The tiny musings found below will perhaps provide you an opportunity to pause and reflect on our world and our place in it. You can subscribe to receive posts in your inbox (approximately once a week)! Note: all writing and art is © Christopher Buddle.
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Perseids
Don’t blink.
A streaking white line
– gifts from the night sky
We have had a rather overcast and rainy summer so far, but remarkably the past few nights have been clear. This has allowed for amazing star-gazing, satellite gazing, and meteor showers! The Perseids have been at their peak, and I have been able to see shooting stars from my backyard (at a good pace – e.g., 2 or 3 over a space of just 15-20 minutes). They take your breath away.
Looking up at the night sky is always a gift. It’s so easy to do, and so rewarding, especially if you are fortunate enough to live in a region without too much light pollution.
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Clothesline
Socks, shirts, and towels
dancing in the summer breeze
backyard views
I love our backyard. It’s a lush, green place, and sitting at the back property line is a tree-fort that my Dad and I built over a decade ago. The kids did not use it as much as expected, but it’s a delightful little structure nevertheless. Our clothesline stretches across the yard, from the back deck to the old sugar maple tree behind the tree-fort. Clothes and sheets seem extra clean and smell so great after being dried on the line.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Coffee
A stop at the Lion
Caffeine and community
– morning perfection.
I have quite a few rituals in my life, but one of my favourites is stopping by the coffee shop on my way to work – usually a couple of times per week. It’s a fabulous place (called the Humble Lion), located right across from work, and they know my order (A Cortado, which is depicted above in the illustration). I often see a colleague or friend there, and always have a nice chat with the owner or the baristas. These small moments are important, and a local coffee bar is community.
(oh, also: I’m on vacation for a little while – Happy Summer to you! I may not post as regularly as I normally do)
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Mountain
Kissing the clouds
with summer snow-filled slopes
– beckoning
Back in the late 1980s I took part in a program called “Shad Valley”, in which high school students from across Canada got to spend the month of July at a University campus and learn about innovation, science and technology, leadership, and other fascinating subjects. I attended the program at the University of Calgary and it was a life-changing and very positive experience. The following summer I returned to Calgary to take part in a follow-up project connected to my time at Shad Valley and during that summer I did some mountain climbing. One of the mountains we climbed was Mount Athabasca, which is located in Jasper National Park, along the Columbia Icefields. It is a beautiful mountain, and climbing it was truly astounding. Mountains remind me of my summers in Alberta.
The program mentioned above still exists (called Shad now), and McGill is one of the host institutions. Over the past few weeks I was able to take part in the program, acting as a Faculty Member for a few days during the program. It was really interesting and fun to re-engage with the program and see the energy, intelligence, and creativity among the high school students taking part in Shad. Although decades have passed, the program has retained its very best qualities, and it was an honour to be involved, even in a small way.
Getting involved with Shad again reminded me of those formative summers I spent in Calgary, including the time in the mountains, hence why I decided to draw Mount Athabasca and share it with you. I have been playing around with using coloured paper for some art, so the illustration above is on grey-tone paper and done just with some black ink, light wash, with some highlights done with a white brush pen. I hope you enjoy!
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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chauve-souris
wing beats at dusk
circling above backyards
– mosquitoes beware!
The other day I was delighted to see several bats flying around my backyard. They have had a hard go, and bats in our part of the world are just not that common. I love watching them zip around just after the sun sets. We have a LOT of mosquitoes this summer, and while I am an entomologist, I don’t enjoy the harassment by biting flies! I read somewhere that bats can eat hundreds of flying insects in an hour. They are a terrific natural remedy for mosquitoes.
I used the French name for bats as the title of this post. I like it better than the English common name. The literal translation of chauve-souris is ‘bald mouse’. While bats are not generally bald, they are mouse-like. I’m sure there is a good origin story about the chauve part – perhaps someone can share it. Little flying mice is kind of a nice image though!
Bats do freak some people out, but I have found that people who are scared of bats have, in their past, experienced bats getting inside a house or cabin or cottage. Having a bat indoors is an unusual, frightening affair. Bats are best outdoors.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
art, backyard, bats, chauve-souris, Chiroptera, drawing, ink, Mammals, nature, pen, Watercolor, Watercolour -
Snap!
ancient reptile emerges
green-backed wary warrior.
Earlier this year we came across a snapping turtle crossing a walking path that intersected two wetlands. It was a cool morning, so the reptile was slowly lumbering along, taking the time it needed. These turtles are gentle giants when left on their own but you do not mess with them – they are called snapping turtles for a reason! I have always found it so astonishing to see them swim about in lakes and other wetlands; they appear smoothly and deliberately, and swim with purpose and care. And then on land, they move slowly and somewhat awkwardly.
