Late Visitor

Baltimore Oriole

    (Icterus galbula)   

This species is not a common visitor to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia,

but more and more are reported every year.

I had a surprise when I looked out the window

Monday morning.

A juvenile male.

Isn't he sweet?

It's pretty late in the season to be hosting orioles.

When I contacted Blake Maybank,

one of Nova Scotia's leading birders,

he sadly informed me that this little fellow is

LOST!

And, will probably try to survive the winter here.

So, out went the oranges, the grapes, the jelly...

and if he continues to visit,

as he has the last three mornings in a row,

we'll have to get some mealworms!

                     



And the Winner is....

A huge thank you to everyone who participated

in this give-away,

and especially to those of you who took the extra time

to visit Kim's on-line store

to have a peek at her other wonderful patterns.

Having give-aways is lots of fun because

it gives me an opportunity to become acquainted

with other very talented people I've not yet discovered.

I've enjoyed visiting each and every new-to-me blog!

And now...

Drum roll please..............

The winner is:   Mageezroom

Congratulations!!

And again, thank you everyone!

*



Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs

Well, maybe not cocoa puffs,

but big, fuzzy caterpillars would be a nice tasty treat!!

The elusive Yellow-billed Cuckoo

(Coccyzus americanus)

made several rare appearances

in the Northeast and Atlantic Maritimes this fall,

delighting many birders

in my neck of the woods.

Negotiating a seldom used, overgrown dirt road

to access a beautiful stretch of beach and bogland,

we came across this little guy foraging along the edge.

He managed to stay one step ahead of us,

and having never seen one before,

we were stymied!

He wasn't exactly cooperative

when it came to documenting his visit,

always hopping or flying just out of range

at the exact moment it was time to 'click'

for a picture.

The Yellow-bellied Cuckoo is a fairly good sized bird,

10 - 12" in length, with a down-curved bill

that hosts a black upper mandible

and a yellow lower mandible.

It has the prettiest rufous coloring to its primaries,

most obvious when it flies away. 

Which I observed ALOT in my futile attempts

to snap a good picture.

In addition to consuming massive quantities of hairy caterpillars,

the Yellow-billed Cuckoo also considers berries, small fruits,

and even small amphibians to be fine dining.

My best guess is that nasty weather

blew them off course

and they ended up wandering far beyond

the northern fringes of their territory.

However, I'm no authority.

For a better view of this lovely bird, check out this post by TexWis

at The Run*A*Round Ranch Report.

She has some nice clear, beautiful close-ups!!

The Harbour Quilt Company Give-away

Great Blue Herons and Kingfishers are common
summer residents in the Atlantic Maritimes,
and as you saw in a previous post
Kim, from The Harbour Quilt Company

in Antigonish, Nova Scotia
has captured their beauty and elegance
in one of her quilted wallhangings.

Kim has graciously offered to sponsor a give-away

of this very pattern!

You guessed it!! 

It's my personal favorite,

one of Kim's very own designs,

Captain's Pond,

in which she has embraced

her deep appreciation for nature

and combined it with her talent and skills!

There will be three opportunities for you

to enter this give-away.

1.  Simply leave a comment at the end of this post.

2.  Visit Kim's on-line store,

then return here and tell me

which is your favorite

pattern/kit!

 3.  Mention this give-away on your own blog,

and come back to let me know.

As an extra bonus, the winner will also receive

a craft-size package of

Fusi-Boo,

a fusible batting made from a unique blend

of rayon fiber from bamboo and natural cotton.

This bonus prize is being generously donated

by Trish at the  Fairfield Corp.

I will select the lucky winner

one week from today, Sat. 11/12.

using the random number generator.

Good Luck!!

A special thank you to Kim and Trish

for making this give-away possible!!

*This give-away is now closed!!

Nature's Nursery

Crossley Bird ID Guide Give-Away

Princeton University Press is celebrating their new facebook page for birds and all other things in nature by giving away posters and signed copies of The Crossley ID Guide.

Richard Crossley has now spoken at well over 20 societies and groups, but if you missed your chance to get a signed copy at one of those events, this is a great opportunity.

On Halloween, they will give away two different prizes – first up is an autographed copy of the book with a poster of the kestrel plate; the second is a poster of the Black-throated Blue Warbler plate. Both posters are professionally printed and gorgeous. They would be a treat for any birder to hang in their den or office.

All you have to do to be entered in the giveaway is to become a fan on the Princeton Birds & Natural History facebook site: http://www.facebook.com/PrincetonUPressBirds.NaturalHistory. 


My guess is that we’ll see additional giveaways for other bird and nature books in the future, so if you become a fan you will be eligible for those, too. They’ll also be posting bird/nature specific material there so it’s a great way to keep up to date on what’s coming up in our natural history books.

                                                                                            

What's in a Name?

Dawn at Sweet as Cinnamon has such imagination! 

She wants to know how we came to name our blogs!!

A few years ago, I was wintering in Maine

with my sister, The Fern Lady. 

A grad student, a mom and wife, and employed part-time, she was a very busy girl.  I was learning the names of plants and making cards from the pictures she had taken over the years, and driving her crazy!  So, she decided to keep me busy and out of her hair.  She had heard about Etsy from a friend who makes the most amazing pottery and came to the conclusion that I should open a little shop and sell my cards.  We labored for hours, trying to come up with a name. 

Finally, she popped up with the fact that growing up and being the younger sibling, every time our mom addressed her, she'd always start with my name, so she would hear "K-Holly".  It was perfect, and we named the Etsy shop KaHolly. 

Then came the blog to promote the store! 

Sadly, the Etsy store went on permanent vacation at the end of the winter months,

never to open again, and

KaHolly morphed into a nature blog.

And you know what?  Her little scheme didn't work.  I bugged her twice as much because she was then the photographer as well as the botanist!! 

And she had all the computer smarts!

How did YOUR blog get it's name?  Dawn is giving away some beautiful fabric to one lucky winner that links up to her post.  {If you are a nature blogger and you want to play, and you win,

you can send the fabric to ME!!:)}