Birds of Alberta 6

A little Red-breasted Nuthatch paying a visit to a friend during a walk at Bebo Grove, Fish Creek Park, on November 11th. As I type this, snow is gently falling - again : )

"Just" a lovely female Mallard enjoying a little sunny break at the pond in the Canadian Wilds at the Calgary Zoo, on October 8th.

Such a distant and very heavily cropped image of this tiny, rare to uncommon (in Alberta) owl, so it's very poor quality. However, you take what you can get with this tiny, fist-sized owl, lol! Taken two days ago in Fish Creek Park. It sat on a branch maybe two feet away from the branch in this photo, for three hours on Tuesday morning, with a windchill of -22C, and then flew to this nearby branch, so at least I got a few slightly different photos. Brutal weather, especially when one is standing still. Some of us went to look again this morning, but no sign at all of this beautiful little bird of prey. This photo at this size shows the owl at very roughly half its actual size. So, pretty small, don't you think? This afternoon, our temperature is 4C (39F) and it feels wonderful!!! Has anyone seen this video of some very clever painting, by Holton Rower? From YouTube. My son had it displayed on his Facebook page. www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6egUsZvWu4

An image that has been cropped to almost nothing, lol, so the quality is really bad. However, it is so rare that I get the chance to photograph a Merlin, so wanted it for my Birds of Alberta Set. This one was seen at Votier's Flats , Fish Creek Park, two days ago.

Not good quality as the light was so bad, but there is still something I like about this image - colouring, bokeh? Just one of the many little Black-capped Chickadees down at Bebo Grove, Fish Creek Park, on Thursday morning.

On Saturday, I made myself take a short break from copying e-mails, and dashed over to a local park. No sign of the little Northern Pygmy-owl, but this beautiful Pileated Woodpecker was working hard at finding ants. I was hoping she might come down lower on the tree trunk, which had no messy tangle of branches, but no, she was happy where she was, high up in the tree : )

Haven't seen this tiny Northern Pygmy-owl for quite a while now, but thought I'd post this image that I took on February 5th in Fish Creek Park. When you look at the photo at this size, you are seeing this bird at very roughly life-size (i.e. fist-sized or popcan-sized). Unless it flies, you are extremely unlikely to ever find this tiny (rare to uncommon in Alberta) bird - unless you are very, very lucky : ) This is heavily cropped, as usual. googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-2229...

Another very distant, heavily cropped shot of one of the two (?) tiny Northern Pygmy-owls in Fish Creek Park, taken the day before yesterday. It was also very overcast - that is, until I was driving home, and the sun came out, ha. I was so desperate to get out for a walk, after being glued to my computer for the last two months. I checked two or three of the "usual" places that I had seen this owl previously, but no sign at all. Knew I needed to get back home to deal with urgent matters, so headed off in the direction of my car. Something stopped me dead in my tracks and when I turned to my right, there, in a distant tree, sat a familiar round shape, looking like nothing but a dark silhouette. Heavily cropped, grainy - who cares? Always such a thrill to see this beautiful little owl, with its piercing eyes. In case anyone who is not familiar with this tiny bird of prey happens to look at this image, this owl is the size of a person's fist or a popcan. Imagine trying to photograph a popcan in a distant tree, lol. Imagine trying to find this rare to uncommon (in Alberta) bird in the first place, ha. It sure kept a broad grin on my face for the rest of the day. Love its little, short tail : ) Then came yesterday, which was spent trying to get my printer/scanner to work! I bought this about a year ago, took maybe five months before I really had time to want to get it set up. I don't usually print or scan things, but have desperately needed it to work the past two months, to get important documents and photos in connection with my Brother's death, over to England. I hadn't realized that you needed to use the CD in order to change the resolution of a scan. Well, what a performance that was, trying to get that to work. I'd get a message telling me to install the software, but then that wouldn't work either. Tried to install it again, and it told me it was already installed, but then when I tried to use it, it told me to install it. After spending a few hours messing around with this, I finally went back to the store to ask what to do. The helpful young man told me to go to the HP website and download the latest driver plus the complete software package. A few hours later, it seemed to be working, thank goodness! Now I am keeping my fingers tightly crossed that nothing else "goes wrong" with my computer. That corrupt Inbox was already way more than I needed, to put it very mildly : ) A thousand new hairs turn grey every time I have to deal with something like this, ha, ha!!! Now I need to deal with a pile of legal papers that are way, way overdue. Some of you may have already seen this video, about our planet and what we are doing to it. I haven't yet watch all of it, but it is exceptionally beautifully filmed. HOME, a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand (93 minutes). www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

I do have to laugh when I see my various photos of this tiny Northern Pygmy-owl. It looks as if I am standing just below it, when in fact this little guy was perched on a very distant branch! So far away that I couldn't usually see which way its head was pointing. Just took lots of photos, hoping that it would be pointing my way in at least a few of the shots. And of course, it really doesn't have a tinge of green and purple in its feathers - just nasty chromatic aberation from pointing my camera up towards a totally overcast sky, lol. However, isn't it cute? Seen down in Fish Creek Park at Bebo Grove on February 21st. It was the weirdest thing, because I was walking along the path heading for my car, when I just stopped suddenly in my tracks, and when I turned to my right, there in the far distance sat a familiar little "ball", looking very much like a small wasp's nest on a branch.