During the bird surveys that I run in Northern Ontario each June, whenever we come to a little wetland area, we are fairly certain that we will hear the “witchity-witchity-witch” call of the Common Yellowthroat. I have heard thousands but seen very few. So it was a pleasure to get many photos of this splendid female this morning.

It is not only the throat which is yellow.

Species list: double-crested cormorant, great blue heron, Canada goose, mallard, hairy woodpecker, blue jay, black-capped chickadee, common yellowthroat, house sparrow, red-winged blackbird, northern cardinal.  (11 species)

River scenes:

Botany:

This morning’s group:

NATURE POETRY

Burnt Lands

On other fields and other scenes the morn

Laughs from her blue,–but not such scenes as these,

Where comes no cheer of summer leaves and bees,

And no shade mitigates the day’s white scorn.

These serious acres vast no groves adorn;

But giant trunks, bleak shapes that once were trees,

Tow’r naked, unassuaged of rain or breeze,

Their stern grey isolation grimly borne.

The months roll over them and mark no change;

But when spring stirs, or autumn stills, the year,

Perchance some phantom leafage rustles faint

Through their parched dreams–some old-time notes ring strange,

When, in his slender treble, far and clear,

Reiterates the rain-bird his complaint. Charles G.D. Roberts

Miles Hearn