Cats and Dogs

This little dog was with her "people" in Fish Creek Park yesterday morning, 17 February 2014, while a few of us were watching the Great Gray Owl. I really don't like seeing dogs dressed up, though I can understand why some dogs need to wear little boots in our brutally cold weather here in the city. This cute little girl had her boots on, too : ) Today is THE day, when I have to take my computer to a store to have all the data transferred to a new machine that I bought a couple of months ago. See you in something like three days, when hopefully I will have figured out how to set everything up, once I get it back home.

Spent the whole day SE of the city again on 13 March 2014, with friends Cathy and Terry. What a slow day it was for much of the time. Took us just over 6 hours to find the first Snowy Owl - just the tiniest, distant white speck on the ground, far across a huge field. We were beginning to wonder if maybe all the Snowies had already left to fly north, so we were happy to see this one, and a second one about four hours later, perched on a distant power pole. No photo opportunities for these owls, but it felt to good to know that there were at least these two owls still in the area. We had no luck at all finding a Short-eared Owl - very different from 7th March, when we saw 8 of them, six in flight and two on the ground. In addition to the 2 Snowies, we did see 9 Great Horned Owls, though, some on nests. Weather was beautiful with some interesting clouds for part of the day, clearing much later. When we got to this area, we were just in time to see the last of the pink sunrise colour and light on the distant mountains - always so beautiful. Some of the fields looked pretty bare, while others were still covered in snow. This cute dog was waiting for its owner to return to his truck when we called in at Blackie.

The day before yesterday, 16 December 2014, was the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the town of High River. This town is SE of Calgary, roughly half an hour's drive from the southern edge of Calgary. My small group travelled in two cars, 8 people in total, and we covered the SE quadrant of the Count circle. I will add the report compiled by our leader, Gus Yaki. As usual, there were several of these sightings that I, myself, did not see. I ended up with poor photos of the things I did see - the day was absolutely beautiful, but the light was even worse than I had realized. If your computer monitor is smaller than mine, my images might look a little better : ) The amazing hoar frost, that covered everything, surprisingly lasted pretty well the whole day - usually, it lasts only a short time. So, even though the light wasn't good for photos, the hoar frost beauty stayed with us all day long - breathtaking. For our drive down to High River, we had fog which, in patches, was quite thick. Wondered if we would see anything at all when we reached our area, ha. It was cold and damp, too. In addition to that, some of the birds, such as the three Snowy Owls (I only saw two of them) were SO far away, there was no chance for photos except just for the record. Only 35 species were seen in the total for the complete Count circle. Of course, as always happens, I just had to take photos of anything else that caught my eye, including several barns, cloud formations, farm cats, and so on. These kittens were absolutely adorable!! I think there were five of them and they looked so healthy. When I was taking photos of them, I suddenly heard a voice from behind me, saying: "For every photo you take of these cats, you have to take one them with you!" The delightful woman who owned the farm was such a character, with a great sense of humour. I believe she said that these kittens had been dumped at her farm and she was feeding them - and they were costing her a fortune, lol. I wouldn't be surprised if they were eating the odd bird and mouse, too. They really were the cutest kittens. Couldn't believe it when I looked at my photos of them when I got home - all but perhaps two of them were horribly blurry, thanks to the poor light. We were looking in the bushes/shrubs at the edge of this farm, where a Northern Saw-whet Owl had been sighted last Christmas Count. No luck with an owl, but one of the birders spotted a male Merlin very high up on a power pole with a "cover", which made it look as if the bird was sitting under a hair dryer at