<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="4" style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; "><b>APR. 8, 2009</b> - No noticeable flower-heads of <b>COLTSFOOT</b> yet west of Gaspereau -- very late this year. <b> BUT</b> today Suzanne Clary found a large area of <b>blooming COLTSFOOT</b> in Coldbrook, a bit west of Tim Hortons along Hwy. 1. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="4" style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; "><b>APR. 9, 2009</b> - I checked out the<b> </b>planted<b> HAZELNUT or FILBERT?</b> at Hilda & Mark Taylor's old property near the top of Chestnut Ave. in Wolfville -- see April 4/09, when I reported the male catkins open but no apparent female flowers. Well, now there are quite tiny <b>FEMALE FLOWERS </b>showing if one looks closely -- they are dark purple? and much less apparent than the gorgeous but small red flowers on wild beaked hazelnut. The species or variety of this planted <b>HAZELNUT or FILBERT?</b> is yet to be confirmed (my encyclopedia of garden plants lists at least four planted species of the genus <i>Corylus</i>). Hilda told me that they used to get hazelnuts/filberts from that plant, and therefore there must have been female flowers, too.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="4" style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; "><b>APR. 10, 2009</b> - Sunny and semi-warm today (up to 10 C. in a.m.), a gorgeous Spring day! </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="4" style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; ">Our adult <b>WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW</b> is still at our feeders, with 2 white-throated sparrows.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="4" style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; ">At the Blomidon Inn in Wolfville, a <b>BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE</b> was <b>SINGING </b>(phee-bee-bee) very persistently, with one song quickly following the previous song, in a long series.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="4" style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; ">Oodles of <b>CROCUSES</b> now everywhere and all open, of several colours, and happily attended by<b> LOTS OF HONEY BEES</b> -- on April 6 I learned a lot from <b>Dick Rogers'</b> public presentation on the health of and risks to honey bees, to the N.S. Institute of Health -- and see the April 2009 issue of Scientific American for a good and thorough article on this, concluding that the <b>Colony Collapse Disorder</b> is very complex and has many contributing causes, which have to be monitored and managed.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="4" style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; ">Other flowers were <b>SNOWDROPS</b>, blue <b>SCILLA or its look-alikes</b>, and <b>COLTSFOOT</b>. The latter were abundant along Oak Avenue in Wolfville, where "Jean Timpa's"<b> DAPHNE</b> bushes are showing flower colour but the flowers are not quite open (very soon!). </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="4" style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; ">In the Oak Avenue cattail marsh by the railroad tracks, there were 2 male <b>RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS</b> (together, and one sang once), and a very cooperative <b>SWAMP SPARROW</b> came to my pishing and posed for a minute or so -- too bad I wasn't leading a field trip there! Also a <b>GREAT BLUE HERON</b> flew over downtown Wolfville. I couldn't see any obvious raven nest in the Oak Ave. area today.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Cheers from Jim in Wolfville</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Jim (James W.) Wolford</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">91 Wickwire Ave.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">B4P 1W3</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">phone 902-542-9204</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">e-mail <<a href="mailto:jimwolford@eastlink.ca">jimwolford@eastlink.ca</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">"In wildness is the preservation of the world" -- Henry David Thoreau</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="4" style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; "> </font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div></div>
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