Eastern Kingbird

Tonight, I have just added 10 extra photos, all taken on my short drive yesterday, 30 July 2018. I really wanted to get yesterday's captures posted so that I can move on to a different day. I am so far behind.

We have been under a heat warning recently, and yesterday's temperature got up to either 31C or 32C. It was just unbearable in my place and I needed (yet again) to get out for a short drive and be in the air-conditioning of my car. We have also been having rain on some days, which was desperately needed. As I headed out west yesterday, I could see that I was heading towards a grey sky and, sure enough, the rain started. Not the best sort of day for photos, but I managed to get a few to keep me happy. All of the roads were my usual roads, though the views from them all had smoke haze. I'm not sure which wildfires this smoke is coming from - down in the US, or British Columbia, or from fires in our own province? I haven't noticed a smokey smell, though. Last summer, 2017, was dreadful for non-stop smoke and heat.

At one of my stops, a female Mule Deer was on the far bank of a large pond and I didn't see her at first. A short while earlier, a beautiful buck had crossed the gravel track in front of my parked car. I got out and tried to see where he had gone, but he had completely vanished. Maybe these two deer were a pair.

Along one of the gravel roads, I suddenly spotted two pairs of ears sticking up from a green field - a White-tailed doe and a youngster. The photo I posted this morning was the sharpest of the three or four photos I grabbed before they took off at high speed. Unfortunately, it only shows the mother.

A young Magpie was one of several in a family along one of the backroads. Love its fluffy feathers. It only rested on a fence post for a few seconds. Other than a few of the usual birds, such as Brewer's Blackbirds, Cedar Waxwings and Eastern Kingbirds, the only sighting that was different was a Wilson's Snipe that was at the far water's edge of a large pond. Too far for even remotely decent photos, but it made a change to see a Snipe on the ground and not on a fence post.