Winter

I always love seeing ice pillars that form along the edge of the Bow River and hang over the water. These ones were seen during a three-hour walk at Lafarge Meadows, Fish Creek Park, on 11 February 2013.

The surface of the snow today was shaped into "dunes" by the strong, bitter wind, that chilled the fingers in seconds.

Again, the rather sepia colouring reminds me of sand by the ocean, leaving footprints that soon become shapeless.

A few more months before these benches have the chance to be used for seating people who wish to listen to an outdoor talk.

To those of you who have just survived recent, dreadfully cold weather, I hope the following few photos don't make you shiver. To those of you who live in places where the heat feels overwhelming at the moment, perhaps these images will cool you down a little! This close-up is of a White-breasted Nuthatch. It felt so good this afternoon to finally get out for a walk - the sky was our typical, bright blue, Calgary sky. The two adult Great Horned Owls were once again sitting in their usual, cozy spot in the tall spruce tree. The Chickadees were wilder than I think I have ever experienced - sitting on my fingers that clutched my camera to my face, perching on top of my head, hovering in front of my lens. The White-breasted Nuthatch flew down again to my hand, as it had done for the first time last week. Perhaps most exciting of all, when I happened to glance down at my gloved hand the one time, I found myself staring at a little Downy Woodpecker clinging to the fingers. I hadn't noticed it around and didn't have my camera at the ready. Like a chicken without its head, I clicked, hoping for proof that at long last one of these birds had sat on my hand! She didn't seem much bigger than the Nuthatches. One very bad photo later, she vanished for the day.

I still appreciated the bright splash of colour in an otherwise white and blue landscape.

Happened to catch one isolated morning of hoare frost in one of my favourite parks along the Bow River. These frost-covered trees seemed to be floating between sky and water. Quite beautiful!

Another photo of the very small McDougall Church at Morley, on the way from Calgary to Banff. You can see the beginning of the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

I stood and watched as the strong, icy wind blew the snow horizontally across the ground, forming "snow dunes". When I looked at this photo when I got home, it occurred to me that the slightly sepia colouring made it almost look like the desert sands.