Category: winter

Robbie is a Player

~ Linda ~ Leave a comment

And loading the genetic dice. I ran across an article about robin migration and it turns out that some robins, usually males, decide not to fly south. It seems to me that Robbie is a little far north but it explains what he’s doing here in the middle of winter. The early male gets the females.

Robbie will be here when spring arrives ahead of the competition that headed south. He’ll have the pick of territories and when the girls get here, he’ll be singing and ready with the best nesting site. If he continues to come for meal worms, he’ll be sleek and handsome. Natural selection chooses the biggest and best looking a lot of the time. Robbie has a jump (pun intended) on the choice of mates and has the best chance of passing his genes to the next generation.

Gary says we could be interfering in evolution by feeding Robbie. However, he didn’t show up until it was very cold, -35 C and he’d made it on his own that far. I prefer to think that it shows a superior intellect and that Robbie will pass his “smart” genes to his offspring.

Robbie is smart. He arrives for his worms once the day has warmed up a bit and he sits where we see him, looking for us through the front window. When he doesn’t, Gary whistles for him and he appears from the middle of the fir tree. Then he might stay for a bit to be polite; more often he flies off and returns for lunch. We don’t know where he spends the rest of his day but it’s good to shy away from feral cats, returning hawks, and other dangers.

About the end of March or beginning of April, we expect Robbie will have moved on. There’ll be plenty of food and with any luck he’ll be a husband and a dad. May his days as a player pay off.

Robbie Settles In

~ Linda ~ Leave a comment

I just fed Robbie. He showed up right on time at a little after 11:00, sitting in the mountain ash tree and looking in at us. “Where is my brunch?”

Our resident robin is tough. It goes without saying since he’s still here in the middle of an Alberta winter. The weather has broken and we are experiencing warmer than normal temperatures but they are still colder than Robbie is comfortable in. There’s no food around for him to hunt.

Robbie has adapted so that he can spend more time in our big fir tree sheltered from the wind. It’s dense enough among the needles that it’s impossible to see him, but he’s there. We think he spends the night somewhere else. Either that or he’s not the “early bird.” Another possibility is that he, too, has seen the little hawk that is back in the neighbourhood. It would enjoy Robbie as a meal so fingers crossed, our robin stays hidden.

He hasn’t appeared first thing in the morning waiting for his breakfast the last few days. Instead, sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 am, if Gary goes out and whistles, he shows himself. Then one of us hurries around and gets his worms ready. Robbie now sometimes gets meal worms and at others, King worms which are like the meal worms but bigger. Robbie likes them both.

Once his day is underway, if he gets hungry again, he might make his desires known. Yesterday despite there being nothing on offer, he flew down to the cutting board and sat staring through the window at my husband. Robbie demanded more worms.

He spends some of the afternoon perched in the mountain ash tree which as you can see provides camouflage. Especially on a duller day such as this, Robbie blends right in with the leaves that are still clinging stubbornly to the branches.

Robbie is getting hardier because of the food supply. He feels good; when you feed him, his tail twitches in anticipation and he answers Gary’s whistles. Robbie is tough and with a little help from his friends….

A Robin in Winter- Robbie

~ Linda ~ Leave a comment

Robbie was here early this morning and hungry. He looks for us through the front room window as though to say, “Well, I’m here; where’re my worms?”

I know I said I wouldn’t write about Robbie again but he is an engaging little guy. Even the sparrows think so and yesterday they all hung out together in balmy -18 temperatures. There was sun, though, and it makes a difference. Robbie warmed up his breast and then he’d turn so his back (and the black feathers help) could benefit from the sun.

Robbie is getting trusting. This morning when I took out his breakfast, he was watching from the plum tree as you can see from the picture. I always talk to him and make “robin sounds”. I’m pretty sure he chirps back just to be polite. Or maybe it’s “Put the worms down, for goodness sake.” I set the board with the worms down and if I’d realized that he was going to swoop down, I could have sat still and watched from a couple of feet away. I moved too quickly so he wouldn’t be frightened and of course, he was. Back to the plum tree.

