Ice halo

If you recall, back in November I had a post about supernumerary rainbows and iridescent clouds. Well, on Christmas day I witnessed another interesting atmospheric phenomenon - the ice halo!

Thanks to the keen eyes of my friend Jean, it was brought to my attention that there was a "rainbow" around the sun. I only had my pocket camera with me but managed to take these shots. You can read about ice halos here.

I find the wispy clouds add to the "other worldly" aspect of the scene.

Young rabbit eating a dandelion

I am taking advantage of the holidays to try new things and one is to insert a video in my blog post. This is a 30 second clip I took a few years ago of a young rabbit at the Montreal Botanical Gardens eating a dandelion.

Merry Christmas

Cats!

I thought I would share some photos of a couple of my cats here.

The first is of "Sweet Young". Each cat in a feral colony (in which she belonged) was named by some unique characteristic; hence there was a "Flat Ears", a "Long Legs", etc.). Sweet Young was just that - a sweet, young cat who tended to protect the kittens in the colony even though she had never had a litter herself. As many of the cats as possible were sterilized and either placed in homes (those who were socializable) or relocated to a farm in the Eastern Townships (those who were too wild to socialize). This operation occurred back in 1997 and Sweet Young has been with me all this time.




Willow is another homeless cat that I took in two years ago. She is full of life and likes to fling toys all over the room. She is also a cuddler and gets more and more cuddly as time goes by. The second shot shows her staring intently at a toy on the floor. The predatory nature of the feline showing clearly!

Lastly, here is a link to a YouTube video of two cats playing "Pat-a-cake". I find the voice-over hilarious. Click here.

I hope you like it.

Foxes return to Mount Royal

I was very pleased to find three (!!) foxes on Mount Royal yesterday. Two were together (and had been sighted by another fox enthusiast last week-end) so I am thinking that they are probably a mated pair.

Fox sightings have been very scarce for over a year now so these were a welcome sight.

One was kind enough to settle down for a snooze and allowed me to get these photos. I like the way his fur matches the fallen leaves. In the second shot you can see he still has one eye on me!