On a brutally cold New Year's Day Count
On a New Year's Day Bird Count
Pretty in the sunshine
A glimpse through the trees
An upside-down kind of life
A rural Christmas
Winter walk in the park
Joy
Townsend's Solitaire / Myadestes townsendi
A most welcome find
Snowy Owl number 5
Two male Snowy Owls in the same field
You never know where you'll see a Snowy Owl
Old barns in winter
Miniature horses in a winter playground
Yesterday's walk in Fish Creek Park
Pine Grosbeak male feeding on berries
A rare glimpse of a Steller's Jay
Pine Grosbeak female or juvenile
Janet and a tiny friend
Yesterday's local walk
Juvenile Northern Goshawk, feeding
Winter beauty
Yesterday's COLD walk
White-tailed Deer through the snow
Curious glance from a Great Horned Owl
Yet another snowstorm
Boreal Chickadee, caught just in time
Hairy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker / Picoides villosus
Old wagon in winter
A beautiful sign of winter
Pine Grosbeak male / Pinicola enucleator
Posting just for the record
Young and innocent
The beauty of winter
Lacy curtain of ice
Red barn in winter
Whites and blues of winter
Better late than never
Country scene in winter
A white world
Sharp-tailed Grouse
A lucky Moose day
Deer on the horizon
The ever-present Black-capped Chickadee
Sharp-tailed Grouse
Old barns in the foothills
What is this?
Rusty and abandoned
Who am I?
Winter's beauty
Plain, but welcome
A view from yesterday
Coyote crossing the frozen Elbow River
With more big storms to come
Common Redpoll female
A beautiful day in Weaselhead
Great Gray Owl #1
Great Gray Owl #2
Great Gray Owl, watching and listening
Prairie life in winter
Great Gray Owl hunting
An old dog named Fang
On a Christmas Bird Count, -23C
Handsome Pine Grosbeak male
Red barn in winter
Love a Llama
Common Redpoll
Last night's snow .... and -29°C (windchill -38°C)
Trudging through the snow
Pine Grosbeak female
Mountain Chickadee / Poecile gambeli
Glorious scenery for a Christmas Bird Count!
Pine Grosbeaks
A welcome splash of colour
The fun times are over
Black farm cat
A peaceful winter scene
Popcan-sized Northern Pygmy-owl, from January 2015
Northern Hawk Owl with woodland bokeh
A distant shot from my archives
False eyes and real eyes
One of my favourite views
Boreal Chickadee
01 Barred Owl
02 Bald Eagle in late afternoon sun
Northern Pygmy-owl
Mountain Chickadee
Always glad to see a Snowy
Lovable Llama
Meadow Vole for a late lunch
Farm cat
Bark patterns on a cut log
Greenish sky beneath a Chinook Arch
Logging piles in the Porcupine Hills
Skull on a fence post
Northern Hawk Owl
Stubble pattern
Cattle drive - and a few old barns and sheds
Old times remembered
A view from the Porcupine Hills
Cattle drive
Entrance to a ranch
Eyes fixed on supper
Guardian of the path
Perch with a good view
Such a beautiful owl
Peacefully waiting
Dreaming of spring
Great Gray Owl from 2013
Quietly watching, always alert
Mountain Chickadee / Poecile gambeli
A highlight of a bird count
Winner with its prey
Winter textures
Northern Hawk Owl
With a little filtered help
The old-fashioned way
Snowy Owl along the fenceline
Lying on a bed of hoarfrost
Northern Hawk Owl
Winter in the Nanton, Alberta, area
A backward glance
Atop a utility pole
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
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Happy New Year, everyone!
This morning, I just had time to edit and post three photos before dashing out to meet friends so that we could cover our area for Fish Creek Provincial Park's New Year's Day Bird Count. A beautiful day with blue sky and sunshine, but, oh, excruciatingly COLD! A nasty kind of cold that gave us cold feet despite wearing winter boots that are supposed to go down to -40C. So cold that our cameras wouldn't work much of the time. The birds had more sense than humans - they mainly stayed hidden. We only saw 7 species of birds in three hours of walking. This extreme cold is just brutal! Three bitterly COLD, day-long, out-of-the-city Christmas Bird Counts have been more than enough and it's a bit of a relief that the Fish Creek Park Count is also now out of the way. What does the weather go and do now? It finally warms up and will be around normal seasonal temperatures for at least the next few days.
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 three days ago, on 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.
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.
One of my favourite things to photograph on this annual Count are the Llamas at one of the farms.. 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.
The photogenic old shed/house in this photo is always a favourite of mine, on the edge of the forest and just a short distance from the landowners own bungalow. We usually see several species of bird here, but on Count day, all was mostly quiet.
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 -30 to 35C), cats stayed 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, so we couldn't search the farmyard, but I did get the chance to take two rapid shots through the trees of one of the barns, from a side view.
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 such weather! Also, a huge thank-you to the various landowners who were kind enough to allow us to wander round their farmyards. These visits make our day so much more interesting and fun!
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 three days ago, on 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.
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.
One of my favourite things to photograph on this annual Count are the Llamas at one of the farms.. 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.
The photogenic old shed/house in this photo is always a favourite of mine, on the edge of the forest and just a short distance from the landowners own bungalow. We usually see several species of bird here, but on Count day, all was mostly quiet.
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 -30 to 35C), cats stayed 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, so we couldn't search the farmyard, but I did get the chance to take two rapid shots through the trees of one of the barns, from a side view.
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 such weather! Also, a huge thank-you to the various landowners who were kind enough to allow us to wander round their farmyards. These visits make our day so much more interesting and fun!
Gary Schotel has particularly liked this photo
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