Nelson's Sparrow

Found several of these small prairie birds in a seeded hay field close to our home.

June Birds

The most exciting bird experience in June was seeing a bird that I searched for all last summer and a few weeks this spring.  Early on June 5 I saw it for the first time.  I also saw it sing, so I knew it really was the bird I've been hearing all over our yard.  The Warbling Vireo.

 #2 on the excitement scale was learning that both Bobolinks and Lark Buntings had taken up summer residences near our home (near as within several miles) so we've seen them much more than usual.

Here are a few of my favourite photos of the less rare birds we saw in June.

A Northern Shoveller who strayed from the usual duck behavior and didn't fly away when I approached him.

A Baltimore Oriole in our yard.

Eastern Kingbirds, also in our yard.

Horned Grebes on our stock-watering dam.

A Red-eyed Vireo on her nest in Spruce Woods Provincial Park in Manitoba.

Not a bird, but an elk. An animal that I've never seen in our part of Saskatchewan before.  But then I hadn't seen a moose either, twenty years ago.  And now they are all over.  And other people have seen cougars and bears.  Guess I may have to become a mammal watcher, too.