a hair salon, lol. A short while later, it was spotted just down the road, perched on a fence post. Such a beautiful bird. We had finished our count by 5:00 pm, by which time it was completely dark. A few of us stayed for the delicious pot luck supper, mainly provided by the generous birding people down in High River. Lorrie and John gave a slide show of their recent trip to Africa. So many great shots of beautiful bird species that I have never seen. Thanks, Lorrie and John, for spending time going through all your slides at home and choosing a lovely selection for us. Many thanks, too, for driving Shirley and myself all day long! "HIGH RIVER CBC, SE quadrant, Frank Lk; E of #2, S of #23. 0830-1700, 16Dec2014. Overcast, heavy fog, created great hoarfrost on everything. Winds, variable direction, 10-15kph. -7°C. Ground mostly bare of snow; Little Bow River 95% frozen. 1. Mallard-1 f. 2. Scaup sp.- juv or f, likely Lesser-1 3. Gray Partridge-7 4. Ring-necked Pheasant-2 5. Bald Eagle-3 ( 2 ad/ 1 juv.) 6. Merlin-1 m. 7. Rock Pigeon-8 8. Great Horned Owl- 5 [an additional one seen N of Hwy 23, just W of Frank Lk exit at 16:56 pm.] 9. Snowy Owl-3 10. Downy Woodpecker-2 11. Northern Flicker-2 12. Black-billed Magpie-83 13. Common Raven-15 14. Horned Lark-20 15. Black-capped Chickadee-7 16. Common Redpoll-155 17. House Sparrow-669 18. 17 species of birds MAMMALS: Deer Mouse-1, deceased. White-tailed Jackrabbit-1 Mule Deer-25 White-tailed Deer-44 Total Km by car-111; by foot- 3. Total hours by car – 6; on foot-2.5 Gus Yaki" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I now have to work through all the photos I took yesterday on the Christmas Bird Count, get some of them edited and then sent in. Three more days and I go on the next Bird Count and will then have to go through all those photos and edit some to send. Two days after that, and I may go on a third Count outside the city. You would think that by now, after taking part in so many Christmas Bird Counts the last few years, I would have learned how to be organized enough to get all my dozens of overseas Christmas letters and cards finished and mailed before the very first Count. That just never seems to happen, somehow .... sigh.

Another photo of the adorable little kittens we saw on 16 December 2014. Though the quality isn't good, I couldn't resist posting this better shot of the grey kitten. I don't know what kind of cat it is, but it just looked so round and so soft. It's now 12:45 midnight and I have to set my alarm clocks and kitchen timer for about 4:00 am, when I need to get up and get ready for another annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. Tomorrow's count is the Nanton area, S of Calgary. Decided I would post my "daily three" images tonight instead of before I leave home in about five hours. All my recent photos have similar colours, so it's time for something different. I took different photos today, when I spent the whole day with my youngest daughter for our Christmas get-together. At her suggestion, we spent the day searching for Snowy Owls NE of the city and were very lucky to see 10 definitely different individuals and two possible others. Even found several different barns, too. Amazingly, we bumped into my friends, Cathy and Terry, and we spent the rest of the day driving the backroads behind them. Lots of fun - and such a coincidence! Just too tired out and short of time to go through my photos though, so they may have to wait another two or three days - I have another bird count on Tuesday 23rd, to the Drumheller area. So far, it looks like we should be getting snow on Christmas Eve day, when hopefully I can get a day at home and simply collapse from very long days and extreme shortage of sleep, lol! This photo was taken on 16 December 2014, which was the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the town of High River. This town is SE of Calgary, roughly half an hour's drive from the southern edge of Calgary. My small group travelled in two cars, 8 people in total, and we covered the SE quadrant of the Count circle. I will add the report compiled by our leader, Gus Yaki. As usual, there were several of these sightings that I, myself, did not see. I ended up with poor photos of most of the things that I did see - the day was absolutely beautiful, but the light was even worse than I had realized. If your computer monitor is smaller than mine, my images might