A touch of the past

One of the beautiful old barns (homestead?) seen a few days ago, on 7 March 2014. Some of the fields were still deep in snow, while others had a lot less. There was no sign of the distant mountains - they were completely hidden by cloud.

After nine days at home, hopefully giving my stitches a chance to heal from minor surgery, an invitation by friends Cathy and Terry to go birding that day was welcomed with open arms - as it always is! What a great day we had, searching SE of the city, and finding some really neat birds. Most were impossible to photograph because of distance, but also because we had "heat wave" distortion all day long, making it difficult to get photos that were sharp. It was one of those amazing days, out of the house from 7:15 a.m. till about 8:15 in the evening. By the end of the day, we had seen a total count of 19 owls, from three species - 8 Short-eared Owls, 8 Snowy Owls, 2 Great Horned Owls and one mystery owl. We couldn't decide if the latter was a Snowy Owl or a Short-eared Owl, as it was perched on top of a metal silo, way off in the distance (photo posted a couple of days ago, in which the coloured spots from the sunburst lead ones eye to it). An excellent birding friend reckons it's a Snowy Owl. We missed a good photo opp with one of the Short-eared Owls, when we were pulled over, further down the road than several other photographers. We did see one down on the ground near the edge of the road in a different place, though, hiding in the dried grasses, but, again, my photo is blurry.

Also saw a Prairie Falcon perched on top of a metal silo and lots of Horned Larks - the latter constantly in flight or down on the road ahead of us.