Expeditions in Birdland

Expeditions in Birdland

On March 25, 1945, a neighbour of Louise de Kiriline Lawrence followed a pair of Canada Jays carrying twigs among the conifers on the cliffs near the chute where the Mattawa River begins, east of North Bay. He spied the nest, and knowing Louise’s interest in birds, led her to the bushy white spruce and pointed up. Eight feet overhead, parent birds had woven dry sticks between a fork of branches, creating a frame for a nest of oak leaves, birch bark, bits of a wasp’s nest, and threads from tent caterpillar cocoons. On a mattress of fine grasses, animal hair, and breast feathers lay five white eggs spotted with olive brown, their small ends neatly nestled to the centre.

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