Driving in a sea of gold

Yesterday, 12 July 2014, I spent a few hours in the late afternoon till mid-evening, driving just a few of the backroads SE of the city, in the Frank Lake area. I had been there the day before, too, and just couldn't resist a few more hours there. Some of the fields were aglow with vibrant yellow Canola crops, which I look forward to every year. I didn't have time to drive far enough to find a beautiful barn surrounded in colour, so used these three silos instead. The sun was shining, but it was such a hazy day.

My first stop was at Frank Lake, where I saw a few more Eared Grebes with their quite large "babies". The light was really bad, so it was impossible to get photos that showed colour and details. Will lighten one or two of them and see if that works. Saw Soras again - love these little guys, they are so cute. A few very distant White-faced Ibis, but I lucked out later, finding a lone Ibis at a slough somewhere around the lake. The Barn Swallows are vicious at the moment, dive-bombing anyone who approaches the blind! You not only hear them as they whoosh past your head, you also feel them! Hang on to your camera if you take photos from inside the blind, as they will continue to dive-bomb. It's too bad, as they really don't make it very pleasant for people. Also saw a couple of small birds that I'm not sure of the ID for, along the country backroads. Posted one of them today and will upload a very poor photo of the other sometime soon.

There are 15,000 Canola producers in Alberta. Canola is one of the healthiest vegetable oils, if not the healthiest.

"Canola refers to both an edible oil (also known as Canola oil) produced from the seed of any of several varieties of the rape plant, and to those plants, namely a cultivar of either rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) or field mustard (Brassica campestris L. or Brassica Rapa var.). The oil is suitable for consumption by humans and livestock, and for use as biodiesel." From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola