yesterday (the 4th) we had light snow flurries pretty much all day but they didn't amount to anything on the ground.
today it was just plain frigid with strong outflow winds again....yes that is ice on the logs there.
lots of swans and ducks out there but too cold to stand around and try to figure out how many of what!
this pair of Trumpeter Swans were in close this morning...
Bald Eagles have been loving the weather.
This youngster was watching me yesterday when I was trying to get photos of the Varied Thrush and Bush-tits that were in the Pacific Crabapple trees. Didn't manage to get photos of either of them.
Another species seen the last two days that I haven't managed to get a photo of was....
a Wilson's Snipe. (photo above taken at Tunkwa Lake P.P.). This shorebird is usually found in puddles of water in the grass and you can't spot the things until they suddenly fly - which is exactly what has happened at the exact same spot the last two walks.
Now....let's chat about hummingbirds.....
this is a young male Anna's Hummingbird. Photo taken this morning. Even just 10 years ago we would never have been discussing hummingbirds in November. Hummingbirds arrived mid-March and were gone by early September. That was before the Anna's Hummingbird moved north. According to Bird Studies Canada, these little guys have expanded their range northwards by an astonishing 700 km in just the past 20 years. When they first arrived there were warnings to not leave feeders out, it would encourage them to stay and they'd freeze - wrong. These aren't a migratory species, where they move to, they stay. Then it was, well if you have feeders you have to keep heat on them. Well, yes that helps, who doesn't like a nice warm drink on a hot morning....but as long as the feeder isn't frozen solid, the birds are at them. It does help if the feeder is under an eave or in a fairly sheltered location. The Anna's don't depend on feeders to survive - they actually eat a lot of tiny insects, but it has been decided that feeders do help them thrive. During the 2016/2017 Feeder Watch Season, participants reported Anna's Hummingbirds at 54% of all feeders in British Columbia. I know that last winter, one of the longest, snowiest and coldest on record, if there was one bird I could count on seeing, not just in my yard but during our walks, it was the Anna's Hummingbird.
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