandelions.

There was some disappointment that we didn't reach our goal of 80 species, but we did see over 70.  

On our drive back to town we had a black bear run across the road.  First bear of the year!

Better yet.

 But still no rain.

A Little Better Today

 But still I'm going to go to the gym to exercise.

Smoke City

 The smoke from the Alberta fires has rolled into town.  The good news is it has cooled down the temperatures down.  The bad news is we probably shouldn't be outside breathing it.

Nevertheless we walked out on Mission Road this morning.

The usual suspects were out and about. Bluebirds,

Tree swallows,

And savannah sparrows.

We're Having a Heat Wave

We went straight from chilly pre-spring to a heat wave in the last week of April.
 

The following week it cooled down again so we played our inaugural bocce game at Scout Island in the early evening bubbled up in our jackets.

But soon the hot weather was back.  And we switched our evening activity to going for a dip in Williams Lake.  People, it may be in the low thirties, but the lake is not warm yet! 

I got up early one morning and had a long walk in the Dairy fields.  Lots of birdsong, warblers, meadowlarks, Lincoln and clay-coloured sparrows, tre e swallows, among others.

Our friends' daughter has returned from her year-long trip to South America and she brought us some paper bird kits to put together.  Leo hasn't made his yet, but mine is the Argentine version of the gnatcatchers we know from the Arizona desert.

It was a challenge for my aging eyes and fingers to put together but look how cute!

Here's its Arizona counterpart:

Cleaning out our Bluebird Boxes

In late April we drove out to the Chilcotin to clean out our bluebird boxes.

On the way we spotted a pair of Sandhill cranes.

Blurry photo, but they were far away.

Leo's wearing the mask to reduce exposure to last year's bird poop.

Most of the nest boxes had a pair of either bluebirds or swallows sitting on or near them.

Tree Swallow

Meadow larks were calling.

 

And here's a vesper sparrow on the fence.

One nest box had an uninvited guest.  

We guessed she had babies so we decided not to evict her.