Here’s another Haiku and art* about snapping turtles:
-what lurks beneath
Swim fast!
When I was a kid they sure did scare me, and I must admit, sometimes I imagine them lurking beneath me when I’m swimming in a lake with poor visibility. I imagine them deciding to chomp by toes or feet, and this causes me to swim a little quicker. I sure hold these turtles with a great deal of respect and admiration. Give them a nod hello, and give them their distance.
Check out this amazing label on a beer from a brewing company in Ontario (the beer tasted excellent too):
* this was done in a notebook that I use for various things, work notes, jotting done things of interest, and sometimes doing quick sketches.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Snag-dweller
Fleeting splash of red
Seeking food and shelter.
Uncommon, scarce, gone.
Red-headed woodpeckers are wonderful birds, but I only know this through photos and stories since I have never seen one*. While their range does get into parts of Ontario and Quebec, they are rare in my corner of the world. These woodpeckers certainly eat insects and drill into dead wood like their cousins, but they also eat fruits, nuts and acorns, and seeds, so they are quite an omnivorous woodpecker.
Red-headed woodpeckers are in trouble: they have been experiencing populations declines for decades. The declines are likely due to many factors – one of the main ones being loss of habitat for their nests: they need dead trees (or snags) to nest in, which has become a limited resource. Their declines may be due to changes in the production of nuts/acorns over the years – whether declines of chestnuts after the Chestnut blight, or the unpredictability of mast years (years of high nut production) or changes in forest composition**. There is also some evidence of (invasive) European starlings kicking woodpeckers out of their nests. The starlings like the holes in snags, but can’t make them on their own. Whatever the cause, the numbers speak for themselves.
Conservation starts with education and awareness. We have to understand our world’s biodiversity, and protect it. So, share this post through your networks! Spread the word about these magnificent birds.
* the watercolour depicted above was done from a reference photo
** here’s a link that delves into the reasons for their declines: https://www.audubon.org/news/the-red-headed-woodpecker-doesnt-make-sense
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Cycling
Pedaling past fields and forests
– sacred country roads.
This past weekend was a long weekend in Quebec, known as Fête nationale (or Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day). My father-in-law and I used to always do a ‘Ride of the Saints’, which took us through many of the small “saintly” towns near where I live – Ste-Anne-de-Prescott, St-Eugène, Sainte-Justine-de-Newton, Saint Marthe, etc. The weather is always spectacular, and the country roads are quiet, peaceful, and perfect. It is about the best possible cycling you could imagine. And while my father-in-law died over five years ago, I keep the tradition alive (I wrote about this in the Globe and Mail a couple of years ago).
Traditions are important. Memories are important. Loving your people is important, even if they are no longer with you.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Lakeside
still, quiet waters
reflections, connections
– perfect shoreline
Earlier in the month we got away to Parc national du Mont-Tremblant and stayed in a cabin in the woods, next to a beautiful lake. There were no motorboats on the lake, so while there were many people out on the water, they were in canoes, kayaks, row-boats, or paddleboards. They were all having so much fun. The weekend was perfect – in addition to the setting, we enjoyed our time with great friends, ate wonderful food, and while the mosquitoes and black flies were fierce, they did not dampen our spirits or stop our adventures. We hiked, laughed, swam, and watched the calm waters. The watercolour, above, is a depiction of the view to the shoreline opposite our cabin, done en plein air* (although quickly since I was swatting the biting flies the whole time!). Being lakeside provides opportunity for reflection – about friends and family, human connections, nature, and our connection to our natural world (it helped also that there was no cell service at our cabin!). Wild lands are the best lands.
* the reproduction, above is not terrific – my apologies. I actually used a non-watercolour album for the image (it is done in a Moleskine sketch book album), you can see scratch marks from the other pages, my technical pen was almost out of ink, and there was just a whole lot of sloppiness in addition to the album crease in the middle. D’oh.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Bzzzz Bzzzz
buzzing clouds
incessantly seeking blood
summer in the north
Late spring and early summer in my part of the world means a verdant world, and the production of biomass in both the plant and animal world, and this includes mosquitoes. These insects are a dominant force whether in a backyard or local forest. And while I try to appreciate all of our biodiversity, mosquitoes are rather annoying. The blood-seeking* females hunt out humans with great ferocity, being all bitey-bitey and buzzy-buzzy; and while insect repellant can work effectively it’s not always pleasant having to cover yourself in order to do a bit of gardening or have a cocktail in the backyard. Mosquitoes do, of course, play important roles in ecosystems (and in many parts of the world, transmit disease): they are themselves food for various other critters (e.g., bats!), and they do pollinate some plants. Like ’em or hate ’em, these buzzing critters are certain part of the season!
* the blood meal they seek is for the female mosquitoes to develop their eggs.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
Nature's Reverie 