On a Christmas Bird Count, -23C
A most welcome find
Old barns in winter
Lacy curtain of ice
Red barn in winter
Whites and blues of winter
Great Kiskadee, Asa Wright, Trinidad
Country scene in winter
A white world
Deer on the horizon
The ever-present Black-capped Chickadee
Plain, but welcome
Splash of colour
Rose-breasted Grosbeak from the archives
On its way down
One of two Coyotes
Donkey guardians of the old schoolhouse
A touch of blue
Western Meadowlark
A rural "winter" scene
They're back : )
Goodbye, winter - so glad you are gone!
Remembering winter
Yellow-headed Blackbird / Xanthocephalus xanthocep…
The beauty of iridescence
Mountain Bluebird with food for his babies
A beautiful catch
Pine Siskin
Jackie's squirrel - Red or Eastern Gray?
Pine Siskin
Pine Siskin
Mourning Dove - love the blue eye-ring
Another red barn
Heading into the mountains
Fine old truck
Two of my favourite things
Friendly horse
Rural decay down south
Day 6, the Chauvin Trading Post, Tadoussac, Quebec
Day 6, Swainson's Thrush, Tadoussac Golf Course
Searching for a Great Horned Owl - with permission
The white Llama
Llama beauty
Red barn through the fog
Hoar frost tree and vanishing fields
Horse and hoar frost
Old red barn on a foggy day
Farm with sheep and a donkey
Day 5, Vermilion Flycatcher / Pyrocephalus rubinus…
Day 6, Plain Chachalaca / Ortalis vetula
Day 8, bird blind, Santa Ana National Wildlife Ref…
Beautiful Alberta - prairie, foothills and mountai…
Barn with the fallen cupola
In search of an owl - with permission
Here comes the snow
Handsome - Norwegian Fjord Horse?
One of my favourite barns
The fun times are over
Modern barn
Northern Shrike
A country scene
A peaceful winter scene
New "barn", Granary Road
Down on the farm
Old, see-through barn
Alberta foothills in the fall
A beauty of a barn
The red barn
The joys of an old farmyard
Pontiac and Massey Harris, rusting side by side
Storm clouds near the city
Fragile and leaning
Evening Grosbeak female
A new-to-me old barn
Great Horned Owl on a fence post
The charred remains of McDougall Memorial United C…
Disappearing Skunk - just for the record
The Long house, Pioneer Acres, Alberta, Canada
Farm in the foothills
An old red barn
A road less travelled
Splash of colour
Mountain Bluebird female
Sheep at the Rusty Bucket Ranch
Common Nighthawk
Brewer's Blackbird male
Mountain Bluebird with food for her babies
Brown-headed Cowbird male
Beyond the fence
Ride him, Cowboy!
A house to match
Mountain Bluebird male
Mallard female
Rough-legged Hawk / Buteo lagopus
A distant shot from my archives
Well-protected
One of my favourite views
Greenish sky beneath a Chinook Arch
Skull on a fence post
A mix of textures
Dreaming of spring
Winter textures
Snowy Owl along the fenceline
Red-winged Blackbird female or juvenile
The peace of a prairie farm - my main photo today
Better than nothing - this is NOT my main photo!
Northern Shrike / Lanius excubitor
Afternoon light on the foothills
Barn with a mural
A touch of blue
Our beautiful Alberta
Snow turns something ordinary into beautiful
Winter walking
Nanton Christmas Bird Count
See also...
Cochrane Wildlife Reserve Christmas Bird Count, December 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018
Cochrane Wildlife Reserve Christmas Bird Count, December 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018
Keywords
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Common Redpoll
Today's weather forecast: "Extreme Cold Warning. A prolonged period of very cold wind chills is expected. Extreme cold conditions are expected to continue through the weekend." Our temperature today is -29°C (windchill -38°C) and light snow is still falling. Will this extreme cold ever end? Having just done three, day-long Counts in such bitterly cold weather, it looks like things should warm up just in time for the Fish Creek Provincial Park's annual New Year's Day Count. We will have an awful lot of snow to trudge through, though.
A video from the Weather Network website, showing how cold it is in Calgary right now:
www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/videos/gallery/watch-this-ho...
This photo was taken yesterday, 29 December 2017, when four of us (using just one car) took part in the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the Cochrane Wildlife Reserve area. I'm not sure why it's called Wildlife Reserve, as it consists of back roads and farms just like on our other Counts. The area we covered (right on the east edge of the count circle) was east of Highway 22/Cowboy Trail (across from the Water Valley area).
The first evidence of any wildlife for me, first thing in the morning, was a Jackrabbit that was nibbling on snow-covered plants right outside our leader's house. Of course, at 7:15 in the morning, it was still dark.
Each year, I look forward to seeing several Llamas at one of the farms we call in at during our coverage. This farmer has several of these large, amusing animals, and they are always one of the highlights of this Count for me. I'm not sure how many Llamas they have - somewhere around 7? Most of these animals were given to them by other farmers who no longer wanted them.
