There's hope yet

Two days ago, a handful of us went north west of Calgary to a natural area, Sundre Natural Area, to record all plants, birds and wildlife seen during the day there. These small mushrooms are hardly spectacularly photogenic - but, hey, they ARE mushrooms! It seems that we might come across one fungus on a day's outing at the moment. Really, really hoping that this will improve in the next few weeks! These were such a beautiful colour and shiny, and definitely better than seeing nothing.

Thank goodness I didn't sleep right through an hour of blaring, alarm clock music this morning, which is what I did yesterday morning (plus another hour and a half) and consequently missed a day trip with a few friends to Bow Valley Provincial Park. The University of Calgary held their Open House at their Field Station in Kananaskis today - near Barrier Lake. Four of us went to the mountains for this and enjoyed going on a botanizing walk first on our own. Then two of us went on a Butterfly walk with a young, very knowledgeable guy named Steve, who is at the Station for part of the year. We saw several different butterflies and two or three other insects - and we made it rain, LOL! The wildflowers are just so spectacular at the moment - a joy to see so many bright orange Western Wood Lilies. Absolute food for the soul!