Fish Creek Park 3

Took a number of photos of this little Red Squirrel yesterday afternoon, when I couldn't find the Northern Pygmy-owl for quite a while. Didn't want to go home without any new photos, LOL! It has part of a seed caught in the fur of its right hand.

LOL, I still come across an occasional mushroom photo in my fairly recent archives and want to add it to my Fungi Set. Just wait till next year, for the fungi season - then you can get REALLY sick of my fungi photos : )

I was happy to come across this Water Smartweed on my walk yesterday. Fortunately, some of it was growing close to the water's edge in the tiny wetland.

This is what I came across on one of my local walks. Once my knees lost some of their weakness, I plucked up the courage to lean forward and just kept clicking. The weather wasn't particularly warm, so fortunately the snake was too cold to move.

Down by the Bow River on a beautiful winter morning last year.

I am always so thrilled to bits when, on the very rare occasion, I come across one of these gorgeous caterpillars. My youngest daughter has always loved these colourful caterpillars, too, so they always remind me of her. They grow to about 4 cm long. The first caterpillars are out by early August and last well into September. This species over-winters as pupae and, in Alberta, the very drab adults are flying in June and July. These Woolly Bear caterpillars turn into Spotted Tussock Moths.

This small pinecone looked as if it might have been dropped by one of the Red Squirrels that call Bebo Grove "home". The snow really glistened, more than perhaps my photo shows.

As we don't have Maple trees here, the lowly Wild Gooseberry has to serve as a substitute for me when it comes to glorious red leaves in the fall. This prickly stemmed shrub grows up to 2 metres tall and I always love to see the small, brilliant red leaves at this time of year. Came across this bush just a few minutes after passing bear scat (full of berries) on the ground. Judging by its appearance, it must have been deposited by a BIG bear, LOL! Bears seem to be being seen in a number of places at the moment, including a Black Bear that walked into my local hospital a few days ago and another that went into someone's open garage after a bag of garbage. Makes me a little nervous when I go off for a walk :)

Though Black Henbane is a noxious weed, the urn-shaped seedpods fascinate me. This plant only reproduces by seed and one plant can produce 10,000 to 500,000 black seeds that are scattered when the thickened lid of the seedpod pops off!