In order of Interestingness, Flickr

On a fairly recent visit to the Calgary Zoo, on September 26th, I happened to notice some very pretty bokeh hiding behind one of the enormous leaves of a tropical plant in the ENMAX Conservatory : ) Later, in the evening ... is anyone else having a problem with Flickr being ridiculously slow? Whatever I click on takes forever to open. Think I will have to give up.

A friend and I spent part of today driving the gravel roads east of the city, including the Irricana and Shepard areas. Snowy Owls had been reported recently, so off we went in the hopes of possibly finding one. Well, we were so lucky, seeing three different ones. This is the first one, then we saw the next one on a fence post way across a field. The third one was perched high up (like the one in the image above) on a tangle of wires, so really not a very beautiful setting : ) Always SO amazing to see a Snowy Owl, especially on a lovely sunny day. Not the sharpest of images because of pointing my camera up towards the sky, but I'll take any image that I manage to get of one of these magnificent owls : )

Another shot of this glorious pink Gerbera with the narrow petals. I'd never seen one like this before, and I haven't seen one since. Thank you, Safeway, from whom I bought this beauty.

Have been feeling really unwell the last 7-10 days, so the very last thing I should have done was to drive to a new area by myself on a -20C day, LOL! I've battled a phobia of driving the last 31 years, so plucking up courage to do this drive meant a lot to me. Felt so good to have done it. Wonderfully, I bumped into a couple of friends who were already at the location, so there was someone to chat with while we stood and waited and waited and waited for this gorgeous Northern Hawk Owl to do something, ha, ha! They also very kindly brought back a cup of hot coffee for me when they drove into Cochrane for a quick break. We did see three of these owls along the stretch of road, but they were perched a long way away. Maybe they, too, were feeling the cold. The one above was in fact perched in a row of trees with masses of tangled branches, but I was lucky to just be able to shoot from the road, through a small gap. Greatly cropped, of course : ) Looks like it had had a fairly recent snack, judging by the colour of its beak. Takes about an hour and a quarter to drive here, north of the city. It was unbearably cold and I was still on the verge of shivering eight hours after getting home. As I said, not the wisest outing when sick : ) Can't wait to do it again, though, especially as our weather is supposed to warm up for a few days.

I guess cold temperatures are not a problem to these cute Red Pandas, which have a Conservation Status of Vulnerable. This one is at the Calgary Zoo. "Red Pandas live in the slopes of the south of the Himalayas and the mountainous forests of the southwest of China, at altitudes of up to 4,800 meters, and generally do not venture below 1,800 meters.... They are very heat sensitive with an optimal “well-being” temperature between 17 and 25°C, and cannot tolerate temperatures over 25 °C at all. As a result, Red Pandas sleep during the hot noontime in the shady crowns of treetops, often lying stretched out on forked branches or rolled up in tree caves with their tail covering their face." From Wikipedia.

After a morning walk at Votier's Flats this morning, I decided to drive to the eastern end of Fish Creek Park and check on "my" Great Horned Owls (could only find one of them today) and try and get a few Chickadee photos - I know, Doug and Phil, I don't NEED any more : ). While I was sitting on a low log, focusing on a higher log, this beautiful Northern Flickr flew down to the end of the log. The light is almost always bad in this area, but I did manage to get a few OK shots.

Came across this rose photo from a few months ago. Thanks to Safeway supermarket, and not my garden! I wish...

Isn't this baby Mountain Bluebird just the cutest little thing? It's only one or two days old and has these most amazing hair-like feathers. The sun was gleaming through these fine hairs - not sure why the background is black but it does show off all the silver down. Yesterday evening, I went with a gentleman who has had a Bluebird nesting box route for something like 25 years, recording and banding the various birds he finds. These include Tree Swallows, too. Apparently, in all these years, this gentleman has never known a mother to abandon her babies after they have been picked up and banded. The Mountain Bluebird population was dropping drastically but, thanks to this nesting box program, their numbers are increasing again. By the way, this is not MY hand! This is the third year in a row that I have gone on this short drive south of the city and I enjoy it every time. Actually, this time, there was an added bonus - we were shown a flying squirrel that has taken over a nesting box.

This guy landed on a log quite close to me this afternoon, posed, and gave me the chance to finally get a reasonable photo of a Hairy Woodpecker. Out of luck with the little Downy Woodpecker - maybe next time? Happy Feathery Friday, everyone! (Note to self: I used a horizontal version of this image for my 2008 calendar).