Walking in a winter wonderland
Christmas baubles
Hoar frost everywhere you look
My Christmas present to my daughter : )
Hoar frost on barbed-wire
Happy Christmas, everyone!
Sunset on the Prairies
Inukshuk Santa
Makes me think of Santa
Happy Christmas!
Sharp-tailed Grouse silhouette
Frosty fence and fields
White against blue
A curtain of hoar frost
Rambler
I love our blues and whites of winter
Just for the record
The farmyard cat
Sharp-tailed Grouse
Wild Licorice seedpods / Glycyrrhiza lepidota
Driving in a winter wonderland
Pileated Woodpecker in tree cavity
Playing with plastic wrap
Male Merlin with hoar frost
Glorious, hoar frost day
Three little kittens
Just for the record
Frosty old Chevrolet truck
Merlin male, back view
A few of the 25 Mule Deer seen
Always love an owl
Cold and damp - but so beautiful
A nice old barn
Three little birders of the wrong kind
Not easy being a birder or photographer : )
A beautiful hoar frost day
Merlin male
Hoar frost and Mackerel sky
Yellow for a change
Time to rest
American Three-toed Woodpecker
A memory of good old England
Short-eared Owl
Checking if the coast is clear
Can't resist a barn mailbox
See also...
Keywords
Authorizations, license
-
Visible by: Everyone -
All rights reserved
-
229 visits
Pink for a change


Posting late today, as I needed to sleep as long as I could last night, having stayed up ALL night the previous night! I have to be up about 4:00 am tomorrow morning as I will be out on a very long Bird Count day east of Calgary, in the Drumheller Badlands area for their annual Christmas Bird Count. After that, I am hoping to "collapse" - oh, and get the last of my overseas Christmas cards and letters done and go food shopping, etc.! Snow is in the forecast for Christmas Eve day and Christmas Day and a few days next week.
I do have a few photos to post in the next few days that are not the same colouring as the last 13 or so images that I posted, lol! Winter plus bird counts tend to be like this, unfortunately, but add in a gorgeous hoar frost and everything in sight turns white. Normally, I would add an odd brightly coloured photo in amongst them, but this time, I am so short of time and I'm trying to get all the "better" count photos posted here so that I can send out a link to my High River Christmas Bird Count album. Since 16 December, I have also spent a day looking for Snowy Owls on 20 December, and a long day yesterday (21 December) on the Nanton Christmas Bird Count. There was no hoar frost those two days, so I won't have "white" photos to post.
This photo was taken on 16 December 2014, which was the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the town of High River. This town is SE of Calgary, roughly half an hour's drive from the southern edge of Calgary. My small group travelled in two cars, 8 people in total, and we covered the SE quadrant of the Count circle.
Below, I will add the report compiled by our leader, Gus Yaki. As usual, there were several of these sightings listed that I, myself, did not see. I ended up with poor photos of most of the things that I did see - the day was absolutely beautiful, but the light was even worse than I had realized. The amazing hoar frost, that covered everything, surprisingly lasted pretty well the whole day - usually, it lasts only a very short time. So, even though the light wasn't good for photos, the hoar frost beauty stayed with us all day long - breathtaking. For our drive down to High River, we had fog which, in patches, was quite thick. Wondered if we would see anything at all when we reached our area, ha. It was cold and damp, as well as foggy. In addition to that, some of the birds, such as the three Snowy Owls (I only saw two of them) were SO far away, there was no chance for photos except just for the record. Only 35 species were seen in the total for the complete Count circle.
Of course, as always happens, I just had to take photos of anything else that caught my eye, including several barns, cloud formations, farm cats, an old truck, scenery and so on. This was the barn where the beautiful little kittens (2 photos already posted of them) were hanging out. Pink is a very unusual colour for a barn here!
At one of our stops, we were looking in the bushes/shrubs at the edge of a farm, where a Northern Saw-whet Owl had been sighted last Christmas Count. No luck with an owl, but one of the birders spotted a male Merlin very high up on a power pole. A short while later, it was spotted just down the road, perched on a fence post. Such a beautiful bird - but such lousy light!
We had finished our count by 5:00 pm, by which time it was, of course, completely dark. A few of us stayed for the delicious pot luck supper, mainly provided by the generous birding people down in High River. Lorrie and John gave a slide show of their recent trip to Africa. So many great shots of beautiful bird species that I have never seen. Thanks, Lorrie and John, for spending time going through all your slides at home and choosing a lovely selection for us. Many thanks, too, for driving Shirley and myself all day long!
"HIGH RIVER CBC, SE quadrant, Frank Lk; E of #2, S of #23. 0830-1700, 16Dec2014. Overcast, heavy fog, created great hoarfrost on everything. Winds, variable direction, 10-15kph. -7°C. Ground mostly bare of snow; Little Bow River 95% frozen.
