December Crows 2017

The crows are back this December. I counted hundreds flying overhead each evening before the snow got thick on the ground. Now that the snow is thicker I see small groups hanging around looking for food but I don't notice the long streams of them flying east each evening. It could be that I'm just not spending as much time out in the bitterly cold weather.

We had a beautiful fluffy snow fall over Christmas and now we are enduring a proper cold spell of -25^oC nights and -15^oC days. The above picture is a meadow vole's breathing hole. You can see the ice crystals that have formed at the edge of the hole where the warmer air from their nest hits the colder air above the snow. The snow is very fluffy, and it is evident from the lack of tracks that they have just poked their head above the snow to keep the hole clear but haven't left the safety of their tunnel. According to this paper I read, 2 to 3 meadow voles huddle together in a nest for warmth with several nests forming a cluster. I noticed several holes in the vicinity of this hole; I wander if each of these holes is associated with a single nest chamber.

Birdhouse

This fall I built a birdhouse for the north-side of the berm. It is close to a duplicate of a successful birdhouse in the backyard where many generations of house sparrows have been raised. I placed it about 7 feet up on top of one of the posts I had planted earlier in the year to protect the young trees from the mower. The long grass mower had run over about 5-10 trees in the early summer but some of them were coming back from the inadvertent coppicing. The posts did the trick of convincing the mower to not follow the path taken in the summer when remowing the area in the fall.

I took the above picture on the 7th and it has stayed cold and snowy all December. In the poplar trees on top of the berm were a bunch of crows making a racket as I was taking this picture. They were a small part of the large flock that heads East each evening back to their roost on the Rideau.

False Dandelion

I've never noticed this flower in November. Here are False Dandelions doing a good job of looking like dandelions. There are also a few dandelions flowering out as well. Usually false dandelions are a summer flower and are much taller than dandelions but at this time of year they both are just poking their heads up above the lawn. I believe fine days like today encourage the plants to see if it is spring yet.

Both Dandelions and false dandelions are supposed to be "edible". I've never tried false dandelions, but if dandelions are anything to go by, "edible" is a very loose term. In the interests of science I suppose I should give them a try.

Hundreds of crows were flying overhead yesterday at dusk, heading east. I've been noticing these flocks for years. It never looks like a lot of birds at any one time because they are so high up and spread out, but the silent stream of birds lasts for quite a few minutes.

Keeping an eye on me.

When visiting the roadside area, the birds remind me who is the real curiosity there. They'll perch in the trees and caw or chirp to tell all and sundry that I am here. Today a family of crows took up the call as I was walking past the crab apples. I attempted to get a picture of one before they flew away. Later, as I was putting white plastic tree protectors on the newly planted trees, a family of goldfinches kept me under observation. Again it was not easy to get a picture with my little old Fuji F550 as they kept well away from the intruder.

Last week as I was biking east along Hunt Club Road I surprised a deer standing by the edge of the road. It's the first time I have seen a deer on the road's side of the farm fence. She was located just a few hundred meters from the tree planting area with the only obstruction in here way being the 4 lanes of traffic. Someday perhaps there will be deer visiting the apple trees of the berm area.

Turkey Tracks in Snow

There is no mistaking the evidence that wild turkeys visited the berm area in the past couple of days. In the image below you can compare the turkey track with the smaller tracks of a crow. Their tracks in the snow are at least twice as wide as a crow's and it is easy to see the individual toe marks.

I have very rarely seen a turkey fly as they mostly get around by walking. I followed the tracks of the one that landed below as he walked with his friend along the berm from the 2009 planting to the 2010 planting. I wonder if they continued on and visited Ben Franklin Wood.

This is the first time I've seen wild turkey tracks in Manordale. Wild turkeys were only introduced to eastern Ontario about 20 years ago and Ottawa about 12 years ago. This area is north of their historic range but they have been very successful so far.

Crows roosting along the Rideau

Last Sunday I was in my car driving along Hunt Club about 5 o'clock when I noticed the stream of crows flying directly over. I took the opportunity to see if I could find out where they were going. It wasn't too hard to follow them as the old saying "as the crow flies" has a great deal of truth. They followed HuntClub to past Merivale Road and then continued on over Collonade to the Rideau river. I lost them for a bit as I had to go up to Hog's Back to cross the river, but I found them soon enough over Vincent Massey Park. I followed them up Riverside drive and noticed quite a few crows in the trees along the river past Bronson. When I got to Bank I saw a flock heading west back towards the trees along the river so I figure there must be more than one crow skyway back to the roost each evening. When I eventually parked on the northside of the river and got out of my car, my ears were assaulted with a great racket from the crows over head. There were also hundreds of crows out on the ice of the river. I took a few snaps, but you couldn't get the entire roost in one picture. The above picture doesn't include the crows on the main roosting trees where they were almost as densely packet as leaves in summer.

Winter Solstice

It was an icy day on the 21st when I took the above picture. You can see the crows are still passing by every evening on their way east. Not in as large numbers as before, perhaps a couple of hundred crows flew over my head as I was visiting the trees. Not much was moving on that icy day except the cars and the crows. Crows fly at about 40km/hr so they may have been the faster of the two. I hope the city didn't put salt on the roads or else it was just the sort of weather for the spray from the road to mingle with the misty freezing rain and cling to every surface of the trees. Hopefully the heavy rain that finished the day washed it all away.

It was looking like it was going to be a green Christmas until this morning of the 23rd when a light dusting of snow covered the ground. We just got the south western edge of a snowstorm set to hit the Maritimes tonight.

The crows

Crows have been congregating along Hunt Club for the past few days. This is the third year I have noticed them about this time of year. The above picture is just a small fraction of the flock. I could see over 500 crows all at one time resting in the branches of the woodlot south of Hunt Club and more were coming and going all the time. They were flying south east from Ben Franklin Park to the woodlot in the experimental farm and then leaving the woodlot at the east end.

Yesterday was the first significant snowfall of the season and today when I visited the berm area the square that was planted in 2009 was covered with crow tracks. They had been looking for food and you can see in the picture below where one of them has stripped bark of a dead tree looking for a meal.

Signs of spring

I went for a walk along the berm on Tuesday the 15th. It was a nice warm and sunny day with the snow quickly melting underfoot. All the plants are still asleep but the birds knew spring is coming. The crows, sparrows, chickadees, and cardinals and starlings that have been our wintertime companions were all active but I also noticed some Redwing blackbirds up at the top of the populars lustily announcing their claims. There was also a single Robin waiting for the snow to melt away perched in a crabapple tree.



I learned today the school's application to plant more trees this spring was approved. So if all goes well the tree planting area will be extended to a new area to the south of the end of Newhaven this spring.