Birds of Alberta 2

This is a female Snowy Owl (adult males are pure white but females have this heavy, dark brown barring). My friend found it for us east of Calgary, in the Langdon area, yesterday afternoon, along with four Short-eared Owls a little further on. I feel rather bad, as I didn't do the greatest job of photographing this owl after all the trouble my friend went to in finding it (light was a little dim for my point-and-shoot, I suspect). They are such spectacular birds and they just take your breath away! This photo is almost identical to photos taken by other people. Almost always sitting on one of these poles! My photo when the owl was looking straight at us came out a little blurred, so I thought I'd post this less spectacular pose but at least it's a little more pleasant on the eyes! The same friend found a beautiful, pure white male Snowy Owl last winter and I posted a photo of that one a while ago.

A friend very kindly invited me to go with him yesterday afternoon in search of Snowy Owls and Short-eared Owls. He found us one Snowy Owl and four Short-eared Owls east of the city, near Langdon, at Weed Lake. The latter spent most of the time flying low over the field, searching for food. Occasionally, one would perch on a distant fence post or on top of a very tall pole - key words here are "distant" and "tall"! I managed to get about four OK photos that were very distant and so are heavily cropped. Good enough for ID purposes, though, and for memories of such a great sighting. I really hope all these birds survive, as they sometimes swooped down low across the road when a vehicle was approaching, they were so intent on their hunt.

A friend very kindly invited me to go with him yesterday afternoon in search of Snowy Owls and Short-eared Owls. He found us one Snowy Owl and four Short-eared Owls east of the city, near Langdon, at Weed Lake. The latter spent most of the time flying low over the field, searching for food. Occasionally, one would perch on a distant fence post or on top of a very tall pole - key words here are "distant" and "tall"! I managed to get about four OK photos that were very distant and so are heavily cropped. Good enough for ID purposes, though, and for memories of such a great sighting. I really hope all these birds survive, as they sometimes swooped down low across the road when a vehicle was approaching, they were so intent on their hunt.

I was not allowed to approach these youngsters too closely. Don't know if it was the father or a second female who noisily kept me at a reasonable distance.

A Common Mallard male, posing very conveniently for me. The colouring in this series of photos (others posted previously) is very different from my usual Mallard photos, due partly to the grey water.

Who can resist fluffy, yellow Canada Goose goslings? These happened to be at the Calgary Zoo, May 2005. The nearby father (?) was extremely protective of them.

Another of the very distant photos I took the other day of one of the four Short-eared Owls found east of Calgary. Wasn't sure whether to post this photo but I like the sky colouring! Also, I'm not likely to get a close photo of one of these birds, other than the one seen at the Calgary Zoo.

I was hoping my usual little Downy Woodpecker might fly down to my hand this morning, but the weather was SO cold that I just had to leave and go home.

These White-breasted Nuthatches have large claws to help them when they walk down tree trunks head first! Danny, this is one of YOUR Nuthatches. The highest this got in Explore was #201 on 1st February 2007.