Still Life With Birder: August 2010

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Awwww

Golden Lab swimming with Dolphin (click on link to see video)

Three Reasons I Care About The Future of Our Planet

This is Ailyn. She is my nephew's daughter and lives in Vancouver.

This is Henry. He's my niece's son and lives in Toronto.

This is Paige. She is a cousin's daughter and lives in Regina.

I was going through some photos this morning to find something to post about, and found these pix of a cloud formation in Manitoba sometime in July. I recall I was going to send them to TheWeatherNetwork to identify (haven't sent yet) beyond cumulous or cumulonimbus. The clouds were to the east of me mid-afternoon and I don't know if the clouds were forming or had already dumped their load of rain. Pretty fantastic formation.

A new post at Margaret and Helen

I love this ol' Texas gal, Helen.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Delta Marsh - One of my Favourite Places

I love this place. Miles and miles of wetlands. Very interesting and very peaceful, except in duck hunting season.

As per the Manitoba government website about the marsh (my photos, their text)

Delta Marsh is an extensive freshwater coastal wetland at the southern end of Lake Manitoba. It stretches from Lynchs Point in the west to St. Ambroise in the east. The protected portion of the Delta Marsh Wildlife Management Area encompasses 8,125 hectares. These protected lands are free from logging, mining, hydroelectric, oil and gas development as well as other activities that could significantly and adversely affect habitat. The total size of the wildlife management area is 11,000 hectares.

Outstanding Features

The Delta Marsh in south central Manitoba is one of the largest and most important marshes in the Canadian prairies, occupying approximately 18,000 hectares at the south end of Lake Manitoba. In 1982, the Delta Marsh was listed as a wetland of international importance under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Ramsar Convention. It is recognized provincially as a “Manitoba Heritage Marsh” and nationally as an Important Bird Area due to its significance for waterfowl and neotropical migrants.

The marsh formed between 2,500 and 4,500 years ago when the ancient Assiniboine River flowed into Lake Manitoba. It is composed of a network of interconnected shallow bays separated from Lake Manitoba by a wooded barrier beach.

Yard Life

This is part of my back yard as viewed from inside my house. Somewhere out there are 2 Yellow Warblers (over in the back shrubs), 4-5 American Goldfinches, most of those are eating the catnip seeds. There's a Ruby-throated Hummingbird near the red feeder. What? Can't you see all this? Not in photo are 7 Common Grackles, a Mourning Dove, 17 or so House Finches, 2 Black-capped Chickadees, 8-9 Eurasian Collared Doves and three Fox Squirrels.

Oh, look, here's one of them now.

And, another

Brrrrrr

It's chilly here today. 11C/52F. Had to go find some socks, some Fall sort of socks.

It's rainy, too. That part is fine because when it rains, the dogs next door are not outside in their pen, barking and barking and barking and BARKING!

Sunday, August 29, 2010

What The .... ?????

Awrright, what happened here? Two weeks ago I was bragging about the huge and beautiful blossoms on my Phalenopsis orchids, this week three of the flowers on my old plant have wilted, turned yellow, died. According to an on-line how-to-grow site, Phalenopsis orchids (commonly known as 'Moth Orchids', isn't that cute!) bloom between December and May (mine appear to be ass-backwards then) and swings in temperature can cause buds to drop off. Did the temps in my living room really swing THAT much this past week while I was away? The other plant didn't seem to suffer. No, I think something else is afoot. Now I'm intimidated again - well, not really. I expect I'll fool around with this thing until I cause the other blooms to fall off as well.