"Llamas appear to have originated from the central plains of North America about 40 million years ago. They migrated to South America and Asia about 3 million years ago. By the end of the last ice age (10,000–12,000 years ago) camelids were extinct in North America. As of 2007, there were over 7 million llamas and alpacas in South America and, due to importation from South America in the late 20th century, there are now over 100,000 llamas and 6,500–7,000 alpacas in the US and Canada." From Wikipedia.
Another of my favourite farms to stop at has a beautiful, old dog named Fang, along with beautiful cats, and I always look forward to seeing them each year. This day, though, with a temperature of -23C all day (windchill probably at least -30C), kept cats indoors. I caught a brief glimpse of just one cat outside. 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, no one was home, but I did get the chance to take two rapid shots through the trees of one of the barns, from a side view, which I had only seen for the first time on last year's Count.
Another farm we stopped at had beautiful Pine Grosbeaks and Common Redpolls coming to a feeder. A joy to see these splashes of colour in a very cold, white, white world.
So, it was a very enjoyable day, though there were not all that many species or individual birds to be seen. Too cold and too much snow to spend much time searching various farmyards, and we had finished the Count by 2:30 pm. I will add a list of the bird species seen, in a comment box below. Many thanks, Dave, for driving us. You did a great job of handling roads that were not in the greatest condition, and it was greatly appreciated. The light was awful all day, and it was so difficult to see where the ditch was and where one road turned off to another. There is no way I would ever try driving on our back roads in winter! Also, a huge thank-you to the various landowners who were kind enough to allow us to wander around their farmyards. These visits make our day much more interesting!
An article from CBC News, including words from Brian Keating about how birds stay warm in such cold weather:
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/how-birds-survive-winter-1...
""Common Redpolls can survive up to 20 hours without access to food, even if temperatures drop to -54 C," Brian Keating said.
Redpolls have specially designed esophageal pouches that allow them to hold on to seeds, then later slowly digest them to provide them with energy to maintain their core at a balmy 40 C — "kinda like throwing logs on a fireplace.
Their internal temperature can be 73 degrees warmer than the surrounding air, with the two extremes being separated by less than a half a centimetre layer of feathers."
A video from the Weather Network website, showing how cold it is in Calgary right now:
www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/videos/gallery/watch-this-ho...
This photo was taken yesterday, 29 December 2017, when four of us (using just one car) took part in the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the Cochrane Wildlife Reserve area. I'm not sure why it's called Wildlife Reserve, as it consists of back roads and farms just like on our other Counts. The area we covered (right on the east edge of the count circle) was east of Highway 22/Cowboy Trail (across from the Water Valley area).
The first evidence of any wildlife for me, first thing in the morning, was a Jackrabbit that was nibbling on snow-covered plants right outside our leader's house. Of course, at 7:15 in the morning, it was still dark.
Each year, I look forward to seeing several Llamas at one of the farms we call in at during our coverage. This farmer has several of these large, amusing animals, and they are always one of the highlights of this Count for me. I'm not sure how many Llamas they have - somewhere around 7? Most of these animals were given to them by other farmers who no longer wanted them.
"Llamas appear to have originated from the central plains of North America about 40 million years ago. They migrated to South America and Asia about 3 million years ago. By the end of the last ice age (10,000–12,000 years ago) camelids were extinct in North America. As of 2007, there were over 7 million llamas and alpacas in South America and, due to importation from South America in the late 20th century, there are now over 100,000 llamas and 6,500–7,000 alpacas in the US and Canada." From Wikipedia.
Another of my favourite farms to stop at has a beautiful, old dog named Fang, along with beautiful cats, and I always look forward to seeing them each year. This day, though, with a temperature of -23C all day (windchill probably at least -30C), kept cats indoors. I caught a brief glimpse of just one cat outside. 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, no one was home, but I did get the chance to take two rapid shots through the trees of one of the barns, from a side view, which I had only seen for the first time on last year's Count.
Another farm we stopped at had beautiful Pine Grosbeaks and Common Redpolls coming to a feeder. A joy to see these splashes of colour in a very cold, white, white world.
So, it was a very enjoyable day, though there were not all that many species or individual birds to be seen. Too cold and too much snow to spend much time searching various farmyards, and we had finished the Count by 2:30 pm. I will add a list of the bird species seen, in a comment box below. Many thanks, Dave, for driving us. You did a great job of handling roads that were not in the greatest condition, and it was greatly appreciated. The light was awful all day, and it was so difficult to see where the ditch was and where one road turned off to another. There is no way I would ever try driving on our back roads in winter! Also, a huge thank-you to the various landowners who were kind enough to allow us to wander around their farmyards. These visits make our day much more interesting!
An article from CBC News, including words from Brian Keating about how birds stay warm in such cold weather:
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/how-birds-survive-winter-1...
""Common Redpolls can survive up to 20 hours without access to food, even if temperatures drop to -54 C," Brian Keating said.
Redpolls have specially designed esophageal pouches that allow them to hold on to seeds, then later slowly digest them to provide them with energy to maintain their core at a balmy 40 C — "kinda like throwing logs on a fireplace.
Their internal temperature can be 73 degrees warmer than the surrounding air, with the two extremes being separated by less than a half a centimetre layer of feathers."
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