Snack time for baby Coot

The light was so harsh when I arrived at a wetland in SW Calgary rather late yesterday afternoon, 5 June 2015. There didn't seem to be a lot of birds in sight and just the usual ones, so I didn't stay long. No sign of any young ones yet with the Red-necked Grebe, lying on her distant nest.

From the wetland, I drove a few of the backroads south of the city, seeing familiar birds that I often photograph, but always happy for the opportunity to shoot again. One hillside had numerous white-spotted baby Elk - raised on a ranch, but still so cute to see, despite not being wild. Three Mourning Doves were perched on a high wire in their usual spot. A herd of gorgeous Long-horn cattle and their cute youngsters were in a field that I passed, but again, the afternoon sun was just too harsh for photos. Stopped to photograph a pair of Mountain Bluebirds - there were flashes of blue along many of the backroads. A Snipe standing on a fence post in a different place completed my afternoon.

I did catch this Coot feeding its little one way off in the distance at one of the wetlands. Better than nothing, though. The babies are so ugly they are cute!

"The waterborne American Coot is one good reminder that not everything that floats is a duck. A close look at a coot—that small head, those scrawny legs—reveals a different kind of bird entirely. Their dark bodies and white faces are common sights in nearly any open water across the continent, and they often mix with ducks. But they’re closer relatives of the gangly Sandhill Crane and the nearly invisible rails than of Mallards or teal." From AllAboutBirds.

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Coot/id

The temperature this afternoon is supposed to get up to 25C and the next two days 28C and 29C. My place becomes an oven in such temperatures, so I'll have to get in my car and go for some drives, thankful for the air-conditioning. There is rain in the forecast for a lot of the coming days starting on 9 June, though of course the weather forecast can always change.