I have managed to get photos of the female cardinal on the deck before, but the male is much more nervous and so any movement from us and he is off. However Chris managed to get a couple of pics yesterday.

We also have lots of squirrels about and they are all losing their winter coats and replacing it with finer, thiner summer coats. Trouble is they all look really tatty at the moment.

We have also seen the return of some of our other birds such as the towhee pictured below and the grosbeaks and also the thrashers. Of course there are always blue jays.

We have a pair of cardinals in our garden who we see every day. The male often feeds the female on the deck by picking up seed and passing it from his beak to hers – aahhh!

Here are a few pics I took of he female yesterday, she is beautiful. I will try to get the male and hopefully some of them together soon.

So far the June weather has been all over the place. One day it is hot and sunny, the next cool and raining. In fact rain has been a major factor so far. Lets hope with the onset of official summer soon we can look forward to more warmth and sun.

We did manage to get out geocaching on Saturday. This was our third trip and this time we managed to get seven caches which more than doubles our existing total. We even managed to go back to one we could not find on our first trip and this time found it straight away – it’s amazing how much easier things are when you know how to use the equipment properly. We are still learning the ins and outs of the GPS gadget, but we are getting there. So now we have found 13 geocaches in total – need to find more to get away from that number!

The birds and animals in the garden are all in the process of reproducing. We have seen baby grackles and starlings about. The killdeer have still not presented their young yet, but they cannot be far off now. We also have the many female squirrels who are either very pregnant or seem to have given birth. The babies won’t be around for a few weeks yet, but there seems to be a lot of nursing mothers about.

The cardinals are also out and about, so hopefully they will have young again as we had last year. Here is the male in our front garden. I always feel these birds should be in some tropical rainforest, not up here in Canada, but I am not complaining.

Next week I am going to be taking part in the Relay for Life to raise money for cancer research. This is an all night event and I hope that it doesn’t rain. Anyone who would like to sponsor me for the event please do so. I attach the link below to make a pledge. This can be used to pledge from anywhere in the world.

Last week we had temperatures in the minus teens with even colder wind chills, even on Friday it was -10C, but on Saturday we got up to +8C and the snow we had on the ground (about 18 inches) started to melt, we even had puddles in the garden. On Sunday the temp was slightly colder at +4 but still lovely and sunny and we went for a drive. Today, Monday it is only going to get to about +2 but tomorrow and Wednesday they are forecasting +11C both days and the rest of the week won’t fall below freezing during the day. Could spring have arrived early and the groundhog be wrong?

Took a couple of pics of the male cardinal the other day. These are such beautiful birds that really stand out against the snow.