A quick drive-by shot
Disappearing into nothingness
Frosted chin whiskers
Red barn through the fog
Hoar frost tree and vanishing fields
Horse and hoar frost
Old red barn on a foggy day
A 'new' old homestead
Male Snowy Owl
The beauty of hoar frost
Male Snowy Owl
Short-eared Owl
Short-eared Owl
Prairie Falcon - Status: SENSITIVE, Species of Spe…
Short-eared Owl / Asio flammeus
Snowy Owl 1st year male, Snowy Owl Prowl 2019
Snowy Owl male, Snowy Owl Prowl 2019
Snowy Owl 1st year male, Snowy Owl Prowl 2019
Short-eared Owl / Asio flammeus
Peace in the countryside
Long-eared Owl / Asio otus
Long-eared Owl / Asio otus
Short-eared Owl / Asio flammeus
Long-eared Owl / Asio otus
Short-eared Owl / Asio flammeus
Long-eared Owl
Helmeted Guineafowl
Short-eared Owl - from January
Short-eared Owl / Asio flammeus
Farmyard friends
Short-eared Owl / Asio flammeus
Wide open spaces
Short-eared Owl / Asio flammeus
A face only a mother could love
Northern Pygmy-owl - from the archives
Northern Pygmy-owl - from the archives
Short-eared Owl / Asio flammeus
Short-eared Owl out on a tree limb
Boldly red
The white Llama
Overload of Llamas : )
Llama
Up close with a Llama
Llama in winter
Mountain Chickadee feeding on suet
Blue Jay / Cyanocitta cristata
Christmas Llama - oops, Bird! - Count
A favourite old barn
Have you ever seen a furry pig?
Evening Grosbeak male, Priddis Count
Beauty of winter (well, late fall)
Remembering winter
Goodbye, winter - so glad you are gone!
When the world turns white
Sleepy Great Horned Owl
One of two Coyotes
Great Gray Owl
Common Redpoll
Pileated Woodpecker
On the way to Canmore - seven Swans a-swimming :)
Great Gray Owl
Winter beauty
Red Fox (just for the record)
Twice the beauty
Bighorn Sheep mom and youngster
Pileated Woodpecker seen in Canmore
Far, far away
Great Gray Owl on the hunt
Great Gray Owl, highly zoomed
Boreal Chickadee
Great Gray Owl hunting
Prairie life in winter
Great Gray Owl, watching and listening
Great Gray Owl #2
Great Gray Owl #1
A beautiful day in Weaselhead
Common Redpoll female
With more big storms to come
Coyote crossing the frozen Elbow River
A view from yesterday
Plain, but welcome
Winter's beauty
Who am I?
Rusty and abandoned
What is this?
Old barns in the foothills
Sharp-tailed Grouse
The ever-present Black-capped Chickadee
Deer on the horizon
A lucky Moose day
Sharp-tailed Grouse
A white world
Country scene in winter
Better late than never
Whites and blues of winter
Red barn in winter
Lacy curtain of ice
The beauty of winter
Young and innocent
Posting just for the record
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122 visits
Llama beauty
No more Llama photos (till next year) and no more red barn photos from this Bird Count. Promise! I didn't want to be posting any of these in between photos taken in Quebec last May, so now they are out of the way.
I am adding these eight photos late tonight. All of the photos were taken on 29 December 2018, 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 regular back roads and farms just like on our other Counts. The area our group covered was right on the east edge of the count circle.
One of my absolute favourite things to photograph on this annual Count are the Llamas at one of the farms. This farmer has seven of these large, amusing animals, and they are always one of the highlights of this Count for me. Most of these animals were given to him 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 (very welcoming) farms to stop at had a beautiful, old dog named Fang, who sadly died this year. They have a "newer" dog who had just had leg surgery. Apparently, this Anatolian Shepherd is an amazing dog with the owner's young children. Three cats are also at the farm, but I didn't see any of them on this trip. The enthusiastic landowners work so hard in the area of native plants, growing various species in their greenhouses. Steven Tannas was excited to show us some of his new additions, too - pigs and sheep. I love pigs, but was totally unprepared to see large pigs that were covered in curly fur! His four pigs are called Mangalitsa pigs (also called Mangalica or Mangalitza) - I think three of them are Swallow-bellied Mangalica (black and blonde) and one is a Red Mangalica (reddish-brown). They are being fed left-over, expired grocery store vegetables, so were busily munching on a variety of nutritious squash. Apparently, babies are striped.
