Barn with a mural

A few issues with Flickr today, including not being able to click on any of my photos when I first load Flickr each time. Also, the graph for Stats wouldn't show up till after several tries. Various little odds and ends happening.

Yet another deep-freeze day, with a temperature of -22C (windchill -33C) at noon. Another few bitterly cold days, and things are supposed to warm up, thank goodness. My intention is to stay home in the warm - again.

On 29 December 2016, three of us took part in the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the Cochrane Wildlife Reserve area. I'm not sure why it's called a Wildlife Reserve, as it consists of backroads and farms just like on our other Counts. Only three of us went in my group, travelling in just one car, and the area we covered was east of Highway 22/Cowboy Trail (across from the Water Valley area). We have to be way NW of the city, ready to start driving our Count area by 8:00 am. There always seems to be a beautiful sunrise when we start this Count.

Unfortunately, it was a very overcast day, which was not good as far as taking photos was concerned. There was so much snow on the ground and several of the backroads were in bad condition and I was expecting us to get stuck, which fortunately didn't happen. A huge bag of gravel and a snow shovel were in the back of the vehicle, just in case.

At one of the first acreages we call in at each year, we always get such a warm welcome. Tea, coffee and cookies are always waiting for us : ) This is where I photographed this barn with its attractive mural, taken as we drove past it. I added a filter to the image in post-processing, to sharpen the details.

One of my favourite farms to call in at has several beautiful Llamas, These animals tend to be one of the highlights of my day.

Another of my favourite farms to stop at has a beautiful, old, white dog named Fang, along with beautiful cats, and I always look forward to seeing them each year. The neighbouring farm, which is also included in our area, has two beautiful old, red barns and I was longing to see these again. Unfortunately, we drove in past them, but didn't stop. A bit further in, we did get out of the car while our leader tried to find someone to ask permission for us to get out and look for birds. No one could be found, but it gave me the chance to take two rapid shots through the trees of the second barn, from a side view, which I had never seen before.

So, it was a very enjoyable day, though there were not all that many species or individual birds to be seen. Many thanks, Andrew, for driving our leader and myself. You did a great job of handling the roads that had not been cleared of snow. I will add a list of the bird species seen, in a comment box below.