Our beautiful Foothills

Not a cloud in the sky and practically no snow on the ground - this does not feel like a winter photo at all! I won't complain though, as this winter has been wonderfully mild for much of the time. So far, the weather forecast for the next two weeks gives double digit temperatures, climbing to 16C on Saturday. Crazy weather for winter, and March is supposed to be Calgary's snowiest month. It does make you wonder, though, what our spring and summer will be like. Hope it won't be pay back time.

Yesterday afternoon, I made a last minute decision to finally drive SW of the city to an area that I had never driven myself before. I was only out for three hours, driving a total of 131 km. I wondered if the Wild Turkeys might be in view, but I couldn't see any at the place where other people had been seeing them. A short distance down the road, I decided to stop and take a couple of shots of the scenery, seen in this photo, mainly so that I didn't go home with an empty memory card, lol. It was then that a familiar looking vehicle came down the road - it was friends Ron and Trish. They had been unlucky with finding birds further south and were on their way to see if they could find the Evening Grosbeak that had been seen recently. I followed them, but we were out of luck. We did hear a very distant call of either a Northern pygmy-owl or a Northern Saw-whet Owl.

After parting ways with my friends, I drove home via familiar roads, thinking of two spots I would stop at to take a scenic shot or two. Both were on fairly steep hills but had a pull-off big enough for one vehicle. There was a vehicle parked in each, so no scenic shots. Further on, I stopped to take a couple of photos of the "famous" row of five, red, wooden granaries. Very rapid shots, as I found myself surrounded by bees as soon as I got out of the car! Too bad they weren't all inside the row of covered beehives that are in front of the granaries. The enormous field that these sheds are on has been changed by the new owners. Instead of just an open, bare field, there are now several scattered clusters of coniferous trees, making me wonder what the plan is.

Once I was back in the city, I decided to call in at Fish Creek Park on the way home, to see if any photographers were in sight. Not a single one, but the parking areas were packed with people who had come to enjoy the beautiful weather. Smoke from barbeques was rising into the air and you could hear kids having fun. I asked myself how much wildlife might be seen on a busy, noisy day like yesterday, a Sunday - and decided to go straight home, lol!