BIRD BRAINS....

Over the past 19 years (gasp, YES, we've been in Campbell River, B.C. for that long!) these are some of the birds visiting my back yard.  I have a great view of the mountains, the rainforest, valley, and these birds ...

Black headed Grosbeak

"I would like to paint the way a bird sings...:" -Claude Monet

Nest gathering

"By coming and going , a bird weaves is nest.." -Ashanti

Mr. and Mrs. Finch

"You are a bird in flight, searching the skies for dreams..." 

                                                                                                                 -Haruki Murakami

White crowned Sparrow

"Tomorrow the birds will sing. Be brave. Face life..."

                         - Charlie Chaplin

Dove grey, always together...

"After the sharp-eyed Jay and the roaring Lion, peace will come on dove's gentle wing..." -Erin Hunter

Stellar Jay

"Nothing but the silence of the tree, and then he is gone.." -Mary Oliver

Annas Hum Hum

"Powered by its own life and its own motivation..." -Abdul Kalam

Flicker

"The birds of heavens dwell in the trees.." - Psalm 104:12

Grackles "Cowbirds"

"If birds glide for long periods of time, then why can't I?"_Orville Wright

Pileated Woodpecker

"A woodpecker's drilling Echoes to the mountain clouds.."

                                                   -Dakotsu lida

Towhee

"I like the idea of taking off like a bird...." -Florence Welch

baby sparrow, I believe...

"Are you my mother?" -P.D. Eastman

Varied Thrush

"Every spring I hear the Thrush singing in the glowing woods...." - Mary Oliver

Robin red breast

"The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off." -F. Hodgson Burnett

American goldfinch

"Faith without works is like a bird without wings; though she may hop with her companions on earth, yet she will never fly with them to heaven."-Francis Beaumont

Cooper's Hawk

"Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, bright the hawk's flight on empty sky..." -Ursula K. LeGuin

                     FLY...............

Pine Siskins

"I wake up every morning, free as a bird..." - Ashley Cole

Rufous Hum Hum

"I'm youth. I'm Joy..." - James M. Barrie


                                                          Eagles

“The Eagle does not escape the storm. The Eagle simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It spreads its mighty wings and rises on the winds that bring the storm.” – Jack White

Photographs 2025 All photos taken in Campbell River, B.C.
 

DARKLING THRUSH

THE DARKLING THRUSH 
                      by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) excerpts

 I leant upon a coppice gate when FROST was spectre gray

And Winter's dregs made desolate the weakening eye of day.

Pileated Woodpecker

 The tangled  stems scored the sky like strings of broken lyres
And all mankind that haunted nigh had sought their household fires.

 The land's sharp features seemed to me the Century's corpse outleant

Flicker

 Its crypt the cloudy canopy the wind its death lament.

 The ancient pulse of germ and birth was shrunken hard and dry

 And every spirit upon the earth seemed fervourless as I

 At once a voice arose among the bleak twigs overhead

 In a full hearted evensong of joy illimited.

An aged Thrush, small, with blast-beruffled plume

 Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.

stellar jay

 So little cause for carolings

 Of such ecsatic sound

 Was written on terrestrial things afar or nigh around

junco

 that I could think there trembled through

 His happy good-night air

 Some blessed HOPE, whereof he knew......And I was unaware....

 Poem from the 19th century, published Dec 29 1900. Hardy wrote in the style of George Eliot and Wordsworth. I love this poem.  Beautiful imagery.

Photographs 2019

Pileated Woodpecker

 "A woodpecker's drilling Echoes to the mountain clouds." 
                                  -Dakotsu lida

 Fall has brought the gorgeous Pileated Woodpecker scuffing around the seed trays set out for the Stellar Jays

 And with the Jays and the massive woodpeckers, comes Spencer, the neighbours' cat. Eager to have a look.

 Mornings are cool and clean.

 Sometimes you can here the woodpecker smack away at tree trunks. He likes carpenter ants  best.

 But lately, he likes to sit in the seed pan and scare away everyone else while he stuffs himself silly.

 "The day should come when all of the forms of life will stand before the court, The Pileated Woodpecker,as well as the coyote and bear, the lemmings as well as the trout in the streams." 
                                                     -W.O.Douglas

 They love to dig in wood. Bugs. Ants. Termites. Yum yum.

 A pair will stay together in the same territory all year long. 

 In this area, they are all around the woods, but I haven't seen them in a while till last week.

 It is said that they are the size of a crow, but I figured that this one was larger. He was cheeky and smart, and knew how to get what he wanted.

 Using his tail to steady and balance on the surfaces he latched onto.

 "Autumn is the hardest season. The leaves are all falling. Falling as if they are in love with the ground." -Andrea Gibson

 It's a good thing to leave fallen tree trunks to rot as the Pileated Woodpecker loves  this sort of thing. I just love watching them hang off the fence or the wooden plant boxes, as if they were Christmas ornaments....

 "A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.” -Seth Godin

Photographs 2017