Day 8, Santa Ana NWR, Texas
Gravel and dust - a favourite road
Old and rusty tractor
Afternoon trip to the mountains
One of my favourite old barns
Meghan & Kwesi's house
Bolete
Old log cabin/barn seen through the trees
Kananaskis on a mixed-weather day
September snow in Kananaskis
Late September in Kananaskis, 2019
A favourite view in Kananaskis
Wedge Pond, Kananaskis, Alberta
Buller Pond, Kananaskis
Woodland at Rod's
Forgetmenot Pond, Kananaskis
Forgetmenot Pond
Showing its age
Kananaskis 'winter'
Wedge Pond in fading fall colours
Barrier Lake, Kananaskis
Kananaskis
Bighorn Sheep licking salt off the highway
Wedge Pond, Kananaskis
Bighorn Sheep female
Spectacular Kananaskis valley
Another drive-by shot in Kananaskis
Day 6, Plain Chachalaca / Ortalis vetula
Day 6, White-tipped Dove / Leptotila verreauxi
Day 6, Plain Chachalaca / Ortalis vetula
Day 6, Cardinal female / Cardinalis cardinalis
Day 6, Cardinal male, National Butterfly Centre, S…
Day 5, King Ranch, South Texas
Day 2, Turkey Vulture / Cathartes aura
Farm with sheep and a donkey
Short-eared Owl - from January
Long-eared Owl / Asio otus
Long-eared Owl / Asio otus
Peace in the countryside
Day 12, Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Area, Queb…
A 'new' old homestead
Red barn through the fog
Overload of Llamas : )
Llama in winter
Day 7, Watch out for children, Tadoussac
Day 6, part of Tadoussac, seen from up on the clif…
Day 6, the Chauvin Trading Post, Tadoussac, Quebec
Day 6, Tadoussac, Quebec
Day 6, Hotel Tadoussac, Quebec
Day 3, on the way to Hillman Marsh, Ontario
Birdhouse with a difference
Friendly horse
The Straw Barn
One of these things is not like the others ...
Bringing the straw bales
Old farm wagon
Fine old truck
Day 2, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Rondeau PP
Day 2, an old barn near Rondeau PP, Ontario
The storm rolls in
Early fall, looking (and feeling) like winter
Heading into the mountains
Fall colours near the Highwood River
On a cold summer day with mist and drizzle
The painted cow - "Some enchanted evening"
Yesterday's Chinook Arch
Beginning to look like fall
Cute goat at Eagle Lake
Common Raven at Bow Lake
Purple Avens / Water Avens / Geum rivale
Beautiful Peyto Lake
Friends at Bow Lake
On the way home from Cartwright bio-blitz
On the way home from Cartwrights' land
Swainson's Hawk take-off
A favourite view, Waterton Lakes National Park
Tall grass, Pt Pelee - Phragmites
Once was home
Masked Cardinal, Caroni Swamp, Trinidad
Remembering winter
Yellow Oriole, Trinidad
A rural "winter" scene
Old barn in spring snow
Evening mist in the rainforest
A memory of Waterton from before the fire
When the world turns white
Donkey guardians of the old schoolhouse
New birding blind in a local park
On the way to Canmore - seven Swans a-swimming :)
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Day 6, Great-tailed Grackle male / Quiscalus mexicanus
Sorry for posting SO many photos today! I think it's the only way I will ever get through all the images from this Texas trip.
On Day 6 of our birding holiday in South Texas, 24 March 2019, we left our hotel in Kingsville, South Texas, and started our drive to Mission, where we would be staying at La Quinta Inn & Suites for three nights. On the first stretch of our drive, we were lucky enough to see several bird species, including a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Hooded Oriole, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, Harris's Hawk, Pyrrhuloxia male (looks similar to a Cardinal) and a spectacular Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. I'm not sure if this stretch is called Hawk Alley.
We had a long drive further south towards Mission, with only a couple of drive-by photos taken en route (of a strangely shaped building that turned out to be a deserted seed storage building). Eventually, we reached our next planned stop, the National Butterfly Centre. This was a great place, my favourite part of it being the bird feeding station, where we saw all sorts of species and reasonably close. Despite the name of the place, we only saw a few butterflies while we were there. May have been the weather or, more likely, the fact that I was having so much fun at the bird feeding station. We also got to see Spike, a giant African Spurred Tortoise. All the nature/wildlife parks that we visited in South Texas had beautiful visitor centres and usually bird feeding stations. And there are so many of these parks - so impressive!
nationalbutterflycenter.org/nbc-multi-media/in-the-news/1...
"Ten years ago, the North American Butterfly Association broke ground for what has now become the largest native plant botanical garden in the United States. This 100-acre preserve is home to Spike (who thinks he is a butterfly) and the greatest volume and variety of wild, free-flying butterflies in the nation. In fact, USA Today calls the National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, 'the butterfly capitol of the USA'." From the Butterfly Centre's website.
The Centre is facing huge challenges, as a result of the "Border Wall". The following information is from the Centre's website.
www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/about-nbc/maps-directions...
