Savannah Sparrows are fairly common brown streaked birds with a beauty mark worth looking for — a bright yellow spot before their eyes.
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Savannah Sparrows are fairly common brown streaked birds with a beauty mark worth looking for — a bright yellow spot before their eyes.
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Sometimes it feels as if birds are curiously watching our human actions. This Cedar Waxwing looks unafraid. Not ready to fly.
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Spring, and the birds are returning north — and Ring-billed Gulls are flocking to Wascana Lake.
There have been times in the past when gulls have seemed merely annoying, with their screeching, squawking, food-stealing gall… But they, too, are a sign of spring. A welcome one.
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I love the prairie birds of summer, gliding to rest on the grass or a fence. Lately, I’ve seen several Western Kingbirds around Regina. Here’s one of those lemon yellow and grey flycatchers; it landed on barbed wire and watched until I drove on.
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The mating displays of the Sharp-tailed Grouse, Saskatchewan’s provincial bird, are highly entertaining to watch. They dance, they prance, they leap, strut, pout… They rattle their feathers and gobble.
I’m so happy I had a chance this year to visit the lek (location of these dominance displays, and the displays themselves), to watch this! (I have a short video, too, on my Prairie Nature blog.)
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A Common Redpoll, part of a large flock of Redpolls wintering on a farm near Muenster, Saskatchewan. The colours caught my attention, and the dynamic lines of the wire and building behind.
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Chickadees. Snow. A barbed wire fence. Simple clear lines and the cold — could winter be anything more than this? (Yes, of course it can. But here’s the chickadee, anyway.)
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