"The Mangalica (also Mangalitsa or Mangalitza) is a Hungarian breed of domestic pig. It was developed in the mid-19th century by crossbreeding Hungarian breeds from Szalonta and Bakony with the European wild boar and the Serbian Šumadija breed. The Mangalica pig grows a thick, woolly coat similar to that of a sheep. The only other pig breed noted for having a long coat is the extinct Lincolnshire Curly-coated pig of England." From Wikipedia.
modernfarmer.com/2014/03/meet-mangalitsa-hairy-pig-thats-...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalica
Steven runs Tannas Conservation Services Ltd.. One of their projects is the rough fescue (native grass) restoration project, which has been very successful over the past 7+ years. Check the links below to discover all the other things that Steven's work involves:
www.tannasenvironmental.com/about-us/our-history.html
www.tannasenvironmental.com/
www.nativeplantproducer-esrs.com/About-Us.htm
A nearby 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 four or five shots as we drove past them. I always wish we could find someone home, so that I could ask permission to get out of the car and take a few photos. Have to remember that this IS a bird count, not a barn count, so I feel very lucky to get any photos of any barns : )
The weather was so beautiful, with the temperature starting off at 0C and later getting up to about PLUS 8C. It was heavily overcast till noon and then brightened up and turned into a glorious afternoon. The Count last year (December 2017) was just the opposite, with a bitterly cold temperature of -23C.
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 rewarding! So many delightful people. One of our stops is especially welcoming each year - with coffee and cookies ready waiting, not to mention the use of a washroom, which is always greatly appreciated,
Thank you, Dave, for being willing to drive the four of us all day. Without drivers, these counts just would not be able to take place, so it is appreciated so much.
I am adding these eight photos late tonight. All of the photos were taken on 29 December 2018, 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 regular back roads and farms just like on our other Counts. The area our group covered was right on the east edge of the count circle.
One of my absolute favourite things to photograph on this annual Count are the Llamas at one of the farms. This farmer has seven of these large, amusing animals, and they are always one of the highlights of this Count for me. Most of these animals were given to him 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 (very welcoming) farms to stop at had a beautiful, old dog named Fang, who sadly died this year. They have a "newer" dog who had just had leg surgery. Apparently, this Anatolian Shepherd is an amazing dog with the owner's young children. Three cats are also at the farm, but I didn't see any of them on this trip. The enthusiastic landowners work so hard in the area of native plants, growing various species in their greenhouses. Steven Tannas was excited to show us some of his new additions, too - pigs and sheep. I love pigs, but was totally unprepared to see large pigs that were covered in curly fur! His four pigs are called Mangalitsa pigs (also called Mangalica or Mangalitza) - I think three of them are Swallow-bellied Mangalica (black and blonde) and one is a Red Mangalica (reddish-brown). They are being fed left-over, expired grocery store vegetables, so were busily munching on a variety of nutritious squash. Apparently, babies are striped.
"The Mangalica (also Mangalitsa or Mangalitza) is a Hungarian breed of domestic pig. It was developed in the mid-19th century by crossbreeding Hungarian breeds from Szalonta and Bakony with the European wild boar and the Serbian Šumadija breed. The Mangalica pig grows a thick, woolly coat similar to that of a sheep. The only other pig breed noted for having a long coat is the extinct Lincolnshire Curly-coated pig of England." From Wikipedia.
modernfarmer.com/2014/03/meet-mangalitsa-hairy-pig-thats-...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalica
Steven runs Tannas Conservation Services Ltd.. One of their projects is the rough fescue (native grass) restoration project, which has been very successful over the past 7+ years. Check the links below to discover all the other things that Steven's work involves:
www.tannasenvironmental.com/about-us/our-history.html
www.tannasenvironmental.com/
www.nativeplantproducer-esrs.com/About-Us.htm
A nearby 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 four or five shots as we drove past them. I always wish we could find someone home, so that I could ask permission to get out of the car and take a few photos. Have to remember that this IS a bird count, not a barn count, so I feel very lucky to get any photos of any barns : )
The weather was so beautiful, with the temperature starting off at 0C and later getting up to about PLUS 8C. It was heavily overcast till noon and then brightened up and turned into a glorious afternoon. The Count last year (December 2017) was just the opposite, with a bitterly cold temperature of -23C.
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 rewarding! So many delightful people. One of our stops is especially welcoming each year - with coffee and cookies ready waiting, not to mention the use of a washroom, which is always greatly appreciated,
Thank you, Dave, for being willing to drive the four of us all day. Without drivers, these counts just would not be able to take place, so it is appreciated so much.
Pam J has particularly liked this photo
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