It was a quiet day at the research park.

"One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself,

'What if I had never seen this before?

What if I knew I would never see it again?'” 

 Rachel Carson

I took this photo of a young magpie Monday.

I think it has a really reptillian look about it.

This was the first immature I saw this year, today

while waiting for the bus we saw a half dozen or

more from several nests. One of the parent birds

was busy chasing a black squirrel thru the trees.

At present they are still being feed by the parents.

Soon, as they get larger, food will be withheld and

the immatures will being screaming. this is not a

popular part of our summer ritual.

 

Summer comes, time

for weaning fat magpie chicks

raucous noise follows

 

                                 Calender with Magpie

                               Guy

"As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies makin a mane;
The tane unto the ither say,
"Whar sall we gang and dine the-day?"

"In ahint yon auld fail dyke,
I wot there lies a new slain knight;
And nane do ken that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound an his lady fair."

"His hound is tae the huntin gane,
His hawk tae fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady's tain anither mate,
So we may mak oor dinner swate."

"Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pike oot his bonny blue een;
Wi ae lock o his gowden hair
We'll theek oor nest whan it grows bare."

"Mony a one for him makes mane,
But nane sall ken whar he is gane;
Oer his white banes, whan they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair"

The Twa Corbies
Scottish Ballad

We continue to have a fair bit of rain, wind

and cool weather here. One of our consolations

is Leopard's Bane the first perennial to show

green in the spring and the first to bloom. our

various plants have been going strong for maybe

six weeks. It was on sale at a garden centre on

the weekend and I bought eight more plants.

"The trees are afraid to put forth buds,
And there is timidity in the grass;
The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds,
And whether next week will pass
Free of sly sour winds is the fret of each bush
Of barberry waiting to bloom."

                             A Backward Spring

                                    Thomas Hardy

Monday was a nice day, mostly without rain.

But it has taken me a long time to get to my photos.

On a trip to the pond at lunch I found that

the Mallard ducklings were out and about.

People were of course feeding them bread.

The American Widgeon pair were still around

they have also learned to eat bread.

Sharing it with others is still a work in progress.

My wife and I decided on supper at the

University of Calgary. For some reason the

university has developed a tilt.

Once there we meet the usual suspects.

The young white-Tailed Jackrabbits appeared

about two weeks ago once they were big

enough that the magpies would leave them alone.

My wife pointed out this flicker which has decided

that a drainage pipe makes a great home.

   

"Let us be much with Nature; not as they
That labour without seeing, that employ
Her unloved forces, blindly without joy;
Nor those whose hands and crude delights obey
The old brute passion to hunt down and slay;
But rather as children of one common birth,
Discerning in each natural fruit of earth
Kinship and bond with this diviner clay.
Let us be with her wholly at all hours,
With the fond lover's zest, who is content
If his ear hears, and if his eye but sees;
So shall we grow like her in mould and bent,
Our bodies stately as her blessèd trees,
Our thoughts as sweet and sumptuous as her flowers."

On the Companionship with Nature

Archibald Lampman

"And you know the light is fading all too soon
You're just two umbrellas one late afternoon
You don't know the next thing you will say
This is your favorite kind of day
It has no walls, the beauty of the rain
is how it falls, how it falls, how it falls"

                           The Beauty of the Rain
                            By Dar Williams

More from Saturday

"The wind has such a rainy sound
   Moaning through the town,
The sea has such a windy sound,—
   Will the ships go down?"

                        The wind has such a rainy sound     

                                             Christina Rossetti   

                               

           

  

       

Work on the pond went nowhere but the rocks look nice.

Another rainy Saturday meant I had the birdbaths

alll to myself. There were no bossy robins for a change

"Rain falls for centuries
Soaking the loose rocks in space
Sweet rain, the fire's out
The black snag glistens in the rain
& the last wisp of smoke floats up"

Gary Snyder

No Nature; New and Selected Poems

Earlier this spring.

"The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace

are performed whether or not we will or sense them.

The least we can do is try to be there."

                                     Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

                                                                      Annie Dillard

Time for a quote from one of my favorite books

amd favorite authors.

"It was less like seeing

than like being for the first time seen,

knocked breathless by a powerful glance."

                                Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

                                                  Annie Dillard

" My heart that was rapt away

by the wild cherry blossoms -

will it return to my body

when they scatter? "

                           Kotomichi

Monday an uxexpected vistor to the local pond.

Blue-Winged Teal

The Mayday trees are in bloom.

The Thunderchild Crabapples

The Nanking Cherry

"In June as many as a dozen species

may burst their buds on a single day. 

No man can heed all of these anniversaries;

no man can ignore all of them." 

                                               Aldo Leopold

For the unloved birds.

I really like the poem/thought below by Lamb.

I had a bird bath in the front yard and one day a

neighbour told me how much she enjoyed the little birds

but then one day she saw a great ugly crow using it.

We never have bonded.

 

"A great blackbird, a rook by name,
And took away a small bird's share.
So foolish Henry did not care
What became of the great rook,
That from the little sparrows took,
Now and then, as 'twere by stealth,
A part of their abundant wealth;
Nor ever more would feed his sparrows.
 Thus ignorance a kind heart narrows."

                                                         The Rook And The Sparrows

                                                                  Charles Lamb