look a little better : ) The amazing hoar frost, that covered everything, surprisingly lasted pretty well the whole day - usually, it lasts only a very short time. So, even though the light wasn't good for photos, the hoar frost beauty stayed with us all day long - breathtaking. For our drive down to High River, we had fog which, in patches, was quite thick. Wondered if we would see anything at all when we reached our area, ha. It was cold and damp, as well as foggy. In addition to that, some of the birds, such as the three Snowy Owls (I only saw two of them) were SO far away, there was no chance for photos except just for the record. Only 35 species were seen in the total for the complete Count circle. Of course, as always happens, I just had to take photos of anything else that caught my eye, including several barns, cloud formations, these farm cats, an old truck, scenery and so on. At another stop, we were looking in the bushes/shrubs at the edge of a different farm, where a Northern Saw-whet Owl had been sighted last Christmas Count. No luck with an owl, but one of the birders spotted a male Merlin very high up on a power pole. A short while later, it was spotted just down the road, perched on a fence post. Such a beautiful bird - but such lousy light! We had finished our count by 5:00 pm, by which time it was, of course, completely dark. A few of us stayed for the delicious pot luck supper, mainly provided by the generous birding people down in High River. Lorrie and John gave a slide show of their recent trip to Africa. So many great shots of beautiful bird species that I have never seen. Thanks, Lorrie and John, for spending time going through all your slides at home and choosing a lovely selection for us. Many thanks, too, for driving Shirley and myself all day long! "HIGH RIVER CBC, SE quadrant, Frank Lk; E of #2, S of #23. 0830-1700, 16Dec2014. Overcast, heavy fog, created great hoarfrost on everything. Winds, variable direction, 10-15kph. -7°C. Ground mostly bare of snow; Little Bow River 95% frozen. 1. Mallard-1 f. 2. Scaup sp.- juv or f, likely Lesser-1 3. Gray Partridge-7 4. Ring-necked Pheasant-2 5. Bald Eagle-3 ( 2 ad/ 1 juv.) 6. Merlin-1 m. 7. Rock Pigeon-8 8. Great Horned Owl- 5 [an additional one seen N of Hwy 23, just W of Frank Lk exit at 16:56 pm.] 9. Snowy Owl-3 10. Downy Woodpecker-2 11. Northern Flicker-2 12. Black-billed Magpie-83 13. Common Raven-15 14. Horned Lark-20 15. Black-capped Chickadee-7 16. Common Redpoll-155 17. House Sparrow-669 18. 17 species of birds MAMMALS: Deer Mouse-1, deceased. White-tailed Jackrabbit-1 Mule Deer-25 White-tailed Deer-44 Total Km by car-111; by foot- 3. Total hours by car – 6; on foot-2.5 Gus Yaki"

THIS year's annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the town of Nanton (roughly 98 km / 61 miles S of Calgary) was so different from last year's Count, with more snow mainly seen only from the higher roads, making the roads so much easier to drive, and temperatures that were much milder (-7C). As usual, I didn't get many birds photos, but I was very happy to get a shot or two of Sharp-tailed Grouse. I absolutely love the scenery on this Count, so I was able to get a few shots to show some typical landscapes. I usually manage to get the odd photo of a farm cat, too. The LAST Nanton Count was originally supposed to have taken place on 28 December 2013, but the weather forecast warned of a Flash Freeze, and so it was postponed till 5 January 2014. The weather was bright and sunny for us that day. However, photos taken on that day did not show how brutally cold it was! On the hour-long drive south of Calgary, we hit -34C (-29.2F)!!!!! It did eventually warm up a few degrees and thankfully, there was no or very little wind, which makes all the difference. The only walking we had to do was when we called in at various farms and homesteads. One backroad in particular had too much snow on it, so we had to leave that one out. Also, there was just too much snow in many of the farmyards, so we weren't able to check out all the trees and bushes as thoroughly as we would like to have done. After the Count, we returned to the meeting place at the home of Leah and Bill, where they had prepared a delicious supper that they so generously provide each year for us (as well as a breakfast snack). You couldn't wish for a nicer family (includes their son, Mike, who puts in a lot of effort organizing this