Home for a bit

After a month having a great time experiencing spring in some other areas of the province, we are home for a week or two...

water levels are about where one would expect them to be this time of the year...the scary part is that normally one would be expecting them to continue to rise, where in fact they have apparently peaked....like everything else it seems we are a month ahead of schedule.

Since there is no where to actually walk here, we headed over to Harrison Bay this afternoon....

No beach these days and everything very green and lush compared to last time we were here.  Being mid afternoon and very windy it wasn't the best day for viewing birds...

was trying to see if the Bald Eagle nest was occupied....couldn't tell when suddenly an Osprey flew a little too close to it and....

  this guy suddenly appeared and chased it off while his mate cheered him on from the nest...nice!

Noticed a few...

American Robins...this one obviously packing food - in this case a ripe Salmonberry - to a nest....hadn't noticed at the time that the bird only has one leg.

Normally, but now, this field has been plowed and planted....it appears this year it is being allowed to lay fallow which I am sure all the local birds and wildlife are loving!!!  Notice the healthy hedgerow of...

Himalayan Blackberries....just coming into flower...now for the scary part...these blackberries are supposed to be a late summer crop...they shouldn't be in flower in mid May!

Neither should the Hardhack be coming into flower for another month or so...

and the Nootka Roses should be just coming into flower...not being almost finished flowering which seems to be the case.

Back to birds...

this Black-capped Chickadee was very busy eating little bugs from the fruit of this local shrub that I have to find out for sure what it is.....

and now, I have to give kudos where they are due...following the major windstorm that the area experienced last fall a fatal accident that took place, not through any single event but due to a combination of events, there was a fear that a lot more of the mature tree's in the are were going to be removed....I was extremely relieved to see that common sense prevailed and...

the tree's were limbed but left....the birds thank you!