Still waiting

I am not sure whether we will be able to canoe the slough this summer.

At present no one wants an influx of city folk and who knows when that

will change.

“Swamps where cedars grow and turtles wait on logs but not for anything in particular; fields bordered by crooked fences broken by years of standing still; orchards so old they have forgotten where the farmhouse is. In the north I have eaten my lunch in pastures rank with ferns and junipers, all under fair skies with a wind blowing.” 

― E.B. White, Stuart Little

Loon: Mom and Chick and Goldfinch from Thursday's paddle round the slough.

"This we’ll gladly hear-
a lonely, wild heart
that in limitless freedom
still finds its way to us."

                       The Loons Head North

                            Tarjei Vesaas 

Dad called from midslough, warning or distraction, I am not sure. So we moved in a different direction, but eventually encountered Mom with the chick. And we did not get too close, but relied on the big lens instead. We were very happy to see the chick had survived. 

The Goldfinch is the most common bird we see both at the feeders and in the meadows when these yellow flowers heads turn to fluff.  

"and their feathers sleek;
Then off at once, as in a wanton freak:
Or perhaps, to show their black and golden wings,
Pausing upon their yellow flutterings."

from Goldfinches

by John Keats

"Goldfinches are the only finch that molts its body feathers twice a year, once in late winter and again in late summer. Males in spring and early summer sport vivid yellow feathers to alert prospective mates of their vitality."

https://www.myminnesotawoods.umn.edu/2018/08/american-goldfinch-the-thistle-connection/

The Goldfinch is eating
Sonchus arvensis (Perennial Sow-Thistle)

https://www.saskwildflower.ca/nat_Sonchus-arvensis.html

I am still working on the plant in the bottom photo. Suggestions?

Sunday Canoe Trip Loon Distraction Display or Snoopy Dance?

*July 16 about 7:00 am I saw a young bear swimming across 

the narrow spot in the slough in front of the cabin. It

might be the same one that drinking from the pond in

Rigmor's front yard a couple of days ago. Then on the way

to Shellbrook a sow and three cubs crossed the highway. 

I was unable to get a photo in either case.

"And then I hear

outside, over the actual waves, the small,

perfect voice of the loon. He is also awake,

and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out

to the fading moon, to the pink flush

swelling in the east that, soon,

will become the long, reasonable day."

from The Loon

by Mary Oliver

We changed our route to avoid the area the loon

was obviously guarding.

Sunday Canoe Trip, Larger Slough Young Yellow-Headed Blackbird

The lily flowers always seem alien to us.

We loved these shots of the Song Sparrow they 

reminded us of wildlife dioramas. They also show
the small liminal landscape that exists at the edge of
the slough under the shadows of the overhanging
willows.

The birds with young are either secretive or carrying out

distraction displays. With the Yellow-Headed Blackbirds it 

was a bit of both. When we paddled over to the reed bed in 

deep in the slough to see what they were up to we saw several

young clinging to the reeds, so we took a couple shots and 

backed up to avoid disturbing them. There are no cabins on the 

slough and it is both shallow and inaccessable which limits most

motor boats and the disruptive wakes they can produce.

“In general the assumption of all of us, child or adult, was that this was a new country and that a new country had no history. History was something that applied to other places.” 


from Wolf willow
Wallace Stegner

Poorer quality shots but it looks like at least three more chicks 
at various stages of development.

These are the stories the Dogs tell, when the fires burn high and the wind is from the north. Clifford Simak (City) 

            

Illustration by John Schoenherr, for Clifford Simak's "New Folks Home", 

Analog Science Fact - Science Fiction, July 1963

Packing Up

The snow I photographed Monday Sept 17th finished our summer at the cabin. It had become increasingly cold (about 10-15 degrees celsius below the seasonal average), and despite the fact that the fall colour was just beginning and the migration of birds was still beautifully evident, we packed up and were on the road by Tuesday.

