The Southern Yarn for June and July is ready for you to download, either directly, or through the Yarns page.

Many of our anticipated events will be impacted by the Covid-19 restrictions, but perhaps now more than ever, we value our connections with one another, even if meeting in person is harder to achieve.

Here’s Charlie’s editorial to get your started: 

One thing I enjoy about this “job” (as editor of The Yarn newsletter) is hunting for good news stories to share. So, it is encouraging to find a good number of sites devoted to offering just that. You will find some of them in the following pages.

It is also fortunate that the pandemic lockdown doesn’t apply to the birds! The spring migration this year brought many favourite visitors through our suburban yard again. We have even been treated to some new (for us) sightings. If you are “friends” on Facebook you will have seen our first-time indigo bunting guest. Another pleasant surprise was in early April when we dared an outing to St Vital Park. We stayed in the car and parked beside the Red River watching geese avoid ice chunks that were still floating by. Movement, closer, in the dry leaves under an evergreen caught our eye. The camera zoom revealed that, no, it wasn’t a squirrel, but a weird bird, which I had to look up later at home. Judging by their range, I would say that we were very lucky to spot an American woodcock this far west – certainly uncommon, if not rare. So that little comic, which I think is the closest we have in North America to a kiwi, is the subject of “Birds I view” on p.8.

Jenny Gates’ front page reminiscence on Gordon Keatch brought to mind what brought him to Canada in the first place. So, in ‘getting to know’ over the next couple of issues, we will learn about The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

Always pleased to receive newsy contributions from members, so thank you to Lucia for sharing her recent travel experience, on p. 7. Also, thank you to other contributors, our advertisers and you the readers.