“Seeing, in the finest and broadest sense, means using

your senses, your intellect, and your emotions. It means

encountering your subject matter with your whole being.

It means looking beyond the labels of things and discovering

the remarkable world around you.” 

 

                                                    Freeman Patterson

 

Lunch time Friday at the Research Park

 

 

“A human being is a part of the whole called

by us universe, a part limited in time and space.

He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling

as something separated from the rest,

a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us,

restricting us to our personal desires and to affection

for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to

free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle

of compassion to embrace all living creatures

and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

 

Albert Einstein

 

 

"And the only poet is the wind,

a drifter

who walked in from the coast

with empty pockets

 

He stands on the road

at evening, making a sound

like a stone harp

strummed

by a handful of leaves...."

 

from The Stone Harp

John Haines

 

Irruption?

 

Thursday I went out on my lunch hour to photograph the

white tailed jackrabbits that have loped through my dreams

recently. While I encountered some, it was a flock of birds in the

spruce that spoke to me. I was initially uncertain if they

were Grosbeaks or Crossbirds but Red Crossbills they were.

One thing that confused me was that I kept seeing

Red Breasted Nuthatches in my camera. I had always

considered them the immobile resident birds of our front

yard spruce. Upon returning home some research told me

that they did indeed irrupt regularly moving about the

countryside, often in mixed species flocks. We do not see a

lot of bird species in the winter so these irruptions of birds 

 whether they be Snowy Owls, Mountain Ash seeking

Waxwings, or the flocks of Snow Buntings skittering across a cold

countryside are welcome additions to the prairie landscape.

The Crossbills are residents of the foothills near Calgary but I have

not seen one the the city for a couple of years perhaps they

are in town for dinner and a movie.Or a visit with their city cousins

the Nuthatches. There were perhaps 30-40 Crosbillls and

5-10 Nuthatches so I am not sure if that constitutes a true

irruption but it was fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this nest at the base of a spruce

in the mountains some years ago. There was a large flock of

Crossbills in the trees so I have assumed this in a Crossbill nest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

" the seasons pass

just outside their hearing

but what they died for has faded away

and become something quite different

past justice and injustice"

 

        from The Battlefield at Batoche

                            Al Purdy

So one day we had a beautiful nuthatch the next day we had growing

doubts about the installion of our new Sears eavesthrough. 

However it made for some interesting ice effects.

"The world begins and ends in memory;

what I remember is what I am."

                        AIDE MEMOIRE

                              Glen Sorestad

"Once or twice and maybe again, who knows,

the timid nuthatch will come to me"

"Nobody owns the sky or the trees.
Nobody owns the hearts of birds"

both quotes from

Mary Oliver's

Winter and the Nuthatch