Archive for the ‘wild life’ Category
butterfly
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butterfly
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scrap of paper
plucked from my hand
wind a tease
always one wing beat
beyond the finger tip
attempts to read
its delicate code
of dots
and dashes
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a yellow Post-it note
folded on the tower
of a blue sky cornflower
a tatter
a musical note
set to the panic
of butterfly flight
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a curtsy and away
across the field
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pursued by a butterfly net
and a killing jar
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Copyright Jane Spavold Tims 2018
Pileated Woodpecker excavations
The Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is a common visitor in our yard. The size of the woodpecker and its triangular red crest are impossible to miss. The male also has a red stripe on the side of its face.
There is a big spruce tree in our grey woods where the Pileated Woodpecker loves to visit. The hole in the tree and the pile of woodchips below the hole say this woodpecker has been very busy. The woodpeckers drill these holes to get insects.
On a drive to see the Smyth Covered Bridge near Hoyt, New Brunswick, we found a roadside tree with evidence of the Pileated Woodpecker’s industry. The holes are almost a foot in length and deep enough to hide a hand.
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To humans, the best forests may seem to be woods with healthy trees. To provide good habitat for the Pileated Woodpecker, a forest should have lots of dead and fallen trees, to provide food and nesting sites.
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Copyright Jane Tims 2018
feeding the birds
I am late this year with putting out bird feeders. Two reasons: the reported difficulty with disease in bird feeders last year and my general lack of time.
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This morning I made a bird feeder from a coke bottle (my son and I used to do this when he was little) and filled three of our feeders. The old sunflower seed feeders, difficult to clean and too expensive to toss out every few days, are in the trash.
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Presenting my new home-made feeder for sunflower seeds! I may add a simple roof to keep the snow out. I can replace it at intervals to keep it clean.
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The finch-feeder with nyjer (thistle) seed:
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A pile of seeds in our frozen bird-bath, for the squirrels and deer:
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As I came in from outside, I heard a chickadee in the larch tree, so I am hoping they will find the feeders soon.
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one of the illustrations in my book ‘in the shelter of the covered bridge’ (Chapel Street Editions 2017)
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Copyright Jane Tims 2018
woodpeckers in the grey woods
If you are new to my site, you might not know that we call the woods behind our house ‘the grey woods’. The woods are mainly balsam fir and black spruce, with grey birch and red maple. Here is a map of our property (about 19 acres).
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Woodpeckers are a common bird in the grey woods. We have Pileated Woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus), Hairy Woodpeckers (Leuconotopicus villosus), and Downy Woodpeckers (Picoides pubescens). The woodpeckers love the older trees in the woods. They also peck at our wood-shingled house!
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Here is a Hairy Woodpecker hard at work in a balsam fir. He is hard to tell from the Downy Woodpecker (especially when you can’t see his beak) but the Hairy woodpecker is larger (about the size of a Robin) and sometimes his red cap is divided into two parts (seen clearly in this photo).
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Copyright Jane Tims 2017
Meniscus: Crossing The Churn – alien insects
It won’t be long and we will be plagued by mosquitos and blackflies here in New Brunswick.
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On the planet Meniscus, the setting for my sci-fi series, there are no mosquitos and no blackflies. Life there is hard enough!
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However, I have populated the Meniscus woodlands with elginards. These are small wingless insects that drift on the breezes. As the book says, they are “… purposeless, ephemeral …”.
The inspiration for these creatures is the wooly aphid. In the late autumn days in New Brunswick, wooly aphids float like flakes of snow on the air.
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Elginards also remind me of dandelion fluff. The elginard in my book is a symbol for a purposeless life, lived at the whim of circumstance.
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To read more about elginards, have a look at my book ‘Meniscus: Crossing The Churn’ … available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats …
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B06XPPNCGF/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
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Copyright 2017 Jane Tims
Bald eagle
On a drive along the Saint John River south of Oromocto, we were happy to get great views of two Bald Eagles.
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an uneasy gathering on the river ice …
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watching for dinner …
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Copyright Jane Tims 2017
end of winter
Although I love winter, it is so heartening to see all of nature enjoying the melting snowpack and the return of warmer days …
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As bits of fields reveal themselves, the white-tailed deer are out and about, feeding on young sprouts and the left-overs of last year’s harvest …
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The deer are not timid at all, but if the camera makes that whirring sound (remember The Lost World: Jurassic Park?) they are off in a flash, white tails lifted …
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Copyright Jane Tims 2017
morning bird chorus – ephemera
When I was a child, one of the things I prized was my collection of ‘bird cards’. These were an advertising give-away from ‘Cow Brand Baking Soda’ (Church and Dwight Limited, Montreal, Canada).
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I would spend hours looking at these, putting them in order of the ones I liked best, thinking about the birds depicted. The Meadowlark was a local bird I had seen many times and his call was as familiar to me as breathing – he always made it to the top of the pile! Today the winner would be the Cedar Waxwing who sits in the tops of the pines at our cabin, or the Goldfinch who spends all winter at our feeders!
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Today I still have two packs of these cards. They are in sets of 16 in a paper envelope. The card sets are called ‘Useful Birds of America’ and the front of each card shows an image of a bird by artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1874-1927), an American ornithologist and artist. On the back, there is a tip on how to use ‘Cow Brand Baking Soda’, the bird’s common name, its scientific name and a charming paragraph about its appearance and habits. The card concludes with a short message still relevant today:
For the good of all, do not destroy the birds
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Copyright 2016 Jane Tims
Who ate the sunflower seeds???
First week of spring! Cold and snowy!
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I woke this morning to find my newly-filled sunflower seed feeders all empty. Three pine siskins and a goldfinch were clinging to the finch seed feeder but the other birds are out of seed. A look at the yard will tell you who was slurping up the sunflower seeds in the night!
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Copyright Jane Tims 2016
in the shelter of the covered bridge – drawings
As I complete my manuscript of poems ‘in the shelter of the covered bridge’, I am also working on the drawings to accompany the text. I have made a list of the visuals presented in the poems, so I have a specific idea of what drawings I need. Many are completed since I have a large portfolio of bird drawings, for example …
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Others are still to be done. This morning I completed a rather delicate drawing of the two kinds of roses growing beside the Darlings Island Covered Bridge and captured in my poem ‘tangle’.
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I love to draw. For me, it is like watching a movie as I see my hand lay pencil marks on paper. It is not a calm activity. Perhaps because my hand and arm are moving, I get quite agitated when I draw and I imagine my blood pressure rising as the work progresses.
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In order to have a body of work to choose from for the final manuscript, I aim to have more than forty drawings. I have completed nineteen. Lots to do !
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Copyright Jane Tims 2016
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