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Predatory Songbirds
We don't often think of song birds, or the passerines, as predators. Some people are aware of the shrikes, or butcherbirds, as being just that. Tiny birds of prey, which sometimes hang out at feeders, picking off redpolls and the like. They earned their moniker "butcherbirds" from a habit of impaling their prey on thorns…
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Panegyric
There are few things that helped establish me as a blogger as much as I and the Bird. Way back in the Dark Ages of blogging when I started out, well the Renaissance is probably a better analogy, I discovered carnivals. I believe that the first one I sent a post to was the Tangled…
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Not the Arctic landscape you think you know
If you ask most people to imagine the Arctic they would generally think of frozen tundra, perhaps some icebergs. Some would think of mountains and fiords (and according to a recent survey by Up Here! magazine some 28% of southern Canadians would think that landscape included penquins). Very few people's mental image of the Arctic…
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Cold comfort
I've a new post up at 10,000 Birds (a couple of days late), The Stab of Cold. Go show them some love.
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B&W Photographs
After our family outing yesterday, we went for a drive around the neighbourhood. It gave me an opportunity to do some Black and White photography. Black… … and White.
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Family outing
Our weekend family outings are a little different than most. Certainly not everyone, but this time of year its rare that you'd find families outside of the Arctic that have an outing built around dog sledding. We took a short jaunt out to Uluksa for coffee and tea, but mostly to get a dog sled…
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Copulating Kiggavik: A love story.
I almost missed what is indubitably the highlight of my birding year so far. I'd taken the day off work. I'm off tomorrow to Iqaluit with my daughter who needs some dental work done. With the short week there was little point in going in for one day, so I found myself at home. And…
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A great day for a drive on the ocean.
The southern point demarking the mouth of Victor Bay is a spit of land called Nuvua. A few years back a family built a cabin there, one that they spend most weekends. This year an iceroad was pushed out to the point, and so their visitors have increased exponentially. We were amongst those visitors this…
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Best April Fool’s fall ever.
The names have been changed to protect the guilty. (and because the person reads the House). This is a paraphrasing of a telephone conversation I just had. It brightened my day, because its not often you get an April Fool's reaction twelve days after. Hello Hello Clare, it's Frances, how are you? Great. You?…
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Sledding
Although the air temperatures continue to hover around the low -20s here Spring feels like it is arriving. It just feels nicer out there, and you can feel the warmth of the sun on your face. So we decided to take Bolt out for a run on the sled. Was it fun? This photo pretty…
