On Drifting Snow, Clearcutting, and Hibernating Black Bears

Tufts within a rumpled blanket of white, drifts of new snow lay in cozy mounds against outbuildings this morning and licked across our winter access road like a line of voracious tongues intent on swa...

Snowbelisk

The snow that enwraps northern Nova Scotia reflects sky colours, infusing the landscape with shades of blue in shadows and dim light. In the tropics of Australia, milky blue and periwinkle cumulus clo...

Notes on Nuthatches

A new visitor has appeared at my feeder during the past week – a sharp-beaked, red-breasted nuthatch with a body shaped like two stout cones placed base to base. This nuthatch, with its rufous-t...

Black-capped Chickadees: Sweethearts of Canadian Birds

During Vilis’s and my year-long sojourn in Australia in 2010, I sometimes grew homesick for our home in Nova Scotia. At those times, surrounded by brilliantly-coloured parrots and lorikeets, I i...