"No permission was requested to enter the property or begin cutting down trees. The center was not notified of any roadwork, nor given the opportunity to review, negotiate or deny the workplan. Same goes for the core sampling of soils on the property, and the surveying and staking of a “clear zone” that will bulldoze 200,000 square feet of habitat for protected species like the Texas Tortoise and Texas Indigo, not to mention about 400 species of birds. The federal government had decided it will do as it pleases with our property, swiftly and secretly, in spite of our property rights and right to due process under the law."
"What the Border Wall will do here:
1) Eradicate an enormous amount of native habitat, including host plants for butterflies, breeding and feeding areas for wildlife, and lands set aside for conservation of endangered and threatened species-- including avian species that migrate N/S through this area or over-winter, here, in the tip of the Central US Flyway.
2) Create devastating flooding to all property up to 2 miles behind the wall, on the banks of the mighty Rio Grande River, here.
3) Reduce viable range land for wildlife foraging and mating. This will result in greater competition for resources and a smaller gene pool for healthy species reproduction. Genetic "bottlenecks" can exacerbate blight and disease.
IN ADDITION:
4) Not all birds can fly over the wall, nor will all butterfly species. For example, the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, found on the southern border from Texas to Arizona, only flies about 6 ft in the air. It cannot overcome a 30 ft vertical wall of concrete and steel.
5) Nocturnal and crepuscular wildlife, which rely on sunset and sunrise cues to regulate vital activity, will be negatively affected by night time flood lighting of the "control zone" the DHS CBP will establish along the wall and new secondary drag roads. The expansion of these areas to vehicular traffic will increase wildlife roadkill.
6) Animals trapped north of the wall will face similar competition for resources, cut off from native habitat in the conservation corridor and from water in the Rio Grande River and adjacent resacas. HUMANS, here, will also be cut off from our only source of fresh water, in this irrigated desert.
On Day 6 of our birding holiday in South Texas, 24 March 2019, we left our hotel in Kingsville, South Texas, and started our drive to Mission, where we would be staying at La Quinta Inn & Suites for three nights. On the first stretch of our drive, we were lucky enough to see several bird species, including a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Hooded Oriole, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, Harris's Hawk, Pyrrhuloxia male (looks similar to a Cardinal) and a spectacular Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. I'm not sure if this stretch is called Hawk Alley.
We had a long drive further south towards Mission, with only a couple of drive-by photos taken en route (of a strangely shaped building that turned out to be a deserted seed storage building). Eventually, we reached our next planned stop, the National Butterfly Centre. This was a great place, my favourite part of it being the bird feeding station, where we saw all sorts of species and reasonably close. Despite the name of the place, we only saw a few butterflies while we were there. May have been the weather or, more likely, the fact that I was having so much fun at the bird feeding station. We also got to see Spike, a giant African Spurred Tortoise. All the nature/wildlife parks that we visited in South Texas had beautiful visitor centres and usually bird feeding stations. And there are so many of these parks - so impressive!
nationalbutterflycenter.org/nbc-multi-media/in-the-news/1...
"Ten years ago, the North American Butterfly Association broke ground for what has now become the largest native plant botanical garden in the United States. This 100-acre preserve is home to Spike (who thinks he is a butterfly) and the greatest volume and variety of wild, free-flying butterflies in the nation. In fact, USA Today calls the National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, 'the butterfly capitol of the USA'." From the Butterfly Centre's website.
The Centre is facing huge challenges, as a result of the "Border Wall". The following information is from the Centre's website.
www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/about-nbc/maps-directions...
"No permission was requested to enter the property or begin cutting down trees. The center was not notified of any roadwork, nor given the opportunity to review, negotiate or deny the workplan. Same goes for the core sampling of soils on the property, and the surveying and staking of a “clear zone” that will bulldoze 200,000 square feet of habitat for protected species like the Texas Tortoise and Texas Indigo, not to mention about 400 species of birds. The federal government had decided it will do as it pleases with our property, swiftly and secretly, in spite of our property rights and right to due process under the law."
"What the Border Wall will do here:
1) Eradicate an enormous amount of native habitat, including host plants for butterflies, breeding and feeding areas for wildlife, and lands set aside for conservation of endangered and threatened species-- including avian species that migrate N/S through this area or over-winter, here, in the tip of the Central US Flyway.
2) Create devastating flooding to all property up to 2 miles behind the wall, on the banks of the mighty Rio Grande River, here.
3) Reduce viable range land for wildlife foraging and mating. This will result in greater competition for resources and a smaller gene pool for healthy species reproduction. Genetic "bottlenecks" can exacerbate blight and disease.
IN ADDITION:
4) Not all birds can fly over the wall, nor will all butterfly species. For example, the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, found on the southern border from Texas to Arizona, only flies about 6 ft in the air. It cannot overcome a 30 ft vertical wall of concrete and steel.
5) Nocturnal and crepuscular wildlife, which rely on sunset and sunrise cues to regulate vital activity, will be negatively affected by night time flood lighting of the "control zone" the DHS CBP will establish along the wall and new secondary drag roads. The expansion of these areas to vehicular traffic will increase wildlife roadkill.
6) Animals trapped north of the wall will face similar competition for resources, cut off from native habitat in the conservation corridor and from water in the Rio Grande River and adjacent resacas. HUMANS, here, will also be cut off from our only source of fresh water, in this irrigated desert.
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