Like rays of sunshine

This is another photo from my archives, found last night, taken on 21 July 2013 at Bow Valley Provincial Park. This is a flower that catches the eye, both by its size and its vibrant colour.

Five of us had such a great day on 21 July 2013. It was a birding outing at Bow Valley Provincial Park, west of Calgary, at the foot of the very eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. I knew that I would be looking for wildflowers, insects and so on, as well : ) This gorgeous Gaillardia flower caught my eye and I couldn’t resist taking a photo.

When we got to the meeting place in the city, the leader pulled out a poster for the Parks Day event that also happened to be going on at the park at the same time. To my absolute delight, it mentioned a Bird of Prey exhibit! After our first walk, which was the Flowing Waters trail, we returned to where everyone had parked and we had an hour in which to wander round the various exhibits. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a row of owls of different sizes - a tiny Burrowing Owl, a Short-eared Owl, a Barn Owl (which we don't get in Alberta), a young Great Horned Owl with enormous eyes, a Turkey Vulture and a Golden Eagle! They were tethered along the edge of the trees and needless to say, there were plenty of other people taking photos, but despite the mix of shade and harsh sunlight, I got the chance to click to my heart's content : )

Thanks so much to the people down at the Coaldale Bird of Prey Centre (near Lethbridge, down towards the Canada/US border) for bringing your gorgeous birds of prey for us to see! I have been south to the Centre three times I think, and always long to go back again, but it's not somewhere I can drive to, so this was such a treat! Seeing these bird Ambassadors gives people such a wonderful chance to really see what they look like.

“Gaillardia /ɡeɪˈlɑrdiə/, the blanket flowers, is a genus of flowering plants in the sunflower family, Asteraceae, native to North and South America. It was named after an M. Gaillard de Charentonneau, an 18th-century French magistrate who was a patron of botany. The common name may refer to the resemblance of the inflorescence to the brightly patterned blankets made by Native Americans, or to the ability of wild taxa to blanket the ground with colonies. Many cultivars have been bred for ornamental use.” From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaillardia