Justfolk's photos

This fellow, a lone Orange-crowned warbler, has spent the entire winter and fall in the valley I live in in Newfoundland. And he looks none the worse for being here instead of, say, Costa Rica where most of his relatives spent the same time. Hereabouts, he hangs out with and travels with a roving band of raucous goldfinches. So when I hear them in the backyard, I get up from my reading, grab the camera and look for this one. And this morning he sat in the falling April snow for his turnbuckle portrait. ("Is this my best side? How about this side? Are my yellow streaks showing much yet?”)

It's spring and the goldiboyos are puttin' on their spiff.

I had a teacher in Grade Eight (that's nearly sixty years ago) who was the object of great mimicry by her charges. She was old and -- to us -- odd, so she was easy to make fun of, at least by us thirteen-year-olds. I suspect that nowadays, if I knew her, I'd like her. But back then we just found ways to make jokes about her. Sigh. She had old ways of speaking, for one thing. For instance, when she assigned us work to do in class, she would pace around the classroom exclaiming from time to time, "Be looking down!" The joke among the barely pubescent pupils was that she was adjusting her underwear and didn't want to be seen. In any case, in the ensuing decades I have found myself looking down a lot. And so, today, while crossing a busy intersection, I spied this tiny house at the foot of one of the street signs. I've no idea how it got there.

For nearly two years we have been slowly drinking the wine given to us by a friend who had a substantial cellar but who, in her ninth decade, had decided to quit drinking. This was the bottle opened tonight, an Italian wine from 23 years ago. The cork was damaged but the wine was perfect. I had just put a leg of lamb in the oven.

Passing by a local ball field this morning, I saw this rather classy chair just behind the bleachers.

I was out in the light rain this morning looking for a bird I did not find. I found myself on a path I last walked on over fifty years ago. Back then, I was walking the length of a river that had been put underground twenty years previous to then. Its headwaters were in the then-City-Dump. Even in the early 'seventies, the Dump had been closed and covered for decades. But the brook still stank so it was still covered. In the late 'seventies, the City put through a major sewer line parallel to the underground river, making a kind of path over the sewer. And then twenty years later, the City decided to release the river itself. Since then the path, walking above the big sewer line, follows the brook which still adds a red tinge to the rocks it flows over (from the iron leaching out of the Old Dump). But it doesn't stink anymore. It's a pleasant spot for trees and bushes and birds and perhaps other animals to live productive lives. And I'd been alerted to a Lincoln's sparrow down there. I didn't find the sparrow, but I like the path. Even here -- where the brook disappears underground again to get past a couple of gigantic mansions finally to reappear a couple of hundred metres on.

Our neighbourhood got at least four degrees warmer today than the official weather station ten or fifteen km north of us. We got fourteen degrees in our front yard. (It was even warmer on the sunny back deck. :) ) In any case, our little snowdrops opened up. And they look great.

Most of the pond is still covered with ice. But the water is open down here at the outflow, and it shows signs of having been much higher, when a chair got hung up in the grating.

The nearest pond to our house is still covered in ice right across, but the pussy willows are all blooming. It's some kind of paradox that while you walk around the pond, watching your step in the snow and on the ice, these things are thinking of spring, and doing something about it. I can't think of any other area in this town where the Pussywillows are so forthright and early. This pond is the King of Pussywillowdom.

It was a lovely windless sunny day, so we went beatin' the paths in the neighbourhood. This is the old railway track which runs along a river that flows down into the harbour.

We were just stepping out the front door to go somewhere when my wife pointed out a tiny patch of first bloomers, snow drops in a sunny corner of our front lawn. It may be two months before these blooms finish up -- I expect lots more frost and snow before spring really comes. But in the meantime we can admire these first blooms.

Our friends, and we, are still pretty risk-averse about crowds. But, a couple of nights ago, six of us went out to a new local restaurant and ate a lovely halal meal amongst people breaking their Ramadan fast. There was no cause for a scowlery.

There was some salt on top of the stove and the morning sun was slaking in over it. So I thought I'd take a picture. I didn't notice the red thread until I looked closely at the picture.

This top section of Feaver's Lane in downtown St. John's, down from Queen's Road to Bond Street, is really just a footpath nowadays. The lower section, which runs between Bond Street and Gower Street, is somewhat wider. It's one of the public rights-of-way that were preserved after the Great Fire of 1892 but which, as spaces maybe wide enough for moving vehicles, were superseded by other nearby streets. But it's still an official roadway that the City lights. But it looks like the livyers must shovel the snow themselves.

I went this morning to have some blood tests at the hospital nearest our house. I budgeted my time for twenty minutes at the feeder behind the hospital beforehand. I was lucky and, within my time window, saw not only the Pine warbler I was hoping for (he'd been there all winter), but a Downy woodpecker too.

I've geared up in hopes of taking a picture of the eclipse in three weeks. And I've been trying to get used to taking pictures of the sun. From our back deck this afternoon, the sun is behind trees: those dark areas on the sun's disk are not sunspots; they are out of focus branches and cloud. On April 8th, I intend to be not only where the eclipse will be total, but out from under any nearby trees. I can only hope there'll be no clouds.

I worked for decades in the same building as B and we knew each other well. I never met his daughter R until the morning a month ago when I ran into them behind a local hospital. They, like me, were hoping to see the winter-rare Pine warbler we knew was there. None of us did see it that morning. Fuji 200 film in Rollei Prego 125.

Katie is a reporter/videographer. A month or so ago she wanted my opinion on something. A deal was struck: I did a short interview and she let me take her picture afterwards. Thus this. It was a cold morning but my little Rollei Prego 125 did the job. Fuji 200 colour film.