In order of Interestingness, Flickr

There continues to be a common theme to my photos these days - sigh ... snow. However, this image shows a good side of winter : ) Had a wonderful day out in the mountains yesterday, thanks to friends Cathy and Terry! I so rarely get to the mountains, especially during the winter months, so it was a real treat to go with them to the Highway 40/Smith Dorrien area. Thanks so much, guys! The Smith-Dorrien/Spray Trail south of Canmore is a gravel road which passes through the heart of the scenic Smith-Dorrien Valley, one of the wildest areas of Kananaskis Country. I posted several photos to ipernity, this one included, and then I transferred almost 9,000 images from Flickr (thank goodness it's done!). The first few shots I posted are now duplicates and I'm not sure how to deal with them. For now, I've just copied and pasted the kind comments people made on the original posts, as obviously I don't want to lose them. I was just about to add this new copy to the groups I posted the original photos in, but that would be double posting, which would be really annoying to other members of the groups : )

Posted at an unearthly hour this morning, as I have to be part way across the city by 6:50 a.m. for the Cochrane Wildlife Reserve Bird Count. Will finish when I get back.

This was such an amazing sunset! We stood on the cliff above the Missouri River and watched it develop. Taken on 11 September 2012, when my dear friends from Engand, Linda and Tony, and I, stopped for the night in Great Falls, Montana, US. We had left Calgary early that morning and we were on our way to Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park, to return to Calgary on 17 September.

I got back last night from an absolutely amazing week away with my friends, Linda and Tony. Believe it or not, this was only my second holiday in about 30 years! Some of you may remember that when my Brother in England died almost two years ago, several of my long-time friends who lived in the same city all stepped forward and helped me deal with everything long distance, from my Brother's funeral to finding everything possible in the house a good home (sold or donated). All my parents' belongings were there, too, so it was a mammoth task to go through everything and put aside every single personal item or document, which were then shipped to me here. Just one of the priceless things was when Linda went through all my Father's old movies, picked out every inch of them that she thought I would want to have, and then took them to be copied to DVD. Of course, everything was done thoughtfully and lovingly - and it still has me shaking my head that anyone could spend so much time doing SO much for someone else. There are still a few things that Linda is seeing to! Anyway, to cut a very long story short, Linda told me many months ago that she and Tony were coming to Canada again and Linda really hoped I would join them for a week getting down to Yellowstone National Park and back. Because I hadn't been away in so long, I was extremely hesitant : ) However, I did go and had the most wonderfully enjoyable (and spectacular!) time going to not only Yellowstone, but also Grand Tetons, Glacier and Waterton! Can never thank Linda and Tony enough for this! I've known Linda since she was a baby (she's about four? years younger than I am, around my Brother's age), so we had a week's precious time to "catch up". I'd only ever met Tony once, when they came to Canada for a holiday six years ago. He deserves a medal for putting up with me for a whole week!! And now I have over 2,500 images (plenty of repeats, though) to go through, lol, so please bear with me, especially when it seems that "all" I have to post are these holiday shots! Gosh, I miss my friends' company already! I visited Mammoth Hot Springs and the rest of Yellowstone National Park 30+ years ago, when my kids were very young. Loved Mammoth Hot Springs, so was thrilled to get the chance to see this fascinating area again. The photo above shows part of the Main Terrace, taken on 12 September 2012. "Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine in Yellowstone National Park ... It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two tons flow into Mammoth each day in a solution). Although these springs lie outside the caldera boundary, their energy has been attributed to the same magmatic system that fuels other Yellowstone geothermal areas... A caldera is a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption. They are sometimes confused with volcanic craters." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_Hot_Springs For a diagram of the Hot Springs layout: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MammothHotSprings.JPG Map of Yellowstone National Park: hfc.nps.gov/carto/PDF/YELLmap2.pdf

Came across a butterfly photo the other day that I hadn't uploaded, when I was searching for something else. This is a Leopard Lacewing, a female I think, in the Conservatory at the Calgary Zoo.. Taken way back in early May. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cethosia_cyane

After spending just half an hour gardening a couple of days ago, I had to stop, as I was getting really painful. I tend to spend just a couple of hours a year in my little square patch - just too overwhelming to deal with. After digging and tugging and twisting about eight of these invasive fern plants out of the soil, I reckoned the very least I could do was to take a photo of the bright green coils. That was the more pleasant part - the rest of the "work" was not enjoyed at all, LOL! By the way, the white background resulted from shooting towards my light grey siding, which was really blown out because of the very bright sunlight: )

Hope you aren't getting too fed up of my Bald Eagle shots, LOL! The close photos are always taken at the Zoo (probably a good thing that I don't get THAT close to one in the wild, anyway : )). The angles, colours (especially of the background) always seem to come out differently - which leads to the temptation to upload, LOL. This particular bird was all fluffed up and seemed to be shivering. I've seen this happen before on another occasion. I wonder if this is "normal" behaviour and, if so, what is the reason?

Wish I could take credit for the timing, but I had to take quite a few shots to end up with ONE with its mouth open, mid-screech. Almost without fail, by the time my camera had processed an image, this little Columbian Ground Squirrel's mouth was closed again : ). Not sure if I noticed the Mosquito on its head when I was taking the photo. Saw this little guy/gal while we were enjoying (thoroughly enjoying!) a Strawberry Milkshake at Kananaskis Village after a day of hiking Ptarmigan Cirque Trail. Thanks Robin and Cedric! These Ground Squirrels are a different species from the Richardson's Ground Squirrels that are found in the city.

A mixture of vibrant colours from a yellow Sunflower and an orange and purple one, bought at Safeway - all natural colours.