Birds, Birds, Birds

Suddenly there are more birds hopping about or flying in and out of the nearby birch and spruce trees than there were all summer. Too, some of the adult birds and their young are coming to the edge of the garden where the serviceberries hang plump and juicy. The bushes grow naturally here, and this has been a particularly good year for them. We rarely see the waxwings (bottom left photo) in this area but somehow they know where to find the berries.

Many thanks to our kind host, Misty Dawn, at Camera Critters.

Diminutive

Calliope Hummingbird
smallest North American bird
Length is 8cm (3 1/4 inches)

Imagine these diminutive birds (weighing less than half an ounce)
flying all the way from west central Mexico to breed and raise their
young in the forests and mountains of central British Columbia.

They return here every May, like clockwork, and sometime
this month, they will take on another amazing feat when
they begin their fall migration back to Mexico.

Meadowhawk Dragonfly

A new dragonfly sighting ~

I found the Meadowhawk

calmly perched on a currant leaf in my garden.

Moments later....

This delicate, golden dragonfly is only 3-4cm (1.2-1.6 inches) long.

Wetland

An important and valuable ecosystem,

teeming with life,

home to a variety of birds, plants and insects.

Red-Winged Blackbird, female,
with what looks like dinner in her beak.

What would the world be, once berefit
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds, and the wildness yet.

~ Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1899)

Watery Wednesday