Happy Birthday, Rachel, 12-12-12

Happy Birthday to my youngest daughter today!

12-12-12 is the last major numerical date using the Gregorian or Christian calendar for a long, long time. The next time three numbers will align as they did on 9-9-09, 10-10-10 and 11-11-11 will be on Jan. 1, 3001, or 1-1-1.

This Snowy Owl was the fourth and last Snowy that friends and I saw on 7 December 2012, when we went for a drive east of the city, hoping to find even just one of these amazing owls. This one looked and acted like a juvenile, being quite curious about us in a rather cute way. Maybe a young male?

Yes, blue sky would have been nice, but I'll take a white sky any day if it has a beautiful Snowy Owl in front of it : ) We have a white sky again today and it's snowing, again. Have to get over to my volunteer shift, so I'm really hoping that the roads won't be too bad. It's -10C, windchill -15C. So far, the forecast looks reasonable for the weekend, when I will have two full days of the annual Christmas Bird Counts, one in the city and the other in the mountains.

What has Flickr done to the options at the top of the page - the word "Home" has been removed, and also the Search for a person. What on earth was wrong with how it was before??? These little changes are just so annoying - not to mention unnecessary!