I am enjoying the slow onset of winter, and so are the birds. My feeders are just starting to become active, and I have reports from others about their customers. A neat report was the female American Goldfinch that was seen recently in eastern Alberta. This bird should be a long way south by now, but sometimes they stay around as long as they can find something to eat. Speaking of winter, in only 3 weeks the days will start to get longer again. (As it gets colder, I think about that a lot!) As well, in those same 3 weeks, we need to get ready for Christmas. We birders are easy to shop for. A bag of feed, or a new feeder will make us happy. Other ideas are many, such as a head lamp for those who go out owling or mothing at night, or a butterfly net for those of us who like to chase those beautiful insects and catch them for identification. How about a magnifying glass, or a new field guide for birds or butterflies? Another neat idea is a CD of bird songs, to help us identify those shy birds who sit deep in the trees where we can't see them.

Ducks and geese have been hanging around the country, as I saw several thousand of each last week. I always love watching the geese when they come in for a landing, and find ice instead of water! The landing gear comes down, and gently touches down on the ice, and then the graceful landing slowly deteriorates into an increasingly wild scramble to stay upright. Wings flapping, feet scrabbling, and onlookers on the runway bowled over. And I never have a video camera with me! That reminds me, why do we say birds are LANDING, when the surface involved is often WATER? The Inuit have over 20 words for snow, so maybe we should have a few words for the transition from flight to a stop on various surfaces. Any suggestions from you readers will be gratefully accepted, and if there are enough, published here for your consideration and entertainment

Birds have a lot of different talents, over and above the main one of flight. There are the usual singers and dancers, but some are actually tool users. There is a parrot in Australia that grabs hold of a piece of wood with his foot, and taps out a drum solo on a hollow branch. Some finches in the Galapagos Islands use sharp thorns or twigs to dig succulent grubs out of holes in branches. Another group of birds in South-east Asia, the Bowerbirds, are fine artists. In their courtship rituals, each male builds a bower, a fairly large display arena. In the bower, a structure that looks a bit like a bandshell, they put brightly coloured flowers, shells, and other materials that they find. These are tastefully arranged, and the male spends a lot of time refreshing the display, sometimes stealing things that would help his display from other males in the area. The displays that I have seen on TV are beautifully done, with mounds of blossoms of the same colour placed on one side, and a matching mound of a different material and colour, such as beetle wing cases, placed on the other side. There is an open area in front that allows the bower to be seen from a distance, and the edges of this area may sometimes be lined with small stones as an edging. As well, the open area may be covered with flower petals as a carpet. Each male has different tastes, so the bowers look different to the roaming females, and to us.

As we come to the end of the 20th century, I wish for you all a very Merry Christmas, and a great start to the 21st