Justfolk's photos

Last winter we had a lone white-throated sparrow hanging out all winter with some of the local juncos. This fellow showed up a few days ago and I suspect it is the same bird.

Since over a year ago, we've noticed from time to time (and especially when there's a storm of some sort), a chickadee sleeping on a tiny shelf near the roof of our front porch. I went out there this evening, just after sunset before it got too dark, and just before the rain started, and took this picture of him. (The light casting shadows is from streetlights.) We avoid using the front door or turning on the light there where he is visiting. He stays the night and is always gone by morning light.

November 18th and we still have three or four plants on the back deck producing flowers. Not a lot of flowers, and none big, but there they are: still looking for a hot time with bugs that just aren't showing up. Here, the pinks, Dianthus, the brightest of the lot.

Right now in the southish sky, this silvery sliver of a noon moon is poking out from between clouds scudding across. It's about five days before the no moon of the New Moon.

This garden shed is on a disused railway track, now a public walking trail, about a kilometre from our back door. I like the fact that the metal roofing and siding have produced a gorgeous rusty curtain over much of the shed. It's probably made of all reused materials, and I admire that too. Sixteen-years-expired film (Fuji 400, expired 2006) shot two weeks ago in my Rollei 35TE.

We were eating breakfast when my wife said, "Oh look -- two raspberry finches!" (She's like me -- she knows they are officially called purple finches, but she doesn't care.) They were right outside the window eating the wax balls. They carried one off to a nearby fence but dropped it. Then they left on their morning jaunt. Uhh, wax balls: you know -- snowberries, Symphoricarpos albus. Sheesh.

By way of comparison to the long-tongued flicker, the very vocal starling has a short but clearly agile tongue. This one is wet from the heavy rain this morning. He's eating a lump of cat treat which he has behind his tongue, ready to go down the hatch.

I have no idea why Flickers are actually called Flickers. But I like to think it is because of their prodigiously long tongues which they flick out at their food. This morning in the rain. Picture turnt a bit to help make up for my own unplumb view.

Family outing, maybe. We had four Northern flickers at our deck this morning, all together: one female and three males (like this one). They were gathering up bits of suet plus digging up peanuts that the bluejays had stuck in flower pots and the like. No flies on the flickers.

Post-tropical storm Nicole is passing over us, bringing a little wind but a lot of rain. As her heart passed over us, both wind and rain dropped down. In that lull I went to the back door and took some pictures. Here the camera was sitting on the doorstep. The leaves are a gift from the trees, beaten down by the rain. The pumpkin's presence is just a result of me being lazy again.

The rain, a cold leftover from Post-tropical Storm Nicole, is getting heavier by the hour. The birds are all face-and-eyes into the suet and nuts. Here a pitchypee (chickadee) is waiting its turn at the suet.

Yeah yeah, you know them as juncos. My father always called them snowbirds. This one and his ilk have been filling up on the suet and the crushed peanuts as another post-tropical storm moves in on us. (Not much wind this time, but around 50mm of rain. That's more than enough in a few hours.)

We feed the bluejays, crows, juncos and whatever other birds want to take part in the feasts. A half-dozen times or so a day -- whenever we are called upon by the birds -- we bring a handful of nuts out to them. With the winter weather coming we will soon put out a couple of seed feeders. Right now we're working our way through our recently dead cat's supply of dry food. It's not only nutritious, but the birds love it. That is what this guy was tucking into this morning when I took this picture. The cat would have approved.

I got up very early to see if I could see the lunar eclipse. I caught just a little of it before the moon sank behind a neighbour's house. But, better than the moon, was the gigantic fox terrier smiling at me from the neighbour's roof. Then I went back to bed.

Today, November sixth, we found almost a dozen wild plants still blooming. That's not unheard of this late in the season, but it's not often so many plants are still trying to get lucky. The end of the season must be nigh. This is the blue striped toadflax, Linaria repens, a close relative of the yellow toadflax, butter-and-eggs. They are so close that they often interbreed and indeed this one could be such a cross; I can't tell.

The seeds for these dianthus, pinks, arrived by bird or wind. And they have been blooming since early July month. They are still shining their little pink faces at our kitchen door. Not bad for the sixth of November. Our weather is largely shaped by the North American jet stream. usually it flies in here from the west but for the past few weeks it has been drawing warm air from off the USA eastern seaboard. And thus no killing frosts for the dianthus yet.

Jupiter is very close to the moon in the sky now, just above it (in the southeastern sky hereabouts in St. John's, Newfoundland). If you can see a dark sky, this is what you'll see. The moon is bright, and there's a haze in the air here, but not enough to obscure the moons of Jupiter. If you can zoom in on this picture you can see all four of the usual characters (L-R: Callisto, Io, Europa and Ganymede, though Io and Europa are so close together they look almost like one). It doesn't matter what side you're on; when we look up, we all see the same bits of light up there.

Our old cat Minnie died a week or two ago. She left behind a substantial estate of foods and other things. But like all cats, she died without a will. We have thus appointed ourselves as executors of her estate. We're gradually dispersing it. The crows are among the first beneficiaries. Minnie would have approved. This crow has a large craw and it's full. But there's enough in the estate to last at least a couple of weeks. Despite the greedyguts that the birds are.