"The music seemed to him oddly unartificial. It made him think of trees swept by the wind, of night breezes singing among wires and chimney-stacks, or in the rigging of invisible ships; or — and the simile leaped up in his thoughts with a sudden sharpness of suggestion — a chorus of animals, of wild creatures, somewhere in desolate places of the world, crying and singing as animals will, to the moon. He could fancy he heard the wailing, half-human cries of cats upon the tiles at night, rising and falling with weird intervals of sound, and this music, muffled by distance and the trees, made him think of a queer company of these creatures on some roof far away in the sky, uttering their solemn music to one another and the moon in chorus."

from Ancient Sorceries (John Silence)
by Algernon Blackwood

While picking up the canoe we encountered a flock of Eastern Bluebirds and while the photo is not great I thought I  would share it.

Blue Explosion

"This land like a mirror turns you inward

And you become a forest in a furtive lake;

The dark pines of your mind reach downward,

You dream in the green of your time,

Your memory is a row of sinking pines."

from Dark Pines Under Water

by Gwendolyn MacEwen

"Then morning showed

Infinity's proportions,

The proper height of sky.

Becoming small,  

We were grown up again."

from Growing Up

by Dorothy Livesay

Good morning starshine The earth says hello

"And up on the hills against the sky,

A fir tree rocking its lullaby,

Swings, swings,

Its emerald wings,

Swelling the song that my paddle sings."

from The Song My Paddle Sings

by Emily Pauline Johnson

Today we paddled across the Banana Slough and dragged

the canoe a short distance to the much larger slough next to it.

This will be the first of several posts as it was a productive

trip. We have canoed for hours in the larger slough several 

times but this was the first time we have seen moose. We first

encountered a female then a male both reclining in the water

probably to escape bugs. Both my wife and I initially thought 

the females ears were the wings of some bird trapped in 

the branches, odd but we both first interpreted the movement 

as wings.

The female stayed in place regarding us for some time, the

male we encountered later, moved off before I could get a

good photo. We were very pleased to have been so close to 

female. And seeing two moose was a real treat.

"Nor dares complete the sweet embrace.

Into the hollow hearts of brakes,

Yet warm from sides of does and stags,

Pass'd to the crisp dark river flags;

Sinuous, red as copper snakes,

Sharp-headed serpents, made of light,

Glided and hid themselves in night."

from Said the Canoe

by Isabella Valancy Crawford 

"We could go there and live, have a place, 
a shoulder of earth, watch days 
find their way onward in their serious march 
where nothing happens but each one is gone. "

from East of Broken Top

by William Stafford

Congratulations Lynda!!!

We took the canoe down to the small slough

directly in front of the cabin. On the way we

saw a Western Red Lily the provincial flower,

Lillum philadelphicum var. andinum.

Our disappearing pension, via Rose Breasted Grosbeaks.

We were looking to see if the higher water level would allow us

to drag the canoe directly to the larger slough. It will for now.

We saw the Red Necked Grebe that has nested in front

of the cabin with a chick on her back.

There still seem to be three eggs in the nest but she does

not seem to be brooding them

Every activity by the cabin is scrutinized by the Phoebes,

in the slough the Red Winged Blackbirds take over.

And they are not quiet about it.

 My pretty?

The way to the promised land, the other slough

This Bufflehead family were unimpressed with us . I am 

not sure if all these chicks are hers, ducks are like that.

The slough curves around (hence the name Banana Slough )

and the other side is pretty much cut off from any road or path.

Which is fine with this doe,

 and her fawn, 

who has a lovely spotted coat.

 While circling one of three beaver lodges within 

few hundred meters of the cabin to see a shorebird

we found it was also used by a Garter Snake.

My brother in law has seen them dive for leeches

while he was working in the water, they are obviously 

more comfortable in an aquatic environment than

we realize.

The cabin on it's shoulder of earth.

The whole grebe family take to the water.

We were always screened from the other slough until this 

year when the tree sharks ate them. This afternoon Helen

pointed out White Pelicans on the larger slough. If you squinted

you could see them from the couch. Cool!

Not a great photo but I took it from the front porch, cool again.

"Somebody spoke and I went into a dream."

from A Day in the Life

by The Beatles