dgraham@kean.ucs.mun.ca (David Graham) (11/19/90)
On Friday I was talking to someone on the phone at work when I happened to look out my window and see a Sharpy perched on a rooftop antenna on the neighbouring building. It appeared to be actively hunting as it was looking about in all directions. I had a great look at it for about 2 minutes until it seemed to spot something, turned and sped off. Unusual to see one so out in the open (our campus is not well treed, and the bird was perched about 25 m high on this bare antenna)... Sharpies are a real pest at feeders here in the winter (or are considered to be so by many people) along with Merlins. Yesterday the weather (schizophrenic as always here) suddenly turned incredibly mild (16 degrees Celsius, unheard of). At one point I looked out the kitchen window and was more than somewhat startled to see a Mourning Cloak butterfly flap by; it landed next to a puddle on a bench which encircles a maple tree in our yard, then flew away. I've certainly never seen one so late (we've had a fair bit of snow already) and wondered if this was a hibernating adult which had awakened, or what... Sorry to bring this up here, but we don't seem to carry rec.butterflies. :-) -- *************************************************************************** David Graham dgraham@kean.ucs.mun.ca ***************************************************************************