annual Count each year). I'm posting Andrew Hart's E-bird Summary of our small (just four of us in one car) group's day (leader Tony Timmons). Won't be of interest to most of you, but it helps me remember what we see from year to year! Andrew Hart BirdLog Checklist Summary for: Dec 14, 2014 Number of Checklists: 7 Number of Species: 14 Checklists included in this summary: (1): Williams Coulee Date: Dec 21, 2014, 8:20 AM (2): CA-AB-Cayley - 50.3485x-114.0250 - Dec 21, 2014, 8:57 AM Date: Dec 21, 2014, 8:55 AM (3): Nanton general area Date: Dec 21, 2014, 9:45 AM (4): CA-AB-Nanton - 50.3330x-113.8737 - Dec 21, 2014, 11:18 AM Date: Dec 21, 2014, 11:18 AM (5): Nanton general area Date: Dec 21, 2014, 11:52 AM (6): Williams Coulee Date: Dec 21, 2014, 2:20 PM (7): Nanton general area Date: Dec 21, 2014, 2:30 PM 36 Sharp-tailed Grouse -- (2),(3) 6 Golden Eagle -- (1),(3),(5),(6) 3 Rough-legged Hawk -- (2),(3),(6) 102 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) -- (3),(4) 1 Hairy Woodpecker -- (1) 1 Northern Flicker (Red-shafted) -- (4) 1 Merlin -- (4) 1 Prairie Falcon -- (1) 27 Black-billed Magpie -- (1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(7) 42 Common Raven -- (1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(7) 11 Black-capped Chickadee -- (3),(4) 4 European Starling -- (4) 21 Common Redpoll -- (4) 38 House Sparrow -- (2),(4),(7) Andrew Hart" I will also add leader Tony Timmons' account - simpler to read : ) A few of the numbers are slightly different in each summary, though I'm not quite sure why. We were so lucky to see so many Golden Eagles this Count. "Nanton Count-Area D Species 14 Rough-legged Hawk 3 Golden Eagle 5 Merlin 1 Sharp-tailed Grouse 46 Rock Pigeon 106 Hairy Woodpecker 1 Northern Flicker 1 Northern Shrike 1 Black-billed Magpie 36 Common Raven 44 Black-capped Chickadee 11 Common Redpoll 21 European Starling 4 House Sparrow 38 Prairie Falcon 1 Seen in Williams Coulee, included in Area B Tony Timmons"

We saw this unusual sight on 12 February 2015, which was spent SE of the city, with friends Cathy and Terry. I think this has to be the first time I've ever seen a cat on the roof of an old barn. My friends picked me up around 7:00 am and I think I was home somewhere around 7:30 pm, after a great day of searching for owls, barns, and anything else that caught our eye. The weather was beautiful, as you can see in this photo.. The temperature reached a brief high of 13C around 1:00 and 2:00 pm, which felt so good, especially for mid-winter. Many of the roads we travelled along were roads that I had driven on myself, some of them a number of times. A few of the roads were new to me, which was a treat, including a "trail" that was so deeply rutted and snow-covered that I'm amazed that we ever got out of there! This track and another backroad that was new to me led to a few old barns that I really appreciated being shown. I think my friends were amused that I fell asleep on this very rough track - after only an hour and a half's sleep the previous night, on top of always being very sleep-deprived, I'm really not surprised. It's strange how some fields in the whole area were more or less bare and yet others had a lot of snow covering the stubble, with piles of snow lining the edges of the road. As far as wildlife was concerned, we saw 11 owls - 8 Snowy Owls and 3 Great Horned Owls. The Snowies, other than the one perched on the "Wrong Way" sign that I posted yesterday, were all extremely distant, so my photos are of white specks in a nice setting, ha. If I hadn't been with two people who can spot "everything", I'm sure that I would never have found most of these owls! Other birds included a flock of Snow Buntings, plus two individuals that were perched on a fence - haven't checked yet to see if I have a sharp enough photo. Another bird we saw was a beautiful Falcon perched on an electricity pylon - not a large bird, so presumably a Prairie Falcon, not a Gyrfalcon. Also a group of Grey Partridge that suddenly flew before we had noticed them. We had to deal with a lot of heat distortion during the day, so some photos are far from sharp. Many thanks, as always, Cathy and Terry, for a great day out, including the delicious chili you made and brought along. A fun and rewarding day! Really appreciated being with you, doing what we all enjoy so much. Thanks, too, for patiently giving me time to photograph the various barns we came across!

