Thunder, lightning, rain - and an owl!

Those of you who know me will smile when you see that when I decided to take a photo of a plain, red barn standing in the middle of an enormous field, I couldn't believe my eyes! There was a Great Horned Owl sitting on a window ledge!! I've only ever seen an owl in a barn window once before and really didn't think I could ever be that lucky again : ) Had to take it at 48x zoom and then heavily crop the image, but at least you can tell what it is. This was taken yesterday afternoon, 4 August 2013, when my plan had been to drive SW of the city and maybe call in at Brown-Lowery Provincial Park. I left home in sunshine, but maybe 10 minutes later, the black clouds started rolling in and before long, thunder, lightning and light rain began. I know they say that being in a car is one of the safest places to be during a lightning storm, but it sure didn't feel too good standing in the road holding a camera and seeing bolts of lightning! It had to be done for this most welcome sight, though. Not sure just where I was, as I actually got lost yesterday. Even though I know some of the roads well, and tend to keep to those ones, I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Had a long, long day the day before yesterday (3 August 2013), when a few of us went east of the city, to a place called Beynon, where there is an Ecological Reserve, SW of Drumheller. It was about half an hour's drive from home to our meeting place at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, from where we carpooled for the one and a half hour drive eastwards to Beynon. Thanks so much, Cedric, for drivng some of us - so much appreciated! This is all the Badlands area of Alberta, where so many fossil Dinosaurs have been found over the years. The eroded scenery is unique and the area we hiked was so different from our more usual forests. I was just so tired by the time I got home 13 hours later, so haven't done anything yet with the photos I took. It was another of those rare days this summer where it didn't rain! Just so lucky, though the drive out there went through a number of dense fog patches with very poor visibility, so I wasn't sure just what kind of weather we'd end up with for our botanizing day. Ha, when we got back to Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, we discovered that the gate was locked and those of us who had carpooled were unable to move our cars. Thankfully, Security eventually arrived at the Sanctcuary, and all was well.