My resume (if I had one) would include these job titles: Reporter on Mundane Wonders, Alleyway Wanderer and Crow Paparazzo. Since receiving my first camera in 1962, I’ve spent many, many hours looking at the everyday world through a lens. A full-time artist since 2006, I’ve been selling my work at local Vancouver galleries and markets and online since then.
Born in the north of England, I grew up in an ultra-urban environment. We lived in a flat right under the Tyne Bridge (visualize the label on Newcastle Brown Ale). The rusting leftovers of the industrial revolution and fragments of the Roman Wall were my fabulous playgrounds. We didn’t have a garden, but my mother was always helping me to examine the eclectic bits of nature that we came across on our walks.
After high school I studied at Bangor University in North Wales, specializing in Anglo-Saxon poetry then, in my early twenties, I made the big move to northern BC. I hand-built a cabin miles from the nearest human neighbours and worked as a tree planter for several years. By the 1980’s I had found a happy medium, living in Vancouver, studying art, working in graphic design and raising children (Lily and Ian) with my husband, Phillip.
My studio is located in my garden behind my house in East Vancouver and 99% of my photography is done within a few blocks of there.
My work has been shown in several individual and group shows in Canada and the UK, featured in print, and on radio and TV. See my press gallery for some of the coverage.
My images are available as signed prints, and incorporated jewelry, home décor items. I have published a book, City Crow Stories, which gives background on why I love crows so much, and also gives tips on how to get your own local crows.
Every year I publish a City Crow Calendar, which is available seasonally via my web site and in various shops and galleries.
I’m a crow enthusiast myself… love your work! I make medicine bags and need crow feathers that have fallen and would derived gbif you know of a good place in vancou er to collect them?
Dear Anna, I’d say the best place in Vancouver would be near the Still Creek roost. The grass on Still Creek Rd between Gilmour and Willingdon is a good spot. When they’re melting in late summer it’s carpeted with crow feathers, but usually a few all year round.
I love your stories! So perfect for this bird enthusiast like me. Thank you for yours sharing. I’ve been on your site an hour. ❤ (I love outside Seattle so I can completely relate to your weather and feelings about this spring as well. I’m dying to get my hands in the garden more!)
(The typos in that are embarrassing. Hopefully you got the spirit of the note.)
Thanks so much. Glad you enjoyed the blog. I was hoping to get some gardening done this long weekend, but we’ll have to see how much rain pours down. It’s also so darned cold for the time of year. I was just out this morning looking for (and catching a glimpse of) a pair of visiting ruby crowned kinglets – but needed a sweater and down jacket to avoid hypothermia. Sheesh.
Love your blog June! I’m also a birder in East Vancouver – and I make a bird watching app called EyeLoveBirds for iPhone. I hope you’ll check it out. Keep up the great work and see you around the neighbourhood 🙂
I had two crows that stayed with me for five years. Suddenly one day, there were two more (their babies I’m sure). My original two crows then left and the two other crows stayed. They never fought so it was never a territorial thing. Now, my two new crows (I say new but they’ve been here two years) have two crows with them and I’ve seen them feeding them (so I’m assuming they are their babies); in your experience, do the parents leave the babies to effectively take the land? Or do they all stay together? I don’t want to loose my other two crows too!
In my experience, the parent crows stay on “their” little bit of territory and the youngsters, either stick around for a year or so and help out with the next year’s babies, or move on, find a mate and start their own little empire somewhere else. Although my original pair, Eric and Clara, did seem to “cede” my back yard to another pair (not sure if it was their kids or not). Eric and Clara are still around though, just on the corner and sometimes come to the front gate (never the back garden though, as that causes a ruckus with the “new” ones.) It’s always an ongoing detective game, trying to figure out who’s who, not to mention why they do what they do. Corvid Sukoku. 😉
Hello! I am working on a project that would enable you to tell crows apart.
If that sounds interesting, I would love to chat about it!
I just discovered your blog and am thrilled with it! I’ve just published my first book: Consider the Raven, and am thinking of doing a blog and have been “wandering through blogville.
Lovely writing, beautiful photography. Feeling fortunate to have found your blog! I am a raven fan as well, and also appreciate all plant & animal life that abounds in nature. Looking forward to reading more of your work.
Hi, June. I thoroughly enjoy your posts and am grateful to be on your email list. I live in Raven country, just north of Summerland, where it’s remarkable to see or hear a crow. I never tire of the Ravens’ aerial acrobatics and creative vocalizations.
As a new square for your Crow Bingo, I suggest a crow with food item.
Thanks, Kathryn – good idea!