A Treeful of Wings

One of our favourite birds has been back with us this week, taking advantage of the wild plums on the tree by my house. The Cedar Waxwing, described as a silky, shiny collection of brown, gray and lemon-yellow, accented with a subdued crest, vivid yellow trim on the tail feathers, rakish black mask, and brilliant-red wax droplets on the wing feathers. They always come in a flock, filling the air with their thin, high whistles.

Very co-operative, these birds during courtship During courtship the male and female will sit together and pass small objects back and forth, such as flower petals or an insect. Mating pairs will sometimes rub their beaks together affectionately. They are not not territorial, although they will pair off during mating season, they usually still remain in the good sized flocks, feeding amicably together.

Fond of edge habitat, shallow water, and fruiting trees, there is lots for them to like around Bondi, and we are frequently graced by their presence. When the wild choke-cherry trees are in fruit, it is very common to suddenly find the tree filled with a passing flock of waxwings. Since these berries can become over-ripe and ferment, occasionally the birds get 'drunk' on the fruit, creating erratic flight patterns.

Oh, and that lovely band of yellow at the edge of the tail? If they are eating a lot of honeysuckle when those feathers are growing, the colour comes in a glorious orange. Very elegant indeed!

Lest We Forget

It was my great honour to be asked to speak at the Remembrance Day ceremony in Dwight today, and to lay a wreath on behalf of the Township of Lake of Bays. Almost a hundred people were out in the chilly November sunshine. Alice Allinson, who was the driving force behind building the cenotaph here in Dwight, was there on the arms of her family. The colour guard -- busy this week, with multiple services around the area -- marched on the colours. The service in Dwight is held early, because it is not possible to be at all the centres on November 11th. That's not at all a bad thing -- it opens the window for people to remember. The ceremony is time-honoured, and thanks must go to Bernice and John for keeping it moving it forward right on schedule, to Ed for ensuring the music was all on cue, to Tony for keeping the flagbearers in perfect step. Here is what I said...

It’s an honour to welcome you here today on behalf of the Lake of Bays, to this wonderful memorial built by our community members. A place that allows us to hold these memories close.

The history channel recently aired a documentary on the Somme. Long ago. Far away. Pouring over old film footage, soldiers coming up out of the trenches, we were told this was perhaps the first recorded images of soldiers falling in battle. Ever since then, that is mostly how we have seen our wars – through a lens. Distant. Without the sound, the smell, the shaking in the bones.

For most of us, war is far away. People get older, memories get fragile, war becomes something that happened far away in time, far away in place. Blessedly, for most of us, war is something that belongs to someone else. We have stories told to us by parents or grandparents – I remember my own mother’s version of standing under a bomber’s moon near London watching the 1000 bomber raid take flight, filling the sky in all directions, shaking the ground, for two solid hours as the planes headed for the continent. I heard that story, looked at photos, watched movies, but it wasn’t MY story, it happened Far Away.

For the people to whom those wars were far too close, well, every year there are less of them as time marches on relentlessly. It’s easy to forget. It’s easy to take what we have today for granted.

Most of us – again, blessedly – have never been the ones on the sharp end.

Give thanks for that.

Gratitude can fade along with memory. But the price of the freedoms we enjoy is vigilance.

Remembrance Day ceremonies, are so important. Not just to honour memories of the sacrifices made, and thank Veterans who remain, but to remind us that war is not so distant as we might think. We are still at war today, all around this globe, with courageous men and women in uniform, and their families waiting at home.

We complain about the amount spent on security, yet we send our people into harm’s way, to places we would never go, to do a job we cannot do.

While the people who once fought in the trenches at the Somme, or stormed the beaches on D-Day... while they grow fewer in our midst and their memories fade like the sound of those bombers droning out across the Channel while my mother watched, we have now a highway named for Heroes. We have wars happening in our living rooms, brought to us from places Far Away, and somehow unreal on the television screen.

This moment, Remembrance Day, is the time when we stand still and let the world spin without us, for a few precious moments, to honour those who paid for our freedom, paid for our peace, with their lives. To thank those still out there, wearing our flag, fighting our battles, paying the price that we may continue in peace and security, keeping the wars far away from Canadian soil. This is when we remember that Peace comes with a price, and can never be taken for granted. This is when we remember that for many of us, for our friends and neighbours, with parents, siblings and children in uniform on our behalf, the wars we fight now are as close as it is possible to get.

This is the moment when we hold them all Close – in our memories, in our minds, in our hearts -- and must never forget. It should not just be for one day, for two minutes, that we give thanks for this country and the freedoms we enjoy.

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them”.

That final famous quote is from Laurence Binyon's f war poem, To the Fallen. That fourth stanza, the one than ends with these two powerful lines, is the best known. But there is more to the poem, and I'm going to end this post quoting the final stanza:

"As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain."

