Merry Christmas!

I haven't been out a lot lately, taking a break in between Christmas Bird Counts for one thing, and of course getting ready for Christmas!

I was at Walpole Island for part of a day recently, doing some field work for an endangered species, White Prairie Gentian (Gentiana alba).

On another occasion I was out at Rondeau, on the lookout for the Barred Owl featured at the top of this page. It has been seen intermittently, but not very predictably. While not being very successful in catching up to the owl, I have encountered other woodland birds, including Pileated Woodpecker, Eastern Screech Owl, Great Horned Owl, the resident Red-tailed Hawk.....

....and Cooper's Hawk. The Cooper's Hawk was reluctant to leave its perch since it was busily dining on an Eastern Grey Squirrel, whose remains can be seen in this next photo.

Northern Cardinals always seem to be a Christmas type bird.

I stopped in at St. Clair National Wildlife Area briefly one late afternoon, and captured a few waterfowl/sunset photos.

That's about it for this post, but I do want to leave you with one more thing. I hope you take time to think about the reason for this time of year. And with that, I want to connect you with one of my all time favourite Christmas songs. It isn't a Christmas carol in the normal sense, but the message and the music are perfect. It is called "How Shall A King Come". I had heard this one a number of times many years ago, and only recently came across a video someone had put together with the music incorporated with some scenes from a classic big screen movie some of you may recognize (Ben Hur). You can watch and listen to it here. While it has the video to go along with it, I actually like the vocals slightly better in this version.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

(Note: for some unknown reason although I can create a post, at the moment it will not let me reply to comments or put comments on other people's blogs, so my apologies for seeming to ignore the comments that others have made. It has done this before, but then eventually it will return to normal function.)