But for an instant. By the time I was back in the house, Robbie was sitting on the warm board, looking pretty full. One intrepid meal worm was making a break for it and would have if he\she didn’t feel the cold moving up from the sidewalk. After belching (now I am projecting; I don’t even know if birds burp), Robbie hopped over and ate the last worm.

Now he’s enjoying the sun and it’s getting warmer; maybe even as high as -6. Later the dogs and I can walk outside again. It’s like the ‘Get out of Jail” free card in Monopoly…hurray.

And this time, I won’t say I’m not going to write about Robbie again. My will power where he’s concerned is weak. I even gave him 9 worms this morning. That’s explains why the last one was a challenge. Get out and enjoy the sun and warmer temperatures.

Robbie- A Little Winter Drama…

~ Linda ~ 2 Comments

It was too early for Robbie so we went for our walk and on the way back went to the local “all toys water, snow and land” business and bought him some fresh meal worms. $5.98 and worth every penny.

Robbie arrived about 11:00 and sat in the planter, eating snow. We hurried to warm up the cutting board and get him 7 worms. Robbie sat and looked at them and then the worms froze…Robbie flew off. We were upset. Had he found other people with better food? He seemed energetic so we consoled ourselves with that.

Then about 12:40, Robbie was back. I heated his board well, held seven meal worms in my hand until they warmed up to squirm, and then I took them out to the robin. O, NO. I thought I was too clumsy or got too close. Robbie flew away into a tree.

Ha! Not to worry, by the time I’d walked around the house to come in the back, Robbie had consumed 4 of the worms. Then in a more leisurely manner, he ate the others. You can see the last worm in front of him in the picture. I think he knows where to come. It’s just a miserable wind again so if he has a warmer place to wait it out, I’m okay with that.

Robbie is tough. In another blog, I wrote about a prairie jack rabbit who visits our front yard late at night or very early in the morning, depending how you look at it. He came around last night. Alas, I wasn’t at the window to see him but he left tracks. He checks the yard and I hope sometimes finds something to eat.

And this is likely the last Robbie blog unless there is something to really talk about like he meets the rabbit. But how, when they come at intervals 12 hours apart? Stay warm.

Robbie 2.0 – Day 2

~ Linda ~ Leave a comment

He made it! Low of -36C , that’s -33F, and the tough little guy appeared around 9:00 this morning. Robbie sat on the edge of the flower pot, feathers puffed out, and looking miserable. But he made it through the night.

As soon as I saw him, I got his food ready. It’s a bit of a production (which I figured out yesterday) and kind of gross. First warm up the cutting board so the worms don’t freeze immediately. Then get the earthworm, that although it’s only a segmented worm, doesn’t enjoy being sliced into segments. Whatever is in their medium, gave the victim actual red blood. Ugh. But I sacrificed him because Robbie, Robbie was hungry.

I took the worm pieces outside on the pre-heated board but alas, Robbie wasn’t ready to eat. He was just too cold. The worm bits froze solid. My husband said he had to warm up more (this in -30 temperatures with a wicked wind) so we left and so did Robbie, up into the big fir tree.

We went for our morning walk on the indoor track and when we got back, Robbie had been down and tried to eat the earthworm bits but the were frozen solid and stuck to the cutting board.

Gary warmed up himself and by the time he had Robbie’s meal worms and thawed earthworm bits ready, the robin had flown back into the fir tree. When Gary whisteled for Robbie, there was no answer, (Already, my husband thinks they have a special relationship.) And maybe they do because by the time Gary had his coat off, the robin was back. He gobbled a meal worm or two, and then turned to the earthworm pieces. Robbie ate most of them, too. Now he’s back in the fir tree, trying to keep warm.

Admiration for you, Robbie. You’re back and a survivor. We’ll see you though this frigid cold.

