Birds:Michael Obrien Wetland

    Well, somebody asked if I saw any birds at the Michael Obrien Wetland. Some readers realized that this was a birding trip. So here's the report.

    Now we did the walk from 2:00PM to 4:00 Pm. Now that's not a very good time of day to find birds. Birds are quite inactive in the afternoon. But that's the time people wanted to go so off we went. 

    I'm getting you prepared for this one!

    Now I got photos of ducks ...shovellers and blue winged teal. The were only three ducks in the whole wetlands. Ducks have not begun their  flocking and preparation for migration. I didn't get any other bird photos.

   After that I saw, crows, magpies, blue jays, eastern king bird, black capped chickadees and a marsh wren. The marsh wren is a lifer for me. I'd never seen a marsh wren before. The marsh wren gave us a challenge as it kept under cover of riparian vegetation. The eastern king bird gave us two looks of about 7 seconds total. So there were challenges but that's what we go out for.

Fall Reflections

     On Sunday I not only got some brilliant colors but some reflections. Some of the reflections are a little fuzzy. 

     As I was leaving a little breeze tarted and put a ripple on the water. 

...and I Still Have Great Fall Colors

    Yesterday I took some people to a local wetlands for two hours of birding. I was surprised  to still find brilliant fall colors. Usually our leaves do not hang on for long. This fall the leaves turned color and have stayed on the tree. This morning was our first hard frost... minus 5 C ( 24 F). The leaves were rapidly falling this morning. It's a good thing I was out yesterday afternoon.
  
The Michael Obrien Wetland is a man made wetland. Riparian plants have been planted on the edges of the series of ponds. Other trees have been planted on the area so it makes a first class park area right in town. The objective of this wetland is to treat some of the street run off so that the water is in better condition when it is returned to the river.

On American Robins

    This morning I watched hundreds of robins whirling through my district. It was plus 2 C (36 F) and very windy. They were not flying south but spending time eating berries left on trees. 

    Last Sunday afternoon when I was at Heritage Ranch there were again hundreds of robins in the area. They were flying with abandon and eating saskatoons, chokecherries and whatever else they could find. It was at this time that we found the pileated woodpeckers. I also took photos of robins at that time but they were so poor I deleted them.

Pileated woodpecker

   I have noticed some time ago that some people are reporting that their robins had flown south. That got me thinking. Robins nest into the Arctic. It will take them a long time to get to me in Central Alberta. In the high country, mountain meadows above the treeline, the robin is a common nester. The Arctic and mountain robins nest nest on the ground. 

    I'm wondering if the mountain robins come down from the mountains and visit me for a few weeks? I wonder how many of these birds are Arctic robins?

   These birds have frosty breasts with just a hint of color showing through. The black is also much duller.

    I've also said many times that I've seen robins in every month of the year in Central Alberta. 

   So there must be tough robins and wimpy robins. There seems to be a wide pattern in their fall migration. I don't notice this in the spring.

   No matter what , I'm enjoying these joyful robins who are passing through in this October.

More Blogger Mumblings

     I recently did a post on blogging that got away on me. I was interested in two bloggers who were making some serious attempts to change their blogs. Sometimes we need to change to rejuvenate and get out of a rut.

    I have some things that I would like to change on my blog and named them and why I would change them. I also went out on the limb to ask people what they liked and what suggestions they would make about my blog. There were no great surprises and it's always nice to reaffirm what is going on. There were many suggestions. I now know how to live dangerously when I want to change my blog. I have to set up another blog and use it for experimenting.

   Now when you ask for opinions you risk hearing some things you might not want to hear and some things that are just plane wrong. All of your comments were great.

   I then reflected on being able to ask for judgements.

   As a teacher , I went through many evaluations. In the 50's and 60's we had one visit a year from the superintendent. It was a terrifying visit. We didn't know what he was looking for and I don't think he did either. I had one superintendent who was most helpful.

   As time went on teacher evaluation changes. Specific skills were looked for. We were trained to use these skills and when an evaluator came to your classroom you knew exactly what he was looking for.

   Evaluation expanded. Principals and vice principals visited the classroom so we had 4 or more visits per year. Not all of these visits were formal.

  I was a department head and I also did classroom visits.

   I also had many student teachers and had to evaluate them. This evaluation was a pain because of the way the evaluation form was set up. Having student teachers was always a good experience.

   So it wasn't hard for me to ask for opinions and I'm glad I asked as I learned some things and certainly had things reaffirmed.

 

This Fall Keeps on Giving

   I didn't start this fall with any intention of taking pictures of fall colors. Colors this year have been brilliant and wide spread. So here goes with some more fall colors that were given to me.

Brush  on the river bank

Wagon trail

Aspen at the bottom of the escarpment

This time I got some sky in the photo like I was supposed to.

A cooperative pileated woodpecker that posed for me.

       I was surprised to see two flowers in bloom.

Common bluebell

Smooth fleabane

I Bin Workin' Hard!

    I've been working hard to get some photos of fall colors. Yes, our colors started few weeks ago and the best of it is over.

    Along with colors we had some good sky scenes with cloud build ups. 

     So from time to time I grabbed the camera and took a bunch of shots. Most I deleted. 

    So here are some of the shots I kept.

Excuse the neighbor's eave's trough on the left

There's a lot of power in this one.

Lots of sunlight on the birch

A large poplar that's past it's prime

A mountain ash with red berries to go along with yellow leaves.