On a cold and windy day

This was the only even remotely usable photo I took yesterday, 21 February 2015, when I went on the annual Snowy Owl Prowl, east of the city. It was cold and windy and the owls were so far away. I always enjoy this trip, that covers backroads that I don't drive myself.

The weather forecast had been for snow and so the first thing I had to do was clear the snow off my car. The meeting place is across the city, a drive that I really don't like one bit and only do for this annual outing. I swear every traffic light was red, making me wonder if I would get there in time. When I arrived, right on time, I parked in the usual area of the mall that we use each year. For some reason, everyone had gathered in a different spot, out of my sight, and I only saw them when a long convoy of cars slowly appeared and I was told to join the line. Thankfully, a friend flagged me down, and I was able to get a ride for the day, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to go - including because I was almost out of gas after my long drive with my daughter two days earlier.

I will add the report for the day, by our leader, Terry Korolyk. (Hope you don't mind, Terry). He always does such an excellent job of finding the owls and recording every find - for most of the drive, I had no idea where we were.

"Today's Nature Calgary Snowy Owl Prowl brought out 30 eager Snowy Owl seekers. This missed by only 3 the 33 who came out for the "Prowl" 2 years ago.

Snowy Owls are still out there in good numbers. We headed east on Country Hills Boulevard at 9:42 A.M. as it took extra minutes to have people sign the Waiver form as 9: 30 A.M. is the usual start time.

There was a fair bit of snow out there with the overnight snowfall. We found our first bird at 10:21 A.M. on Country Hills Boulevard just west of Highway 9; a 1st. year bird. This turned out to be the best bird we had a chance to look at all day being not too far off the road. We continued eastward on Highway 564 turning north on Range Road 253; then westward on to Twp. Road 262 where we found our 2nd. bird; another 1st. year bird on the first southward-bound Range Road. We pushed on eastward on Twp.Rd. 262 finding our 3rd. bird, yet another 1st. year bird along the fence row just south of the Range Road 261 junction.

From there, we turned northward on to Twp. Rd. 261, then proceeding through the Irricana Sloughs, we emerged southward on Range Road 255; turning eastward at Twp. Rd. 262. We then turned south on the Range Road going south past the Doppler Radar Station where our 4th. bird of the morning, yet another 1st. bird, was perched on a telephone pole.

We then took a break in Strathmore, after which we drove more roads northwest of Strathmore. We then went south to Cheadle; then north of Highway 1 again, then, made our way westward finding our final Snowy Owl of the day; yet another 1st. year bird on the north side of Twp. Rd. 250 just west of the Lyalta turnoff.

Normal birds found out there during Winters are still scarce this year. We found only flocks of 2 and 22 Horned Larks and 2 Gray Partridge, but, an additional plus was 3 Great Horned Owls, 2 of which were sitting close together in trees at a farmyard along the roadside.

In all, it seemed that people thoroughly enjoyed seeing the birds they saw and were practically overjoyed at their looks at them. A young student from Western Australia researched finding Snowy Owls on the internet, and came across Nature Calgary's Snowy Owl Prowl as a recommendation, and attended the trip today. Terry Korolyk."