Nearing its end

Four days ago, my daughter and I spent the day driving a large area NW of Calgary - a round trip of 338 km. The perfect way to celebrate my birthday : ) Most of the roads were roads that I had driven before, but my daughter had never been to most of the area. I had never driven to Big Hill Springs Provincial Park, but had been several times on birding trips with friends a few years ago.

I had really, really hoped to find a Great Gray Owl that day, as my daughter has never seen one in the wild. No luck, even though I knew a few areas NW of the city to check. In fact, we saw so few birds of any kind! I'm always thankful that we both enjoy taking photos of all sorts of things, including old barns. I think this one was along Highway 22, the Cowboy Trail.

Our little adventure started off in hopes of seeing a Red Fox family (out of luck), then driving the Grand Valley Rd and area. We stopped at Wynchell Lake, where my daughter spotted a Great Blue Heron and a very distant Kingfisher perched on a piece of driftwood. Also some kind of shorebird. She has great eyes for spotting things!

From there, we travelled eastwards and eventually reached Big Hill Springs Provincial Park. I had been hoping that there might at least be some wildflowers in bloom, but Dandelions were all we saw all day! Plenty of green foliage everywhere, but no flowers. Since the day of this trip, Alberta is now under a province-wide fire ban thanks to the lack of rain. Everywhere is bone dry, which of course is affecting the growth of plants. After I had dropped my daughter off at home, I did get some rain on my drive home - there were even snowflakes mixed in with the rain!

Another thing I saw on my drive home, while stopped at a traffic light, were four Jack Rabbits that had fun chasing each other round the base of a huge Spruce tree near the edge of the road and then they all ran across the road in single file between my car and the car in front. They were so, so cute : )