Northern Pygmy-owl

Another very distant, heavily cropped shot of one of the two (?) tiny Northern Pygmy-owls in Fish Creek Park, taken the day before yesterday. It was also very overcast - that is, until I was driving home, and the sun came out, ha. I was so desperate to get out for a walk, after being glued to my computer for the last two months. I checked two or three of the "usual" places that I had seen this owl previously, but no sign at all. Knew I needed to get back home to deal with urgent matters, so headed off in the direction of my car. Something stopped me dead in my tracks and when I turned to my right, there, in a distant tree, sat a familiar round shape, looking like nothing but a dark silhouette. Heavily cropped, grainy - who cares? Always such a thrill to see this beautiful little owl, with its piercing eyes. In case anyone who is not familiar with this tiny bird of prey happens to look at this image, this owl is the size of a person's fist or a popcan. Imagine trying to photograph a popcan in a distant tree, lol. Imagine trying to find this rare to uncommon (in Alberta) bird in the first place, ha. It sure kept a broad grin on my face for the rest of the day. Love its little, short tail : )

Then came yesterday, which was spent trying to get my printer/scanner to work! I bought this about a year ago, took maybe five months before I really had time to want to get it set up. I don't usually print or scan things, but have desperately needed it to work the past two months, to get important documents and photos in connection with my Brother's death, over to England. I hadn't realized that you needed to use the CD in order to change the resolution of a scan. Well, what a performance that was, trying to get that to work. I'd get a message telling me to install the software, but then that wouldn't work either. Tried to install it again, and it told me it was already installed, but then when I tried to use it, it told me to install it. After spending a few hours messing around with this, I finally went back to the store to ask what to do. The helpful young man told me to go to the HP website and download the latest driver plus the complete software package. A few hours later, it seemed to be working, thank goodness! Now I am keeping my fingers tightly crossed that nothing else "goes wrong" with my computer. That corrupt Inbox was already way more than I needed, to put it very mildly : ) A thousand new hairs turn grey every time I have to deal with something like this, ha, ha!!! Now I need to deal with a pile of legal papers that are way, way overdue.

Some of you may have already seen this video, about our planet and what we are doing to it. I haven't yet watch all of it, but it is exceptionally beautifully filmed. HOME, a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand (93 minutes).


www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU