Rough cocklebur / Xanthium strumarium

Please, no need to make any comments! Just finishing off the last 10 photos taken during our trip east to Eagle Lake, on 25 August 2018. Some are similar to others, so I'm sure won't be of too much interest to anyone other than myself. Today, 28 August 2018, I did another long drive, this time SW of the city into the mountains. This is a second area that I try to do on my own each year now, to make sure that I don't lose confidence to do the drive. Too tired to sort and edit any of the images yet, but I will try and get three or four ready to upload tomorrow. Luckily, I saw a few furry, four-legged critters, which will make a change from all my recent photos.

Thank you so much, Shirley, for inviting us all out to visit you the day before yesterday (25 August 2018) while you were out again at your summer trailer at Eagle Lake for the weekend! It was a fairly cool day, which was great, but the smoke is still being blown in from the wildfires in British Columbia. I was just reading an article this morning about the awful air quality in Seattle and theirs has been roughly the same as ours. They reckon the very poor air quality is equivalent to smoking seven cigarettes a day.

It was such a pleasure to see some of "your" birds that you enjoy so much. Compared to our visit on 17 June 2017, there were fewer species to be seen, but enough to keep us happy. I think the highlight for me was a Western Kingbird that posed so beautifully on a tangle of metal pipes down near the edge of the water. The soapsud "icebergs" were interesting to see, too, but no doubt were polluting the lake!

I also loved taking a couple of quick shots of a cute goat just as we were leaving. We had stopped so that one of us could get out and buy several food items from a Hutterite stand that was in the trailer campground. I got out to get a bottle of water from my backpack in the back of the car and a friend in the car behind caught my attention and pointed out this animal posing so nicely.

Great to see everyone who went, and we all enjoyed an array of delicious salads and desserts that left me feeling full till the early evening. We also enjoyed meeting your two Grandchildren, Shirley, who happened to be staying with you for the weekend. So good to see them both making lists of the bird species seen.

Many thanks, Anne B, for driving some of us us east across the prairies. Hugely appreciated, as always!