I have edited the above picture to try to give you a closer view of the babies. I hope I am able to find them and see them again!One day last week I saw a bird high on a branch of an old dead tree. From where I was sitting in my car I couldn't tell what species it was, and initially I thought it appeared to be a pigeon as I saw a white patch on its back. , but I was not used to seeing pigeons in the woods,and I was out in the woods on an old gravel road. I took as many pictures as I could as I had my small telephoto on my camera ( 250 mm IS canon) or maybe it was my (300mm nikon) .
The fun began as I downloaded my pictures when I returned home and I could see the characteristic
Its warbler season again and I love finding these little birds. sometimes one will wander into bird alley but often I have to go further a field to find one, which is what I did yesterday. The little warbler I found was a familiar and a favourite one. My husband has nicknamed this warbler "the Lone Ranger" bird as it wears a black mask across its eyes. You can see its black mask in the picture below! Only the male of this species has the black mask.
I have a mental spring checklist and this morning I decided to check an old unused electrical box where in recent years I have found Tree Swallows nesting. And at the first look at the electrical box I saw no swallows, however about 5 minutes later when passing by again I saw that there was a Swallow peering out of the hole in the electrical box. Great,! the Swallow have nested there again for this year. For some reason we no longer have Tree Swallows nesting in our swallow house and we miss them. We saw this swallow species circling around our bird house earlier this spring but none decided to
nest there. We have had nesting swallows faithfully for many years
until the last 3 or 4 years. We are not sure why not, but we do wish
they would return. I shall continue to moniter this nest site until the end of June when the new babies will be leaving their nest at about that time!
I just got a glimpse of this creature yesterday and I thought I had seen a short haired cat near the back of our garden shed. When I saw it feeding on my lawn this afternoon I knew
All three of our recent arrivals have been expected, although to our way of thinking the chipmunk was really late in showing up. We had seen a female cowbird a couple of weeks ago but yesterday was the first that we had seen male Cowbirds. The Cowbirds were here today, but no females were seen the last couple of days, only the males.
The pleasure of spring bird watching seldom ceases in Bird Alley. Earlier
Unfortunately its face was obscured by an opening leaflet. but the yellow cap can be seen. A black shadow is misleading on its breast as that is not part of his natural colouring. 
I can see deer every morning if I am up early and looking out the window. They come up from the river and cross the street near our property, then they run up our neighbours long gravel driveway and cut across the bottom of the neighbours lawn diagonally and then follow a path to the woods behind our properties. The deer are the main reason we have fenced in most of our property. My husband loves his hosta garden and our cedar trees and so do the deer and so he built this fence shown below.
I cou,d set my calendar by the arrival of this handsome little sparrow species. I have been watching for them and as I looked out my window a few moments ago there they were, two of them!!
Their stand out white striped head is very obvious and you really cant miss them as they are scratching about the ground in sparrow fashion.
It seems very early to have hummingbirds at our feeders in Bird Alley. we put our feeders out today around 8 in the morning and by noon we saw two hummingbirds cautiously approach our feeders. It is a handsome male as you can tell by the Ruby-red patch at his throat. I love that you can see its little eye in the pictures. I think this is a magnificent bird!
A happy Mother's Day to all.
It has become our habit over the past few years to note locations where certain bird's nest and so we watch their nests each year for their return.
Wwe have been anticipating the return of Ospreys to Oromocto. Earlier this spring we had noted that the old Osprey nest at the Douglas Hazen Park along the Oromocto waterfront had not survived the harshness of our winter weather this year. We had assumed a returning Osprey would rebuild a nest at that location. we waited and kept checking weekly and we didn't see any Osdprey there until this weekend past.
On Sunday May 4th.)
We are delighted to have an early wildflower growing in our flower gardens in two different locations and they bloomed at the end of April. My daughter always has a Coltsfoot in bloom about two weeks ahead of us. We have had so many overcast rainy days that I feared our Coltsfoot would not bloom until May , however we had a bit of sunshine and blooming before the calendar page changed. and here are a couple of Coltsfoot pictures found in our own yard.
