Gotcha!

 We have two pairs of bluebirds here again this Spring. Love love love them... one of our very favourites, so it is always a happy day when we first see them zipping about at the garden.

The males, handsome devils, are very camera shy however, and tend to zip out of range at the mere mention of a photo shoot, so I have been diligently 'stalking' them with camera in hand for about a week (since they checked in).  Mostly those pics have been totally tossable, unfocused because of the distance I had to be away, but today -- aha!!! Gotcha!

Oh, and Welcome Home, Mr. Blue...


Our tree swallows are much more willing to pose for the camera.  CBC Radio recently aired a program however that we find most disturbing. Our swallows grace our skies, skimming over the garden and fields and lake, often in synchronized flight, snapping up insects. In the past decade, according to the scientists studying them, their numbers have decreased 50%.  Yes, fifty percent. That is huge, and very troubling. Their body mass has also dropped by around 10%, which is also huge for such tiny creatures.  The culprit? Well, surprise, surprise.... in their winter ranges to the south, heavy use of insecticides and pesticides and monoculture crops have knocked out the food supply and habitat. 

So, when they are here with us, nesting, we are quite okay with the occasional mosquito in the air.  We are helped in that by the almost constant breeze off the lake, which tends to keep the blackflies and mossies at bay, and allows us to work outdoors in comfort even during the fly season.  We do share this planet, and that means all of it...

The apple and wild plum trees are all coming into bloom right now as well. The tree outside my house literally buzzes with the wings of bees, and we welcome them as well. The dreadful collapse in the bee colonies is troubling in the extreme, and again is directly traceable to the use of insecticides.  We, as a species on this Spaceship Earth, MUST learn different ways to live with our fellow creatures.  After all, if we lose the bees, we lose our food supply.