Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: rain clouds

All three photos posted this morning were taken yesterday, 5 July 2016, when I finally drove down SE of the city to the Frank Lake area. I have missed almost all the shore birds this year and knew that if I didn't go very soon, they would all have left. As it was, I saw very few birds of any kind yesterday. I drove straight to the blind/hide, where everything was quiet, other than a few Coots with their teenage kids, several Ruddy Ducks including a female lying on her nest, a Marsh Wren that I could hear but not see, a couple of Red-winged Blackbirds, maybe three White-faced Ibis flying by, and a few Tree Swallows. As soon as I had left the blind and taken a few steps down the boardwalk, I was totally taken by surprise by a Black-crowned Night Heron that flew overhead, being chased by a small shorebird. The Heron was letting out a very loud 'hoarse scream' that sounded almost human-like. Just managed to get a rapid shot of the Heron before it flew out of camera view, posted just for my own record. I so rarely see a Night Heron, though I did see and photograph a beautiful juvenile that was hanging out at Lafarge Meadows in Fish Creek Park last year (2015). From the blind area at Frank Lake, I drove eastwards and eventually came to Mossleigh, where I stopped at the three grain elevators to take photos. On the way, I stopped to photograph an old homestead - I have usually seen and photographed it in winter. The light was really bad, with massive storm clouds overhead. The weather forecast was for a risk of thunderstorms, though fortunately there was just a tiny bit of short-lived rain. The past week, there have been tornadoes north and south of us, but there was no Tornado Warning in effect yesterday. A great kind of sky when a few of the fields were turning bright yellow from the Canola crops. However, a real challenge for my camera, which recently developed a problem - when I am trying to focus on something, it goes in and out of focus rapidly and 'shudders', making it most unpleasant to view as well as making it very difficult to see what I'm taking. This is not the usual difficulty of getting the camera to focus. Then, yesterday, when I very slightly tipped the camera upwards, once I had focused on say a field of Canola, the lower half of the viewfinder went so dark I couldn't really see anything. Such a pain, especially as I absolutely have to have a working camera for the whole of this weekend! As it is, I always take almost all my photos on the sunset setting, because the regular settings give me totally washed out images that have little detail - just not usable. Amazes me that any of my photos turn out, ha. A few hours later, it was time to return home after a few very enjoyable hours out. More of a cloud, scenery and old barn trip than a birding trip, but those of you who know me, know I love photographing all of the above.

The landscape is pretty flat in the areas around the city to the north, south and east, including around Frank Lake, SE of Calgary, but I love it. Land and sky just seem to go on and on forever. This photo was taken on 6 April 2014, when I went with a group of 10 friends to Frank Lake for several hours. This was a "by car" day with barely any walking. Sometimes when we pull over and get out, I can be found looking in the opposite direction to everyone else, taking a photograph of something totally unrelated to birds, lol. You need binoculars or a scope to see most of the birds we come across, which I don't have, but I can never resist the scenery. Many of the fields were clear of snow that day. I never fail to be in awe of the wide view of land and sky, especially when the very distant Rocky Mountains are seen in the background. Looks like some places were perhaps getting rain. The last two days here in Alberta, we were under a Severe Thunderstorm Alert. There was some flooding in Calgary and a major hail storm dropping golf-ball-sized hailstones, especially in the town of Airdrie, just north of Calgary. Millions of dollars of damage done. In my part of the city, we had just a bit of rain for a while. bcove.me/5wwulcrf