Elbow Falls Trail

I remember being surprised when I came across several stalks of Red Clover deep in the woods at Maclean Pond, off Elbow Falls Trail (Highway 66). The sun just happened to pierce the trees in this one spot : ). I guess I just didn't expect to see Red Clover growing there - don't ask me why! This member of the Pea family is an introduced plant from Europe.

... or rather, part of the family, as there were a few more young ones on Forgetmenot Pond as well, just a short distance from Mom and siblings. This Pond is at the far end of Elbow Falls Trail (Highway 66) in the mountains. This man-made lake has the most gorgeous coloured water - as you can see, a beautiful turquoise. I like to take my picnic lunch here - takes maybe 45 minutes to an hour to drive from home. I tend to drive straight there to make sure I can enjoy it in sunshine in case rain clouds develop. Then I call in at various places on the drive back towards home.

The flower of the Blue-eyed Grass wildflower are so pretty and so small. Each flower is about 2 cm diameter, with six purplish tepals with a yellowish base and yellow stamens. This species belongs to the Iridaceae family. The flowers close in the afternoon, and then are far more difficult to find. Photographed (macro) this one near the Ing's Mine parking lot, off Elbow Falls Trail (Highway 66), west of the city, on July 17th. talkaboutwildlife.ca/profile/?s=1063

I took this photo five years ago and am posting it now because I just haven't managed to get back to this particular location again in the last few weeks. Too many full-day botanizing trips and then heavy rainfall in between have kept me from driving out ot the mountains to check on a small area of unusual Paintbrush. Mark, if you see this, these particular flowers were growing near the ones in the other photos already posted on Flickr. Sorry I'm taking so long to help, but I'm really hoping to get back to that site soon!

"The name Dodecatheon has its roots in the Greek words twelve (dodeka) and gods (theos). Pliny gave this name to a spring flower, thought to be the primrose, which was under the protection of the twelve principal gods." I think I'm right in saying that we get two species of Shootingstar here, but I can never remember which is which. Found and (macro) photographed this individual flower out in Kananaskis, at Maclean Pond, on June 10th. Just love the colour of the magenta sepals. If you have time, you might enjoy watching this short video of a young Lowland Gorilla at the Calgary Zoo who loves break-dancing. Her spins and fancy footwork are amazing! shar.es/Hdj4D

It takes roughly 40 minutes to drive from home to this beautiful scenery. The road up here is just a rough, gravel "road" and quite steep to drive back down. I was surprised to see just how high up I was when I caught sight of the "main" road below on the right.

These beautiful, small butterflies prefer mud and sap to flowers (and sometimes dung, aphid honeydew or spoiled fruit). This is one of my favourite kinds of butterfly, because of the unusual shape of the wing edges and the brilliant orange colour. I found this one in the gravel parking lot at Maclean Pond, Kananaskis.

I always find the seedheads of the Yellow Mountain-avens quite fascinating and certainly beautiful. These plants grow along river banks and flats, on gravel slopes and roadsides. The elongated styles become feathery after pollination has taken place and are often twisted together when the fruit is immature. I love to see them in this twisted state. The plants in my photo happened to be growiing on the bank of the river near Forgetmenot Pond, which gave the background blue colour and the sparkling waterdroplets in the bokeh.

When I drive westwards on Highway 22X and into the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, I usually never stop at Allen Bill Pond. There are often a lot of fishermen there and I'm sure they wouldn't be impressed if I was walking down near the water's edge to take photos, LOL. Today, however, there was only one car, so I decided to walk around the pond. The water was so calm and I shot these reflections before there was any wind at all. Seen against the distant trees and rock face, these skeleton trees almost looked as if they were covered in snow/frost.