Winter is in slow but steady retreat, and signs of spring are advancing, step by step. I was excited to see my first housefly of the year last week, buzzing about in the heat-trap area of our south-facing front step. It's the one and only time of the year that I'm actually happy to see a fly.Migrant birds, one species at a time, are slowly starting to make their appearances as well. The crows and ravens have made their seasonal switch, with crows back in considerable numbers, and the ravens heading for parts north. These two species generally don't share the same territory at the same time, although in the past couple of years a few raven pairs have started to nest in the area of the city, so maybe this division of the space is starting to change, but crows certainly continue to have the advantage of numbers. Since there is still a lot of snow on the ground, it will be a while before we see many of the insect-eating songbirds, likely sometime later on in May.
A family sign of spring is grandson Mark's birthday (his 12th), which we celebrated on the weekend. Mark had Friday (the actual birthday) off school, so he was with me for the day, with family and friends gathering at the end of the day at his house for a birthday dinner. Mark and I spent much of the morning baking the traditional chocolate birthday cake (recipe from his great-Grandmother's recipe files) that is standard for family birthdays. It turned out well, and we got it iced and ready to go in the afternoon. Problem was, things got a bit hectic at the end of the day and as we were pulling into the driveway at his house after a half-hour drive, already later than we would have liked for the family gathering, we realized to our horror that no-one had actually remembered to load the cake into the van, and it was still miles away in my kitchen. Our only comfort was that it was located at the back of the counter where the dogs wouldn't be able to feast on it so it was likely still going to be there when we got home. I have a feeling it's going to be a while before I live that one down. My one defense is the literal interpretation that I was asked to bake a birthday cake, and I did. No-one actually directly told me to bring it with me!
Saturday morning we headed off for the Gardenscape show to enjoy the displays and see the new plant and gardening offerings for the coming season. We also took in the butterfly display which was well worth experiencing, although I didn't get to spend quite as much time getting shots as I would have liked. We also picked up a neat teak root garden bench, something both Jim and I have been eyeing for a couple of years since we first saw them at Spruce Meadows. It's kind of like buying a piece of sculpture you can sit on. Very satisfactory.
Today Mark had no school yet again (!!) so we went off to the zoo with our cameras, hoping to get more lion shots. For whatever reason, the lions weren't out today, but a lot of the native animals were enjoying the sun and relative warmth (about -2 C). There were also a lot of incoming Canada geese, noisily arriving by twos and threes, and circling the area searching for safe landing sites. There is a large natural body of water in the park area of the zoo that hosts a lot of migratory waterfowl in the spring and fall, and where many wild geese nest. Today's arrivals were pretty peeved after their long flight north to discover that the whole area is still covered in ice and snow, not a bit of open water for miles around. There was a lot of circling overhead and loud honks of disapproval.
Shot one today is of a pair of geese in the midst of their circling and protesting. These were hard shots to snag since the area is quite heavily treed, and I could hear the geese coming long before I could see them. Geese are amazingly fast and strong fliers, so I would usually have just a second or two to spot the geese in the bit of open sky overhead, focus, track, and shoot. Getting this kind of shot is great preparation for the horse show jump shots I'll be taking in a few months. Galloping and jumping horses are a piece of cake compared to birds in flight.
Shots two and three are also zoo shots from this morning. The second shows one of the Swift foxes, sitting in front of its den. These are very small little fellows--about the size of an average house cat, although with longer legs. They were uncharacteristically mellow this morning, just happy to bask in the sun and enjoy the relative warmth. Mind you, I don't think anything but the most extreme cold would be an inconvenience to them with those thick coats.
Shot three shows Mark getting a close-up photo of some Canada goose footprints in the snow. There were trails all over the place where the geese had been marching about as pedestrians. You can see by checking out his boot tops that we still have a fair depth of snow in some areas.
Shot four is of one of the butterflies on Mark's jacket shoulder. They were fluttering all over the place in their display area, and were quite happy to settle on anyone that stood still for more than a few seconds. I seemed to attract more than my fair share, I can only assume due to the colours I was wearing. There were two young employees stationed at the exit to the butterfly area who would check for hitch-hikers before one was allowed to leave.
Final shot is not from the garden show but is rather a hydrangea blossom from a small plant we have at home. I wanted to try out Jim's ancient macro lens and this seemed like a good candidate for a photo. The main drawback with the macro is the extremely short focal length, which you can see by the blurring of the blossom edge on the left. This lens lets you get in really close, but unless everything is on the same plane, you can only get a sharp focus on part of what you are shooting. Despite that, it's a very interesting type of photography to do, and I'll have to work on my skills some more with that lens.
