A visit to George's hand

This photo was taken a couple of days ago, on 14 November 2016. I don't usually go on a birding walk on a Monday, but the weather forecast for that day looked somewhat better than the forecast for the next few days. We have had a bit of snow since then - a warning from a friend of mine who was on a walk in Fish Creek Creek Park yesterday, letting me know that the paths are "super slippery" with ice under the thin layer of snow. Cold weather doesn't bother me as much as ice underfoot!

"The Black-capped Chickadee is notable for its capacity to lower its body temperature during cold winter nights, its good spatial memory to relocate the caches where it stores food, and its boldness near humans (they can feed from the hand)." From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-capped_Chickadee

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/black-capped_chickadee/id

"The chickadee's unerring spatial memory is remarkable enough, says Colin Saldanha, assistant professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University and an anatomist who has studied songbirds for six years.

But it is what happens inside the tiny songbird's brain that Saldanha finds amazing. In the fall, as the chickadee is gathering and storing seeds, Saldanha says, its hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for spatial organization and memory in many vertebrates, expands in volume by approximately 30 percent by adding new nerve cells. In songbirds, the hippocampus is located on the dorsal surface of the forebrain right beneath the skull. In mammals, the hippocampus is located beneath the cortex.

In the spring, when its feats of memory are needed less, the chickadee's hippocampus shrinks back to its normal size, Saldanha says." From article on ScienceDaily.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/09/030912072156.htm

Our walk took us from Votier's Flats in Fish Creek Park, eastwards in a loop, and then we walked along the river westwards as far as bridge 5(?). It was a quiet morning as far as seeing many birds, though we were happy to see an American Dipper walking, feeding and dipping in the cold water of the creek. I will add the list of species seen in a comment box below.

After this long walk, I decided to drive south a short way to see if there was any sign of the Long-tailed Weasel that many of my friends have been seeing, but, once again, I was out of luck.