Thought I would take a quick break from posting photos recently taken in Waterton Lakes National Park and, instead, add three photos taken yesterday, east of the city. (Adding for my own record - the Western Kingbird photo I posted today is my main photo, i.e., the very last photo uploaded. If you see this cat shot as my main image, then Flickr is playing tricks again, as it has done several times recently!). Just had this reply on the Help Forum: "For Your contacts that look at Your photostream the order of the photos depends on which order they choose. If they choose "date taken" they will see the photos in this order and not in the order "date uploaded". I didn't know you could change the order view on someone's else's photos. A large group of us went east of Calgary to a friend's wonderful property out on the prairies. Down an embankment from her house and extensive yard lies a beautiful wetland, which is part of their property. The temperature yesterday was 32C (90F), but there was a very welcome, gentle breeze, which made it bearable. Much more pleasant than inside my house, which felt like an oven. Couldn't resist taking a few photos of Lyn's cat, who was out in the garden "stalking" a dead, dried up animal that looked rather like a baby Ground Squirrel. Not the best light, and my photos came out with a very unpleasant green cast that I couldn't completely get rid of. We spent a few hours watching and photographing the distant birds, with some people making a very careful list of the birds seen at this location. An absolute little gem of a place, with 57 species of birds seen (as usual, there were many that I did not see, without binoculars). I will add the list compiled by our leader, Gus Yaki. 1. Canada Goose-7 2. Gadwall-150 3. Am. Wigeon-22 4. Mallard-7 5. Blue-winged Teal-150 6. Cinnamon Teal-30 7. Northern Shoveler-55 8. Northern Pintail-4 9. Green-winged Teal-5 10. Canvasback-1 11. Redhead-2 12. Lesser Scaup-24 13. Bufflehead-4 14. Ruddy Duck-1 f. 15. Am. White Pelican-1 16. Great Blue Heron-1 17. Black-crowned Night-Heron-1 18. White-faced Ibis-22 19. Swainson’s Hawk-3 20, Red-tailed Hawk-2 21. American Coot-1 22. Killdeer-26 23. Black-necked Stilt-25 24. American Avocet-85 25. Greater Yellowlegs-25, Southbound Autumn Migrants. 26. Lesser Yellowlegs-40, “ “ “ 27. Solitary Sandpiper-4, “ “ “ 28. Willet-8 29. Marbled Godwit-10 30. Baird’s? Sandpiper-1, “ “ “ 31. Wilson’s Phalarope-26 32. Franklin’s Gull-800 33. Ring-billed Gull-3 34. California Gull-1 35. Forster’s Tern-2 36. Black Tern-2 37. Mourning Dove-3 38. Northern Flicker-1 39. Least Flycatcher-2 40. Western Kingbird-2 41. Eastern Kingbird-1 42. Warbling Vireo-1 43. Black-billed Magpie-8 44. Tree Swallow-10 45. Bank Swallow-7 46. Barn Swallow-2 47. House Wren-2 48. American Robin-10 49. European Starling-40 50. Yellow Warbler-2 51. Clay-colored Sparrow-1 52. Red-winged Blackbird-40 53. Yellow-headed Blackbird-11 54. Common Grackle-12 55. Brown-headed Cowbird-3 56. Baltimore Oriole-2 57. House Sparrow-40 Many thanks, Lyn, for inviting us to come and see your beautiful property! What a treat. You certainly have an amazing variety of birds. Thanks, too, to the friends who gave me a ride - always greatly appreciated!