1. Mallard-1 f.
2. Scaup sp.- juv or f, likely Lesser-1
3. Gray Partridge-7
4. Ring-necked Pheasant-2
5. Bald Eagle-3 ( 2 ad/ 1 juv.)
6. Merlin-1 m.
7. Rock Pigeon-8
8. Great Horned Owl- 5 [an additional one seen N of Hwy 23, just W of Frank Lk exit at 16:56 pm.]
9. Snowy Owl-3
10. Downy Woodpecker-2
11. Northern Flicker-2
12. Black-billed Magpie-83
13. Common Raven-15
14. Horned Lark-20
15. Black-capped Chickadee-7
16. Common Redpoll-155
17. House Sparrow-669
18. 17 species of birds
MAMMALS:
Deer Mouse-1, deceased.
White-tailed Jackrabbit-1
Mule Deer-25
White-tailed Deer-44
Total Km by car-111; by foot- 3.
Total hours by car – 6; on foot-2.5
Gus Yaki"
I do have a few photos to post in the next few days that are not the same colouring as the last 13 or so images that I posted, lol! Winter plus bird counts tend to be like this, unfortunately, but add in a gorgeous hoar frost and everything in sight turns white. Normally, I would add an odd brightly coloured photo in amongst them, but this time, I am so short of time and I'm trying to get all the "better" count photos posted here so that I can send out a link to my High River Christmas Bird Count album. Since 16 December, I have also spent a day looking for Snowy Owls on 20 December, and a long day yesterday (21 December) on the Nanton Christmas Bird Count. There was no hoar frost those two days, so I won't have "white" photos to post.
This photo was taken on 16 December 2014, which was the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the town of High River. This town is SE of Calgary, roughly half an hour's drive from the southern edge of Calgary. My small group travelled in two cars, 8 people in total, and we covered the SE quadrant of the Count circle.
Below, I will add the report compiled by our leader, Gus Yaki. As usual, there were several of these sightings listed that I, myself, did not see. I ended up with poor photos of most of the things that I did see - the day was absolutely beautiful, but the light was even worse than I had realized. The amazing hoar frost, that covered everything, surprisingly lasted pretty well the whole day - usually, it lasts only a very short time. So, even though the light wasn't good for photos, the hoar frost beauty stayed with us all day long - breathtaking. For our drive down to High River, we had fog which, in patches, was quite thick. Wondered if we would see anything at all when we reached our area, ha. It was cold and damp, as well as foggy. In addition to that, some of the birds, such as the three Snowy Owls (I only saw two of them) were SO far away, there was no chance for photos except just for the record. Only 35 species were seen in the total for the complete Count circle.
Of course, as always happens, I just had to take photos of anything else that caught my eye, including several barns, cloud formations, farm cats, an old truck, scenery and so on. This was the barn where the beautiful little kittens (2 photos already posted of them) were hanging out. Pink is a very unusual colour for a barn here!
At one of our stops, we were looking in the bushes/shrubs at the edge of a farm, where a Northern Saw-whet Owl had been sighted last Christmas Count. No luck with an owl, but one of the birders spotted a male Merlin very high up on a power pole. A short while later, it was spotted just down the road, perched on a fence post. Such a beautiful bird - but such lousy light!
We had finished our count by 5:00 pm, by which time it was, of course, completely dark. A few of us stayed for the delicious pot luck supper, mainly provided by the generous birding people down in High River. Lorrie and John gave a slide show of their recent trip to Africa. So many great shots of beautiful bird species that I have never seen. Thanks, Lorrie and John, for spending time going through all your slides at home and choosing a lovely selection for us. Many thanks, too, for driving Shirley and myself all day long!
"HIGH RIVER CBC, SE quadrant, Frank Lk; E of #2, S of #23. 0830-1700, 16Dec2014. Overcast, heavy fog, created great hoarfrost on everything. Winds, variable direction, 10-15kph. -7°C. Ground mostly bare of snow; Little Bow River 95% frozen.
1. Mallard-1 f.
2. Scaup sp.- juv or f, likely Lesser-1
3. Gray Partridge-7
4. Ring-necked Pheasant-2
5. Bald Eagle-3 ( 2 ad/ 1 juv.)
6. Merlin-1 m.
7. Rock Pigeon-8
8. Great Horned Owl- 5 [an additional one seen N of Hwy 23, just W of Frank Lk exit at 16:56 pm.]
9. Snowy Owl-3
10. Downy Woodpecker-2
11. Northern Flicker-2
12. Black-billed Magpie-83
13. Common Raven-15
14. Horned Lark-20
15. Black-capped Chickadee-7
16. Common Redpoll-155
17. House Sparrow-669
18. 17 species of birds
MAMMALS:
Deer Mouse-1, deceased.
White-tailed Jackrabbit-1
Mule Deer-25
White-tailed Deer-44
Total Km by car-111; by foot- 3.
Total hours by car – 6; on foot-2.5
Gus Yaki"
- Keyboard shortcuts:
Jump to top
RSS feed- Latest comments - Subscribe to the comment feeds of this photo
- ipernity © 2007-2025
- Help & Contact
|
Club news
|
About ipernity
|
History |
ipernity Club & Prices |
Guide of good conduct
Donate | Group guidelines | Privacy policy | Terms of use | Statutes | In memoria -
Facebook
Twitter
Sign-in to write a comment.