Day 19 - 19th January 2019 - Barred Owl, Guillemot and Long Tail Duck

Temperature is up around 0 this morning, bit breezy and a dusting of snow overnight. Our fickle weather.  Wait five minutes and it will change again. Looks like the upcoming storm will bring mostly rain for us, some snow ahead of time. So I opted for "knit & yarn" day in Lockeport instead of groceries in Barrington on Friday. Doesn't take much to change my mind, so now I'll have to go shopping this morning. It's always a fun time and I know that I won't get there all summer when I go back to work. Ironically as I'm knitting away, there is a Redhead Duck swimming around with some Scaups not 5 minutes away. When Larry picked me up  we went down to check it out, of course I missed good shots of him by 10 minutes they all moved off. So what I managed to get was a distance shot, heavily cropped but enough to say I saw him. Did see some Longtail Ducks, Guillemots, Scaups and Eiders. On the way home I spotted a Barred Owl and the Ring Neck Ducks were in the river just below the lake. Overall my day turned out great - birds and knitting!

 Guillemot

Long Tailed Duck. They are a stunning duck -a few years ago I got some nice shots of them in Meteghan.





Enjoy your day!

Day 18 - 18th January 2019 - Chickadee, Goldfinches and Mallards

Friday seems to be my wake up too early morning (4am) well I'm not complaining too much as I'm sleeping better most nights again. It's cold again but it is winter so that's kind of the norm. Storm coming on Sunday, sounds like a good day for me to do some lunch box prep for Larry and then curl up with netflix and knitting needles. That's a few days off, so before then there are  lots of other things to do. I'm going to be very happy to see the end of these antibiotics, if I make it through them all.  I think we'll head off to Barrington this morning to do grocery shopping, maybe a few detours in search of birds along the way. Yesterday was our Thelma and Louise day, had lunch with the girls. Overall wasn't a terribly exciting day. I did do a little knitting last night, working on a new pattern, realized I used the wrong color in it, but we'll think of it as my "get the kinks out" piece. Will try to dig out one of Grandmother's Journals this weekend so I can see what was happening a few years ago.

Chickadee

Goldfinches

Mallards - that water looks icy cold








Enjoy your day!

Day 17 - 17th January 2019 - Goldfinches, Chickadee and Junco

A little snow during the night, windy and cold this morning. Hard to believe the temperature went up to +3 yesterday and back down to -8 last night. The birds were busy at the feeders on Wednesday, as usual the Blue Jays and Mourning Doves with some help from the squirrels clean out the platform feeders in a few short  minutes but the Christmas trees and tube feeder remain for the little birds. They flit back and forth. It's fun to watch the Chickadees grabbing seeds and trying to find places to hide them later. I spent most of the day doing grant writing, but I think by late afternoon I had finished my part with Cady's help and sent them over to her. My stomach felt the affects of the antibiotics all morning, but after supper wasn't too bad. It's worse early in the day, but it's only for a week so I'm sure I'll survive. Today will be Thelma and Louise Day, off to lunch and maybe a few errands.

Sometimes they share - Goldfinch and Chickadee

They love to perch on the netting Larry has up for the pole beans

Junco with his tail fanned out.





Enjoy your day!

Day 16 - 16th January 2019 - White Throated Sparrow and Female Mallard

Another nippy morning, but the stars are all out and someone is bowling on the lake again. I heard something in the yard, sounded like maybe a deer moving around - let's hope so. Got lots of work to get done today, still into the grant writing, even though Cady and I made great progress yesterday.  It's Knit & Yarn day but we won't make it this week. Hoping the girls have a blast. That really sucks, but will give me a chance to get this stuff finished up. I'm working on a new headband pattern, which I've ripped out once and might have to one or two more times until I get what I want from my head to the graph paper and then the needles. Being creative takes time! Dentist appointment as well yesterday, nothing new or good there, I'm now on antibiotics for the next 8 days then an extraction at the end of the month. Not looking forward to the antibiotics, pretty well guaranteed to upset my stomach. Taking 4 a day and making sure I eat with them, probably means another few pounds I'm going to add to my already widening body! I should get the rest of the holiday junk food finished off!

White Throated Sparrow taken through the kitchen window, not a great shot.
















Female Mallard - even though they are rather plain, they are pretty with the various brown tones and wing patch.



Enjoy your day!

Day 15 - 15th January 2019 - Just another winter day

Brr... it's cold this morning, again. Monday was a busy day, computer work, grant writing, minimal housework. Went out for a jaunt around lunch time (once it warmed up some)  and tackled the Instant Pot in the afternoon. Made a stew - in no time at all, although I did miss the smell of it simmering away on the back of the stove for hours, but Larry declared it was perfect and we should throw away all of our pots and pans. Needless to say that won't happen! I think he just likes the ideas of washing one container instead of several.  Next free day I'll take a look through the freezer and some recipes and tackle something else. Lots of birds around the feeders, maybe too many Blue Jays and Mourning Doves as they clean out the seeds pretty quickly. But not much I can do about that. The little birds seem to find enough. I counted 6 Juncos yesterday and the American Tree Sparrows popping in and out of the Christmas Tree. At least 5 Songs Sparrows and the White Throated Sparrow. Goldfinches are happy at the tube style feeder and Christmas tree, they don't bother as much with the platform feeders. Exercise class last night, good work out, I'm sure by tomorrow I won't be able to sit or lift anything but just the same.....will help off set some of that holiday candy I've been grazing on. It's off to town today, working on grant applications with Cady, dentist appointment and Trivia tonight. Hopefully the dental work isn't going to put a wrench in the rest of my day. So the upload speed is too annoying for me this morning, no pictures. Sorry folks.

Day 14 - 14th January 2019 - White Duck and Mallards

It's a beautiful morning, stars are shining brightly in the sky, but it's cold, -14.  Sounds like giant bowling balls going up and down the lake, she's loud. So I'm giving up on loading pics this morning, the upload speed is too slow for some reason, time to make a call and get them to check the dish position. Since we always seem to have a lot of wind, it may have moved just a tad. For all the good intentions of getting stuff done on Sunday, I think I mostly failed. Well we did make a trip into town for some groceries, stopped with a coffee at Margie's but then Alice arrived so we played a game of marbles. Started off for a walk when I got home, ran into Lois so we went for a jaunt then had tea and a catch up with her. Finally I settled in home, but by that time, any thought of getting things done were gone so I pulled out the needles, did some knitting and watched TV. Today is certainly going to be different, time to start another set of grant applications, going to tackle the Instant Pot, walking and exercise class tonight. With all that I should have a full day.

One of these ducks is not like the others!

Most of them were resting along the bank. Didn't see the Green Wing Teal but he could have been tucked up anywhere




Enjoy your day!

Day 13 - 13th January 2019 - Mourning Dove and the Lake

Fairly quiet on this Sunday morning, the lake is groaning gently every once in a while, a bit of wind and snow flurries and it's cold (-8/-9) . Yesterday was mostly a laid back, lazy kind of day, we didn't go anywhere. I did bundle up and go for a jaunt around the hood between snow flurries. Big Bertha is not keen on getting wet so we didn't go too long.  It was nice to get out, although there wasn't much around, the swamps are full and frozen now, the birds are all hanging out around neighbourhood feeders. Even though they act hungry, I suspect they are well fed as they go from yard to yard. Some laundry, a few things done around the house and I finished off another hat I was knitting. Time to start a new one! I guess today we better venture to town and pick up a few groceries - the basics at least. Maybe we'll take a drive around and see what ducks are in the harbour too.

Mourning Dove resting on top of a feeder.

A cold and snowy day on the lake




Enjoy your day!