Greetings

Welcome to another edition of Whispers - the newsletter of the Dereila Nature Inn. We are now one year old!  It's been an amazing year.

Trivia Time

 

Although hummingbirds may have left many of us for the winter months, some do have to struggle through some snowy days in certain areas.  This cover helps protect the holes in hummingbird feeders from being covered with snow.

For more bird feeding and attracting tips, visit the Inn's All Things Natural Restaurant.

We welcome your nature tips and ideas! Just send us an e-mail.

 

 

We hope you'll enjoy the new features at the Inn:
 

Photo Galleries

 

Hover your mouse over the images for a description of our new photo galleries, then click on the image to go directly to the gallery.

   

   

Visit the photo gallery index page by clicking here.

Living Waters
 
This new page explores some of the beauty and diversity of sea and seashore life.  Click on the image to go straight to this feature.

New Walks in the Woods
There are two new walks in the woods this month: Edible Plants and A Look at Plants which explores some of the interesting aspects of wildflowers and other plants.  Click on the images below to start your strolls.
 

Spectacular Places Jigsaw Puzzles

If you like doing our flash jigsaw puzzles, you'll enjoy our selection of 16 new ones which feature some of our favourite natural places.  Click on the image to get started!

When we started the Dereila Nature Inn our vision was one of a community of nature enthusiasts exchanging ideas, stories, tips and images in one form or another. We invite you to submit nature images to this part of our monthly newsletter.

 

Our two fabulous images this month are of Red-headed Woodpeckers - mature on the left and a juvenile on the right.  They were taken and submitted by Margaret S. of West Virginia.  Thanks Margaret!
 
If you'd like to see your image as part of our members' section, simply send us an e-mail.

     
Click on the images to visit the page and don't forget that we welcome your suggestions for future selections, even if you don't have an image to supply for us. Please send your ideas to us by e-mail.

And a reminder that the year's archives for each are just a click away:

Wildflower Archives | Bug Archives | Bird Archives

A Huge Thank You
We'd like to send our thanks this month to Dr. Cannings, Curator of Enthomology at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria for his much appreciated help in the verification and identification of our dragonfly images and to Eric Eaton, co-author of The Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America who has helped with other identification in our bug guide and other insects pages.  Thank-you gentlemen! We really appreciate your time in helping us get things just right.

Visit the visual, virtual bug guide by clicking here.

Coming Up...
We continue to add features to this growing project.  Watch for more photo galleries and wildflower pages in the near future. 

All Things Natural Restaurant

Visit our section featuring recipes and ideas to help attract wildbirds to your feeding station.  Just click here.

Site Map
As our project gets bigger and bigger it seems that a site map is in order to give everyone a straight-forward overview of the pages and features at the Inn.  You'll find the map by clicking here.

 

Don't Forget Our Forums

Just a reminder about and an invitation to visit our two forums:

 

The Birder's Place - This a social network and forum just for Birders. Here you can meet other birders, exchange stories and upload and share your images.

 

The Nature Hut - Here we invite you to join our community of nature lovers.  Upload your nature images and enjoy discussions and stories of experiences and nature sightings.

 

Click on the images to visit the two forums.

Suggestions, Ideas and Feedback
As we move into year two of the Dereila Nature Inn, we invite and welcome your contributions, thoughts and comments.  Please, take a moment to send us an e-mail.

 

If you're a new subscriber to Whispers you might be interested to know that past issues are available online - simply click here. We upload the issues as new ones are released, so as you receive this edition we will be uploading last month's issue.

This month our wandering image takes us to Hawaii and a most curious-looking tree, the Sausage Tree, Kigelia pinnata.

Huge sausage-like fruits hang down from the limbs of these tropical trees.  The fruits can grow up to 24 inches long and are not edible, in fact the seeds are poisonous.  This fascinating plant is grown mainly as an ornamental.

 

To learn more about dragonflies and their relatives, visit the Inn's bug guide. 

"How can you tell?" one of the novice birders asks.

"His feathers are all combed over to one side."