Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: in flight

This photo and the next one were taken yesterday, 22 October 2016, when I went on a birding day trip with a group of friends, east of Calgary. I will add our leader's eBird list of species seen, as soon as I have it. We had beautiful weather for these few hours and we saw plenty of birds. Unfortunately, all the birds were extremely far away, as usual, so all I got were very distant shots of a mass of birds, plus photos of a somewhat closer Ring-billed Gull and the much smaller Bonaparte's Gull. In the breeding season, the Bonaparte's Gull has a black head, but at this time of year,, it is white with a black dot on each cheek. There were quite a few Geese of different species - Canada Geese, Snow Geese and Greater White-fronted Geese. All the usual ducks were to be seen at the various sloughs. (This morning, I was up at an unearthly hour again, as I have a trip with various friends, this time going west of the city.) The following is our leader, Andrew Hart's, excellent write-up for the trip, plus the eBird lists of species seen, compliled by birder, Rose Painter. Thanks so much to both of you for this very enjoyable day! "Fourteen participants left Carburn Park and headed east of Calgary. When we started out, the temperature was just above freezing with ominous clouds, and an occasional biting wind. By lunchtime, this started to lift and we ended up with a beautiful, sunny afternoon with temperatures around 15 deg C. Our first stops were around Chestermere Lake. Highlights were six Trumpeter Swans, a foretaste of more to be seen later, over 300 Bonaparte's Gulls, a single Lesser Yellowlegs along with the 40+ Greater Yellowlegs, and a pair of Wilson's Snipe. From there we went to McElroy Slough and then worked our way east along Inverlake Road. At the large slough by Hwy 791, we saw several Snow Geese wheeling around in the distance. Obligingly, they saw us and flew towards us and straight overhead. This allowed us to get a fairly accurate count of 300, which included three "blue" geese. We started seeing Rough Legged Hawks along here, the first seven of at least eight seen through the day. Other raptors here included Harriers and Red-Tailed Hawks (two, both dark morph). Leaving that area, we saw a late Great Blue Heron and 30 American Tree Sparrows. We stopped for lunch at Strathmore and then went, in the vastly improved weather, to the south end of Eagle Lake. Approaching, we were lucky enough to see a Northern Shrike, which helpfully perched on a nearby snag, allowing good views for everyone. The first impression at the lake was the relatively large number of swans. The swans were mostly Tundra, but some Trumpeter. Then we noticed about twenty Greater White-fronted Geese swimming around by the near shore. There were waterfowl spread all over the lake, probably thousands in total. As we were watching, we saw a flurry of activity on the far shore and the sky slowly filled up. The reason (culprit) was a lone adult Bald Eagle gliding over the lake. Its presence scared up a cloud of geese, about 1000 each of Greater White-fronted Geese and Snow Geese. Next, we went to the large slough south of Township Rd 230 and west of RR 245. I have heard this called Alkali Lake, but I have also heard this description used for other lakes in the area. From the north end of the lake, we could just about discern a thin line of mixed geese on the west shore. As we drove around to the east side we saw more clouds of geese arriving. When we looked again from the east side, we saw about 3000 Greater White-fronted Geese and 8000 Snow Geese, leaving the lake. There were another 500 Snow Geese at the south end. Our final stop was at Carseland overlooking the weir. The highlight here was a pair of Rusty Blackbirds running around in the base of the drained irrigation canal. The complete Ebird checklists (thanks to Rose Painter) were as follows: Number of Checklists: 6 Number of Taxa: 54 Checklists included in this summary: (1): Chestermere Lake Date: Oct 22, 2016, 8:42 AM (2): McElroy Slough Date: Oct 22, 2016, 9:53 AM (3): West Inverlake Slough (Highway 791) Date: Oct 22, 2016, 10:29 AM (4): Eagle Lake Date: Oct 22, 2016, 12:24 PM (5): Namaka Farms Sloughs Date: Oct 22, 2016, 1:35 PM (6): Wyndham-Carseland Provincial Park--Carseland Weir Date: Oct 22, 2016, 2:18 PM 4000 Greater White-fronted Goose -- (4),(5) 9800 Snow Goose -- (3),(4),(5) 1 Cackling Goose -- (1) 2860 Canada Goose -- (1),(2),(3),(4) 60 Trumpeter Swan -- (1),(4) 130 Tundra Swan -- (4) 4 Trumpeter/Tundra Swan -- (2) 124 Gadwall -- (2),(4),(5),(6) 188 American Wigeon -- (1),(2),(3),(4),(6) 359 Mallard -- (1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6) 32 Northern Shoveler -- (1),(3),(4) 205 Northern Pintail -- (1),(2),(3),(4),(5) 8 Green-winged Teal -- (2),(4),(6) 1 Canvasback -- (4) 4 Redhead -- (1) 120 Ring-necked Duck -- (2) 70 Lesser Scaup -- (1),(4) 203 Bufflehead -- (1),(2),(4) 9 Common Goldeneye -- (1) 1 Barrow's Goldeneye -- (1) 1 Common Merganser -- (1) 4 Gray Partridge -- (1) 1 Ruffed Grouse -- (6) 1 Common Loon -- (1) 1 Pied-billed Grebe -- (4) 1 Red-necked Grebe -- (6) 9 Eared Grebe -- (1),(2) 1 Double-crested Cormorant -- (6) 3 American White Pelican -- (6) 1 Great Blue Heron -- (3) 6 Northern Harrier -- (3),(4),(5) 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk -- (4) 1 Bald Eagle -- (4) 3 Red-tailed Hawk -- (1),(3) 8 Rough-legged Hawk -- (3),(4) 451 American Coot -- (1),(2),(3),(4),(6) 13 American Avocet -- (4) 2 Killdeer -- (3),(4) 2 Long-billed Dowitcher -- (4) 2 Wilson's Snipe -- (1) 53 Greater Yellowlegs -- (1),(4),(6) 1 Lesser Yellowlegs -- (1) 302 Bonaparte's Gull -- (1),(6) 402 Ring-billed Gull -- (1),(3),(4),(5),(6) 4 Herring Gull -- (1),(6) 42 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) -- (1),(3),(6) 1 Northern Shrike -- (4) 16 Black-billed Magpie -- (1),(2),(3),(4),(5) 3 American Crow -- (1),(2) 9 Common Raven -- (3),(4),(5) 150 European Starling -- (1),(2),(3),(4),(5) 30 American Tree Sparrow -- (3) 2 Rusty Blackbird -- (6) 5 House Sparrow -- (1),(2) Andrew Hart"

