For 34 years Birds Canada has organized a “FeederWatch” community which has recorded the birds at feeders from November through April throughout Canada.

#5 on last winter’s Ontario list is the American Goldfinch:

The American Goldfinch  is also #2 on the Quebec list and #2 on the Atlantic Canada list.

Males are brightly coloured in warm months:

Other birds:

Species list: Canada goose, mallard, American black duck, bufflehead, common merganser, ring-billed gull, rock pigeon, hairy woodpecker, blue jay, black-capped chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, American robin, house sparrow, northern cardinal, American goldfinch, dark-eyed junco, fox sparrow, American tree sparrow.  (18 species)

Bluff scenes:

Some botany:

Today’s group:

POETRY

First Fall by Maggie Smith

I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark
morning streets, I point and name.
Look, the sycamores, their mottled,
paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves
rusting and crisping at the edges.
I walk through Schiller Park with you
on my chest. Stars smolder well
into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks,
the dogs paddling after their prized sticks.
Fall is when the only things you know
because I’ve named them
begin to end. Soon I’ll have another
season to offer you: frost soft
on the window and a porthole
sighed there, ice sleeving the bare
gray branches. The first time you see
something die, you won’t know it might
come back. I’m desperate for you
to love the world because I brought you here.

Miles Hearn