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I came across these four very young Gophers (Richardson's Groundsquirrels) on my walk to see "my " baby Great Horned Owl this afternoon. I was able to get quite close - these innocent little things simply froze. I guess they have a lot to learn, as their parents disappear down into the burrow like a shot. When I was back home, a friend phoned to say that if I wanted to get some really good shots, I should go where he had just been - a picnic area in another part of the park. He said he had seen young Gophers who froze and in fact he was able to gently reach out and stroke one of them. I said that I had just been taking photos of other little ones. The way nature works, though, is that these cute little animals will perhaps provide "my" Great Horned Owls with a few meals!

Though not my usual kind of photography (wildlife, wildflowers, and so on), the roses I treated myself to have given me lots of pleasure with my camera.

The original colour of this flower is creamy white with medium pink. Not sure how it changed colour in my camera!

Not very in-focus, unfortunately!

Thanks for everyone's patience as I post a photo of yet another Rose!! June is the wettest month of the year for us here, so I might just have to resort to buying another bunch or two of flowers if we continue to get rain. Yesterday, Calgary had dreadful flooding. Our average total precipitation for the month of June is something like 76 mm and yesterday 98.6 mm fell in just 18 hours!! Felt a little too much like the major flooding of June 2005 for everyone's liking.

Two flowers from the most recent bunch of roses that I bought from Safeway. I just cannot get either of my digital cameras to record the accurate colour, which is so disappointing.

Kicking myself for not including more of the right hand side of the rose, but I love the colour!

Another close-up from the most recent bunch of flowers I bought at Safeway. For once, the petals are much more in focus!

Isn't this baby Mountain Bluebird just the cutest little thing? It's only one or two days old and has these most amazing hair-like feathers. The sun was gleaming through these fine hairs - not sure why the background is black but it does show off all the silver down. Yesterday evening, I went with a gentleman who has had a Bluebird nesting box route for something like 25 years, recording and banding the various birds he finds. These include Tree Swallows, too. Apparently, in all these years, this gentleman has never known a mother to abandon her babies after they have been picked up and banded. The Mountain Bluebird population was dropping drastically but, thanks to this nesting box program, their numbers are increasing again. By the way, this is not MY hand! This is the third year in a row that I have gone on this short drive south of the city and I enjoy it every time. Actually, this time, there was an added bonus - we were shown a flying squirrel that has taken over a nesting box.