At this time of year, the male house finches stand out against the leafless trees, with their vivid red plumage. Barry took this photo for us.

This little fat squirrel had been rooting in the snow but jumped onto this post in the Backyard Garden when I came along. A little dab of snow is the only evidence of his activity!

The waxwing was eating juniper berries, when the female house finch flew in for a few seconds. The waxwing was undisturbed and continued sitting there while the rest of the flock gathered in the black locust trees nearby. I counted only about 10 this morning, a far cry from the 100+ of last week. However, in the ash woods, there was another flock of about 40. Also around today were cardinals, a common raven flying low over the ravine, a few juncos, two hairy woodpeckers in the ash woods, a white-breasted nutchatch, couple of goldfinches, crows, a bluejay trying to balance on the feeder in the BYG, and of course, many black-capped chickadees.

This mushroom was hanging from the hole in the trunk of the manitoba maple.

This wasp was bumbling along the south facing wall of the interpretive centre today at noon. It didn't seem to be all that strong and flew weakly. I also saw honey bees, clusters of tiny midges, and a few flies, no idea which species as they never landed. It was a mild, sunny day, at +8, and I guess any insects still alive and not dead or hibernating were taking advantage of it.

A couple of mergansers sitting on an exposed rock in the canal where the water is low in preparation for skating season. I think this is the same rock I saw red-breasted mergansers sitting on a few years ago. Although taken in the Arboretum, I include it for those who might want to include the Arboretum in their birding forays. Hooded mergansers, common mergansers, cormorants, Canada geese and mallards are also in the canal at the moment. Gillian tells me that she saw 4 ruddy ducks at Dow's Lake on 12 November, even more reason to check out the canal/Dow's lake area over the next while.