Red-tailed Hawk / Buteo jamaicensis

"In the city of Calgary the air quality health index was off the charts through the overnight hours Tuesday (25 August 2015), peaking at 19 on a scale where 10 is considered "high." The smoke is being blown here from the northwestern United States. It affected the visibility the whole day, so there was no sign of the distant mountains and even the hills and fields closest to us. Most unpleasant, and I don't know how people who live much closer to the wildfires are managing! So many Firefighters bravely battling the flames!

Added on 27 August - apparently, a spider had climbed inside the equipment used to track air quality and this had given the inaccurate ratings! Air quality was really bad, though.

Yesterday morning, 25 August, 10 of us arrived at a friend's house, ready to go north of Calgary to near Sundre, for a few hours of botanizing, This was the second visit to Judy Osborne's for a few of us, me included. The previous trip was on 30 June 2015. By now, of course, a lot of the wildflowers are finished, but I found enough other things to photograph, including this distant, beautiful Red-tailed Hawk, plus a few of the plants in my friends' garden at the beginning and end of the day.

Thanks so much, Judy, for having us out on your beautiful property again. It was a most enjoyable day, despite the dreadful, smoke-filled air. We look forward to being out there again next year! Many thanks, too, to Barry, who drove a few of us out there and back to Calgary. A long, long drive and it was much appreciated!

"This is probably the most common hawk in North America. If you’ve got sharp eyes you’ll see several individuals on almost any long car ride, anywhere. Red-tailed Hawks soar above open fields, slowly turning circles on their broad, rounded wings. Other times you’ll see them atop telephone poles, eyes fixed on the ground to catch the movements of a vole or a rabbit, or simply waiting out cold weather before climbing a thermal updraft into the sky." From AllAboutBirds.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-tailed_hawk

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/red-tailed_hawk/id