An interesting guest dropped by this afternoon. Hope it stayed longer but seems like it was in a bit of a rush. Although it flew in unannounced, I wish I had a bit of an inkling before so I could have prepared my good camera for vivid memories. Nature, however, does not wait for humans – or any other entity for that matter – to be at its best! Nature is always at its ever-present most beautiful, magnificent self!!!

I was left rather puzzled after our guest had left as I had no idea who it really was until much later when I started inquiring out of curiosity really! The search led me to several identities but bemused nonetheless. Some descriptions were rather exotic based on the cute looks I had managed to capture with my phone camera at hand.

After a few keystrokes on the laptop, stumbled upon a few matches on ‘all about birds‘ website. Excited that I may have found exactly what I was after, a few closest matches were Loggerhead Shirke, Plumbeous Vireo and Gray Flycatcher. Deeper digging revealed these birds enjoyed rather warmer climates and wouldn’t want to be in colder Toronto region in this time of the year. Having said that, there have been some unusual sightings of native exotic birds in unusual places around the globe recently. For instance, a blue jay native of North America was recently spotted on the other side of planet in Victoria, Australia. In another unusual sighting, a rare hawfinch commonly known to spend winters in Japan was seen in Yukon, Canada recently.

Coming back to my backyard, a few more clicks revealed what proved to be my visitor for the day. It was either Black-capped Chickadee or Black Phoebe, both winter birds. Chickadees I have encountered before and seemed not to be the case and the Phoebe is something I just learned about today. Hopefully, I’ll see that beauty some day.

Finally, the visitor was identified, well after it had left safely though. It was a Dark-eyed Junco. It was a male adult Junco from what I managed to learn about the cute little bird. They are quite common in Canada and referred to as ‘snowbirds’, evidently. Its the first time I’ve come across this bird in the backyard. Hopefully get to see them soon and capture these beauties closeup in greater detail. I will stop writing at this point and share a few clicks I managed of our unscheduled but rather special meeting today 😊