Lest we forget...

Laurence Binyon, For the Fallen

Mist on the Waters, Snow on the Mountains

Such changeable weather, come November.

Mist hangs over the lakes, because the water is warmer than the air. That won't last long however!

We get visits from the migrating birds such as the buffleheads. We get bright sunny days. We get rain, endless sheets of gray. Snow, white and sparkling and wet.

David's a huge fan of the snow. He dragged us off tonight to the Warren Miller film WINTERVENTION, a great evening of watching people ski off vertical drops in the most bizarre locations in the world. Great scenery... even greater snow.

The folks in that film live to ski. Mike, who is currently out in B.C. anxiously watching the mountains for the first crowns of fresh powder, would understand.

Jack O' Lunch

Cleaning up after Hallowe'en is easy... The Jack o' Lanterns seem to disappear on their own. Almost gone by magic, usually during the night. All we find on the lawn are the candles...

Except this year the clean-up crew came a little later than usual, and we were able to get photographic proof that the pumpkins have not been abducted by aliens all these years...

Or maybe not...

Pirates and Ghosts and Tricks and Treats!

Living out in the country, we don't get visited by a huge number of spooky treat-seekers on Hallowe'en, but what we lack in quantity is made up by quality. About a dozen 'creatures' dropped by to clean out the candy bowls, and the costumes were creative and entertaining.

To get to the goodies, they had to get past Pirate Snoopy, his trusty sea-dog and flamingo 'parrot';

then past the group of animals selling and stirring the Potions pot...

Then past the deer who were waiting with some impatience to come and eat up the jack-o-lanterns... which were gone by morning. Deer enjoy a treat on All Hallows Eve as well!

Migration always brings the nicest visitors

We were visited today by one of the scarcest of the ducks in all of North America: the Bufflehead.

These are charming, busy little diving birds, always in motion. Makes them hard to photograph -- you just find the focus and the birds dive again. Or get up on the water to dance. Or take alarm and fly away. It's a challenge. I wandered all the way along the shoreline trying to get a good shot, but in the end I had to rely on other peoples' photographs for the close-up!

They usually travel in small groups, no more than ten. We had about six here. Hard to count -- again, they were underwater almost as much as they were on top of it, busily stuffing themselves with groceries. That's because they are only stopping here briefly, on their southern migration, and the adults are going to store up to 115 gm of fat -- more than a quarter of their body weight -- for fuel for the long trek south. Mind you, flying at 55 to 65 km/hr, these birds can travel 800 km. in one night. Wow!

Their breeding ground is far to the north, and they are small enough to take advantage of old nests left behind by Flickers. They are related to our lovely mergansers, but far less often spotted in Bondi Bay, so today was a special moment.

Bird watchers prize the Bufflehead both for its striking appearance and its relative scarcity. Its activity and pattern make it one of the most easily recognized of ducks, and one of the most popular with waterfowl enthusiasts. This is a duck that is more valuable to people as an object of delight than as a hunting statistic. Long may it continue to brighten our waters.

First Snow, No Trick...

Snow on the pumpkin?

Used to be we could always count on having the first fall of snow about the time hunting season opened up. So when I woke up to find the world 'white' on Saturday, it should not have been a big surprise.

But there is something quite magical about that first snow. It is delicate, fragile. You know it isn't going to last.

Yet it can change everything in the landscape.

It's a clear sign that the seasons are turning, once again, as they should.

Soon we'll be putting up Christmas lights, getting the cross country ski trails and toboggan hills into shape. Getting ready to welcome our Winter Guests.

Winters now aren't what they were back when Grandfather Joseph Tapley wrote in his diary "52 below. A Grand Day." In the city, in particular, winter now seems to be endless dirge of gray slush, interspersed with the occasional truly nasty blizzard descending on a population who honestly believe that All Season Tires work in All Seasons. (As our friendly tow-truck drive said to me, lo these many years past, as he pulled my car out of the ditch: "It ain't all seasons, Girl. It's WINTER."

The unfortunate result of this is that a lot of folk have forgotten how much fun a Canadian winter can be, how you can actually get out and play with the snow, ski, slide, skate, throw a snowball, build a fort, watch your breath make shapes in the air . Hear the snow crunch in the silent forests. Track animals. Get out in the fresh air with dog sleds and sleigh bells, or just use it as a great excuse to curl by the fire and watch it out the window, because it truly is beautiful. Once you learn how to dress for the conditions, and realize that winter is not a spectator season, but one in which you need to be active and participate, it's a wonderful world out there.

And I do mean, Out There. Get out of the recirculated air in the rink, get into the great outdoors.