A beautiful day in Weaselhead
Rolling hills from the Whaleback
Prairie life in winter
Winter beauty
Ghost Reservoir
A memory of Waterton from before the fire
A rural "winter" scene
Goodbye, winter - so glad you are gone!
Remembering winter
Smokey Eagle Lake
Yesterday's Chinook Arch
Heading into the mountains
Early fall, looking (and feeling) like winter
Tundra Swans in flight
Looking into the sun
Two of my favourite things
Clouds over Chain Lakes
Into the sun at Pine Coulee Reservoir
Rural decay down south
On the way to Chain Lakes
A view from Chain Lakes
Beauty of winter (well, late fall)
Day 6, Hotel Tadoussac, Quebec
Fall colour in Kananaskis
Our last morning on island of Trinidad
A view from yesterday
Winter's beauty
Old barns in the foothills
Deer on the horizon
A white world
Whites and blues of winter
Red barn in winter
Yesterday's walk in Fish Creek Park
Glorious scenery for a Christmas Bird Count!
Barn with the fallen cupola
King of silos
One of my favourite barns
A country scene
Autumn in Alberta
New "barn", Granary Road
Alberta foothills in the fall
Morning sun over Pine Coulee Reservoir
Storm clouds near the city
Early morning sunrise over the mountains
Part of the same shelf cloud
Beneath the cloud
Old granaries on the prairie
Yesterday's storm
Once a home
Fish Creek Park on a low-light day
A mountain meadow, Kananaskis, Alberta
Old homestead, Alberta
Heading for the mountains on a hazy morning
Lenticular (?) clouds over the mountains
Pine Coulee Reservoir, Alberta
Pine Coulee Reservoir, Alberta
In the middle of nowhere - spot the truck
Sheep on a smoky day
Wide angle on the Bighorn Sheep ridge
A different view from Maskinonge lookout, Waterton
Cacti on Little Tobago, Day 3
Logging piles in the Porcupine Hills
Cattle drive - and a few old barns and sheds
Dreaming of spring
Old prairie barn
Winter textures
Winter in the Nanton, Alberta, area
Non-wild horses in a wild landscape
The beautiful mountains of Alberta
Afternoon light on the foothills
Our beautiful Alberta
Nanton Christmas Bird Count
A well looked after barn
Red's the best in winter
Sharples grain elevator
01 The glory of fall
Distant haze
Our beautiful foothills on an overcast day
Across the river
The long road south
Above the tree line
Fading into the distance
Gottlob Schmidt's Antelope Hill Ranch
Antelope Hill Provincial Park
01 Middle Lake, Bow Valley Provincial Park
Beautiful old house in the hills
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With more big storms to come
A huge leap from the rainforest of Trinidad photos posted yesterday to the snowy shots posted today! Yesterday, 4 March 2018, was such a beautiful day, and I decided to join seven friends for a walk down into Weaselhead in the afternoon. The previous day, a birding walk had been cancelled because the weather was so bad and the long, steep hill down to river level was very icy. It is almost unheard of for a birding walk to be cancelled! The roads were not in good condition especially the residential streets. I have a bad feeling that my car is now stuck in the ruts outside my place - when I got home after the walk, it was almost impossible to drive over the mounds of snow that have built up over the last few months. Not sure how I am going to be able to reverse out of this spot. Guess I will find out. I have lived in this city for 40 years and I don't remember ever seeing this much snow on the ground. Just crazy.
There were not a whole lot of birds to be seen on yesterday's walk, but it is always a delight to see the dainty little Common Redpolls. I seem to remember that last winter, there were no Redpolls to be seen. Nice to see a beautiful lone Coyote travelling across the frozen, snow-covered Elbow River. I will add the leaders' list of species seen in a comment box below. Coffee at Tim Horton's afterwards was enjoyable, as always. Thanks for a great walk, Janet, Bernie and Stephen! I always appreciate your giving up your Sunday afternoon for the rest of us.
I made the mistake of checking the weather forecast for Alberta for the coming spring and summer, though of course we all know that the forecast is often incorrect. For us, it will be a cold spring followed by an above normal summer. More big storms to come - actually, March is said to be our snowiest month, anyway. Looks like it could be another year without mushrooms growing, just like last year. The temperature this morning, 5 March 2018, is -22C (windchill -29C).
"As energetic as their electric zapping call notes would suggest, Common Redpolls are active foragers that travel in busy flocks. Look for them feeding on catkins in birch trees or visiting feeders in winter. These small finches of the arctic tundra and boreal forest migrate erratically, and they occasionally show up in large numbers as far south as the central U.S. During such irruption years, redpolls often congregate at bird feeders (particularly thistle or nyjer seed), allowing delightfully close looks.
Some studies show that in winter redpolls subsist almost entirely on a diet of birch seeds. They eat up to 42 percent of their body mass every day. They can store up to about 2 grams (0.07 oz.) of seeds in a stretchy part of their esophagus, enough for about a quarter of their daily energy requirement.
A few banding records have shown that some Common Redpolls are incredibly wide ranging. Among them, a bird banded in Michigan was recovered in Siberia; others in Alaska have been recovered in the eastern U.S., and a redpoll banded in Belgium was found 2 years later in China.
Common Redpolls can survive temperatures of –65 degrees Fahrenheit. A study in Alaska found Redpolls put on about 31 percent more plumage by weight in November than they did in July." Bits and pieces taken from AllAboutBirds.
www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Redpoll/overview
There were not a whole lot of birds to be seen on yesterday's walk, but it is always a delight to see the dainty little Common Redpolls. I seem to remember that last winter, there were no Redpolls to be seen. Nice to see a beautiful lone Coyote travelling across the frozen, snow-covered Elbow River. I will add the leaders' list of species seen in a comment box below. Coffee at Tim Horton's afterwards was enjoyable, as always. Thanks for a great walk, Janet, Bernie and Stephen! I always appreciate your giving up your Sunday afternoon for the rest of us.
I made the mistake of checking the weather forecast for Alberta for the coming spring and summer, though of course we all know that the forecast is often incorrect. For us, it will be a cold spring followed by an above normal summer. More big storms to come - actually, March is said to be our snowiest month, anyway. Looks like it could be another year without mushrooms growing, just like last year. The temperature this morning, 5 March 2018, is -22C (windchill -29C).
"As energetic as their electric zapping call notes would suggest, Common Redpolls are active foragers that travel in busy flocks. Look for them feeding on catkins in birch trees or visiting feeders in winter. These small finches of the arctic tundra and boreal forest migrate erratically, and they occasionally show up in large numbers as far south as the central U.S. During such irruption years, redpolls often congregate at bird feeders (particularly thistle or nyjer seed), allowing delightfully close looks.
Some studies show that in winter redpolls subsist almost entirely on a diet of birch seeds. They eat up to 42 percent of their body mass every day. They can store up to about 2 grams (0.07 oz.) of seeds in a stretchy part of their esophagus, enough for about a quarter of their daily energy requirement.
A few banding records have shown that some Common Redpolls are incredibly wide ranging. Among them, a bird banded in Michigan was recovered in Siberia; others in Alaska have been recovered in the eastern U.S., and a redpoll banded in Belgium was found 2 years later in China.
Common Redpolls can survive temperatures of –65 degrees Fahrenheit. A study in Alaska found Redpolls put on about 31 percent more plumage by weight in November than they did in July." Bits and pieces taken from AllAboutBirds.
www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Redpoll/overview
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