It’s cold…old time cold

~ Linda ~ Leave a comment

here on the prairies and this week it’s set to get even colder. It’ll be like an old-time winter where your eyelashes, nose hairs, and then nostrils freeze together. It is nasty cold and there’s a wind chill to boot. I hope that the pine beetles can’t stand it.

I have been whining but then I remembered. Australia is on fire and people there have been killed, had to leave their homes, and have seen their countryside destroyed. Animals have fared even worse and though there are well meant attempts to save them, the majority have perished. Indonesia is flooding and people have been driven from their homes, lost everything, and died. In the Philippines, the Taal volcano is threatening with furious lightning in its towering ash column. Within hours or days, there will be a major eruption; people have been evacuated, the sky is full of ash, and there may be a tsunami. Manila’s airport has been shut down until it is safer.

In the United State, tornados, snow, sleet, and freezing rain have all been part of a nasty storm. Eleven people have lost their lives.

These are just the major on-going “natural” disasters and they make a system of cold Arctic air seem tame. This morning, it was -37 C or colder, depending on the source of the information. It is cold but we are lucky enough that with some caution, it isn’t life threatening.

Kudos to the workers who keep things more or less normal for the rest of us. The police, the electrical workers, the first responders, the firefighters, the oil and gas workers, the farmers (their livestock need more care than ever.) They make this stretch of real cold just an inconvenience.

By Monday, it’s warmer again. It has been just a week but it’s been a long one. I’m not whining, just observing…stay warm.

A Therapeutic Walk in the Snow

~ Linda ~ Leave a comment

I can’t lie. When the snow fell and then accumulated yesterday, I was bummed. After all, the calendar said that yesterday was the last day of summer. Since August 25th, it’s mostly been cool and dreary. I did feel sorry for myself…

And then, came the news out of Ottawa and Gatineau. Not one but two tornadoes, the first an EF-2 strength, with winds to 220 km/h, and then a second an EF-3, with winds to 265 km/h struck. Pictures and video are terrifying and show mass devastation- houses, buildings, trees, cars, reduced to sticks and twisted metal. Some areas are unrecognizable. If there is one silver lining to this storm cloud, no one died, as far as can be determined.

Here, on the prairies, the snow is a lot more than an inconvenience and something for me to whine about. As farmers look across fields with crops, swaths, and a year’s work, they wonder if anything can be salvaged. Grades of the grain decrease as each snowy, wet day passes and the second danger is that crops in swaths will begin to sprout. Even with perfect, unseasonably, warm weather, it is going to take weeks for grain to dry enough to harvest. A slower kind of devastation.

Dogs don’t really understand weather and so this morning, snow was no excuse, we headed out on our normal route.

The snow on the trees is pretty and after a while, I felt better about the weather. It was chilly but tomorrow is supposed to warm up. As we walked along, little sparrows darted among the branches, twittering to one another. My Scruffy, who has no teeth and weighs 10 pounds, charged a timid, Border Collie-cross, and chased her. Tazzie, the Jack Russell, made several new friends, humans, of course.

When we were close to home, a young fellow, ten or eleven years old met us.

“Can I pet your dogs?”

Of course, Taz was delighted to be introduced to a new friend and then the boy said, “How do you like your weekend off from school?”

Ha! I must have acted as a supply teacher for his class one day. I replied that I wasn’t happy with the snow.

“I know. Yesterday we went to Lloyd,” he said. “And Mom bought me these mitts and toque at Walmart.”

Then he said, “Enjoy your weekend.”

Perspective is everything. A simple walk through the trees, a meeting with a young boy, and an adventure with a Border Collie. The air is fresh, I wasn’t cold and I’m pretty sure breathing it, stimulates the release of endorphins. I’m not bummed now. And I can appreciate it’s just another phase of Alberta weather.

I do hope there is a stretch of mild temperatures so crops can be harvested.

IMG_2585 Do you think my begonias are going to survive? 😀