Wood duck, lost egg, clouds, young buck

June 8th – the wood ducks have hatched and flown. No dud eggs, either. I am happy for that. It means they have safely made it to the wetland or the lake. I've tried to check only every 2nd or 3rd day. This was my last view of her, Sunday, June 5th. By Wednesday they were all gone. They only stay in the nest for 24 hours after hatching, then take off in the afternoon, bouncing out of the nest. You can see that the native phragmites have grown over the pond. 

wood duck from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

  This is from 2017, when I thought they had all gone and I was prepared to clean out the nest! I scared us all!

We went into town for gas for the lawn tractor. I noticed the invasive phragmites had been mown by the county, at the side of the road. It's only mown as far as the county owns, and there is a large patch beyond it to the creek. They are working on this stuff. They are making progress, around the county with little robot tractors. 

I noticed something white on the last slab at the end of the sidewalk. It looks like a phoebe egg taken from the nest. I wonder the story there?!

There was yolk. I don't know. It could be nest theft. It was peculiar.

It's sad to document damage, but noticed this lovely lily, lower left, and a bug of some sort had rolled the leaf and snapped off the flower bud to make a home. The one beyond, and on the right are still intact. I cross my fingers. I've wrapped my chicken wire around it, and hope to actually get a bloom. 

Bambi ate them several years in a row until I figured out the idea of putting up a fence! 

During Tuesday's rough weather, Caitlin went to Toronto for a two-day leadership conference. I live vicariously through my children, and I watched the plane online. I checked the radar and, sure enough, more storm clouds. It had to veer around the storm. This was the 23 mm rain day! 

It was funny that JB having traveled a lot for work (i.e., Montreal once a week, Frankfurt quarterly, etc.), just commented that he didn't miss the travel, but sure loved seeing clouds. I know he'll like to see these, Caitlin's photos! Her iPhone takes snappy photos.

The Devil's Paintbrush are starting up. This is why I don't mow too much. 

I managed to capture 17 videos on the trailcam, after hauling myself down there with bugs flying madly. There were 15 videos of crows, one of a blue jay, and one of the young buck.

young buck 2 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Post #1Caitlin and I went to British Columbia for the weekend!

We did! An amazing trip. Jesse, my son, is appearing in Singin' in the Rain, in Chemainus' theatre production. Our respective hubbies stayed home with kids or cats!

Here is post #1!
What a flight!
We flew standby on a direct flight from Ottawa to B.C.'s YVR Vancouver airport. Once in YVR, we had to hop onto a smaller plane to Nanaimo. It was a full flight, and we watched one plane leave without us. Jason Priestly, however, got on the flight! (Caitlin spotted him!)
Along the way, I took photos of the flooding in Alberta. The rivers were swollen with recent rains.
The geography of Alberta is interesting. On the west are the mountains, then, as one moves east, the flat prairies. Of course, the rain and snow melt water drains from the mountains onto the flat prairie. It helped me to take photos of the airline map as we moved west. The mountains were amazing, sticking up dark black, covered in white snow, surrounded in brilliant white cloud. I had a window seat, and managed some fun shots through the double window. It was -50 degrees or so, 35,000' up.
The oxbow rivers are intriguing, resulting in beautiful patterns from the air, as well as the circular irrigation field patterns. Caitlin (being a hydrogeologist) is familiar with air photos. I remember doing that in grade 11 geography (1972?), and have forgotten most of what I knew!
It was much fun reporting our progress. Neither of us have cell phones. Caitlin would text with her iPod as we moved from YVR to YCD. It is convenient to know the airport codes!