This photo was taken almost a week ago, on 6 April 2014, when I went with a group of 10 friends to Frank Lake for several hours. This was a "by car" day with barely any walking. Sometimes when we pull over and get out, I can be found looking in the opposite direction to everyone else, taking a photograph of something totally unrelated to birds, lol. You need binoculars or a scope to see most of the birds we come across, which I don't have, but I can never resist the scenery. In this case, I decided to see if I could catch a row of beautiful Tundra Swans flying overhead. Will add Tony Timmons' report for the day - thanks, Tony, both for writing up the list and for taking us down to one of my favourite areas outside the city: "Eleven people were on the trip today, birding Frank Lake and area. We tallied 35 species. Most of the lake is still covered in ice. As many as 10,000 Northern Pintails were seen in the fields, sloughs and flying overhead. Two hundred swans were feeding in the fields. Of note were two Eurasian Wigeons spotted in the shallow sloughs. Canada Goose Tundra Swan Trumpeter Swan Gadwall American Wigeon Eurasian Wigeon Mallard Cinnamon Teal Northern Shoveler Northern Pintail Green-winged Teal Canvasback Redhead Ring-necked Duck Lesser Scaup Bufflehead Common Goldeneye Common Merganser Ruddy Duck Bald Eagle Northern Harrier Rough-legged Hawk Coot Killdeer Ring-billed Gull California Gull Great Horned Owl Horned Lark Robin Rock Pigeon,Magpie,Crow,Raven,Starling,House Sparrow" As you can see from the list, birds are returning after being elsewhere all winter. Only very distant views of them all, except for one Great Horned Owl on her nest - impossible to get a proper shot because she was hidden by a tangle of branches. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/tundra_swan/lifehistory animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/tundra-swan/

A terrible quality image, but it is so rare that I take any bird in flight, that I wanted to add it to my sets. It did look better at 1:00 a.m. this morning, when I was cropping it, otherwise I wouldn't have cropped it this close, ha. Taken from the other side of the Bow River at Carburn Park, on 31 January 2013.

An absolute fluke - posted just for fun, not brilliant photography, lol! Taken on January 29th, when out east of the city with friends Ron and Trish.

A helicopter company offers short aerial rides over Horseshoe Canyon, in the spectacular Badlands north west of Calgary. This one happened to noisily fly over our heads a few times while we were exploring the Canyon, recording all the flora and fauna that we found : ) Great for the people in the helicopter, no doubt. Can't believe how lucky we were to have brilliant blue sky and (unfortunately) hot temperatures that one day. Before and since, the rain keeps a-coming!

After watching a couple of Tundra Swans on the Glenmore Reservoir yesterday morning, we were then treated to several Trumpeter Swans flying way overhead as we walked down into Weaselhead. Always nice when these elegant birds return here!