Cormorants and their reflections

A photo of two beautiful Cormorants from my archives, taken on 25 June 2012, on a drive NW of Calgary. This photo has been floating around in my archives and I always avoided deleting it. At last, I cropped it and added a texture to it (I think I used the Film Grain filter), and here it is. Now I can forget about it : )

That was quite a day I had on 25 June 2012, as I had a "forced" day away from my place as all my windows were supposed to be replaced. I had to remove my car from the parking spot, but I had no parking permit to park on the street. This meant that I was going to have to make sure I stayed out for the whole day. A drive NW of the city came to mind and it turned out to be a great day, which I'm so glad I didn't miss. When I got home, I discovered that the windows had not been replaced!

Great Gray Owls were what I was hoping for and they didn't disappoint. On the way there, I passed a small lake, where I saw these two Double-crested Cormorants standing on a rock "island" in the middle.

After stopping to get a shot or two of a Swainson's Hawk perched on a fence post, and pulling over to let a "real" cowboy on horseback herd his cattle along the road, I finally reached "owl country".

Another find that was totally unexpected that day, was when I found myself staring into the eyes of an animal that I didn't recognize. It was hidden in the grass at the edge of the gravel road and, from a distance, I wondered if it was the Great Gray Owl that I had just seen flying and then disappeared. I managed to get a couple of very poor photos of it in the grass before it suddenly ran across the road and disappeared from sight. Had to wait till I got home and could do a Google search before I learned what it was! A Woodchuck - I didn't even know that we got Woodchucks here. The fact that a huge gravel truck and trailer were barrelling down the gravel road towards me, was a distraction and concern. Another couple of seconds and the truck might have hit the quite large animal! I was also concerned about my own safety, otherwise I might have tried to get a road-crossing shot! There was a fairly constant flow of these huge trucks that day, delivering gravel to cover the muddy road after all the rain we'd been getting, but the timing of this particular one couldn't have been worse, lol!

As for Great Gray Owls, I think I saw two different adults, but also two absolutely adorable owlets perched side by side in a distant tree. Sadly, people just don't seem to be seeing owls in that whole area anymore. What a treat it was, while it lasted! How lucky we are.

I was shaking my heard the whole drive back home, thinking about how lucky I had been in the previous two days (few weeks!), seeing so many "new" things.