Happy 4th July to all Americans, everywhere! Took this photo yesterday, 3 July 2015, when four of us were lucky enough to visit and botanize the farm belonging to Meghan Vesey and Kwesi Haizel. This 53 acre farm, Akesi Farm, is a 90 minute drive from downtown Calgary and is near the town of Sundre, NW of Calgary. It is permaculture based with future crops of eggs, mushrooms, fruits and nuts! Hard to believe that this beautiful place has only belonged to this young, hardworking, enthusiastic couple since November 2014. A tremendous amount of work, thought and planning has already gone into adding to what was already there, with a little help from family and friends. Meghan walked with us to show us the different parts of the acreage - forest and grassland. Everything seen was listed, including plants, birds, fungi, insects, animals and so on. This list will then be given to Meghan and Kwesi, along with any photos taken while we were there for the day. We are always happy to visit someone's land and compile a very detailed list of our findings for them. It's always a win/win situation - we enjoy what we are doing and love to explore a new location, and the owner ends up with a record of what was found on their property. There are several wooden buildings on their property, including this large, fine barn which I had been longing to see. As you can see from this photo, the weather was beautiful, though still much too hot for me. Having been out on several outdoor trips recently in very hot weather, as well as being home in a place that felt like an oven, I really was not feeling all that great yesterday and perhaps did a bit too much walking. I do have to also mention that we had the company of their three gorgeous dogs and one cat. The one seen in this photo is Zakyra, who must have been so hot under all that thick fur. Meghan says: "She knows the boundaries and “works” all night. During the day, she can be quite lazy! At night, Zakyra can be heard barking all over the property keeping wildlife away from the chickens and geese. Zakyra became 'our dog' when we moved in. She is a very loving and special dog." As for the cat, she followed us when we were walking around one of the ponds near the house, obviously hunting for "something". At one point, she disappeared a short way up one of the trees, only to come flying out of it a few seconds later. Judging by her behaviour afterwards, I suspected she had been stung in the eye by one of the bees and, sure enough, that's what had happened, poor thing. We were treated royally when we sat down outside to thoroughly enjoy and appreciate a delicious lunch of different salads and goodies - and cold lemonade that was more than welcome! Thank you so much, Meghan, Kwesi and Meghan's mother, Maurita, for all the work you put into preparing this feast for us - most generous! We all wish you the very best with your endeavours. With such hard work and obvious enthusiasm, I'm sure you will do well. On the way home, we stopped and walked down to the Elkton Bog. I had been there before, maybe a couple of times. We wanted to see how wet or dry the area was, at the same time seeing a few plants including carnivorous Sundew and Cotton Grass. This walk on extremely uneven ground (and wet in many places) finished me off for the day - I was utterly, totally, completely exhausted!!

Today, I'm again leaving my Waterton images and instead adding three more photos taken two days ago (23 July 2015), closer to home. Five of us spent the day botanizing the land belonging to Darryl Teskey, SW of Calgary and W of Millarville (maybe a 40-minute drive from the city). This was the first time I had been there and I'm so glad I went - I would have missed all sorts of things, including a family of Ruffed Grouse and several fungi. The Grouse are rufous-morph, I believe, and we startled them when we were walking through the forest in their direction. Usually, you don't see Grouse because they are so well-hidden. When you get fairly close (sometimes very close) to them, they suddenly "explode" from the tangle of shrubs and plants of the forest floor, making ones heart beat fast! The family has four beautiful dogs of various breeds (at least, we only saw four). They were all very friendly, including this huge bundle of love : ) Our walk took us over grassland and through forest, everywhere treacherous with so many fallen logs which were often barely visible. I have never, ever seen so many tiny Skipper butterflies - there must have been hundreds or even thousands of these bright orange beauties that were flying or perched on flowers of every colour. Fortunately, the rain stayed away until we started driving back to Calgary. Quite a lot of black clouds, reminding me of the tornado that passed through Calgary just the day before (22 July 2015). Our purpose, as always, was to find and list everything that we saw - wildflowers, trees, grasses, birds, insects, fungi, etc.. Our leader then compiles an extensive list of our finds and this is later sent to the landowner, along with any photos that we might take. Always a win/win situation, as the landowner then has a much better idea of just what is on his property, and we have a most enjoyable day. This summer, with so many botanizing outings like this, plus two 3-day trips to Waterton Lakes National Park, I am so behind with the photos that I need to edit and e-mail!