A blue bird with white on its head and on the edges of its wings, with black around its neck and under the white on its wings. It is sitting on a branch, located in Burlington's Hendrie Valley.

Last month, Peter Thoem spied these Blue Jays in the Royal Botanical Gardens’ Hendrie Valley. He described their gathering on his blog, My Bird of the Day. “The air was full of them and their calls, shrieks and mutterings, and they were flying across and around the valley, catching-up, socializing and congregating, I suspect in readiness for moving south.”

If that lively description doesn’t inspire you to get out walking in Burlington’s beautiful green spaces, what would?