Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: blossom

It is almost time for Smugmug to close down Flickr for maintenance so that they can perform the mammoth task of transferring every single thing on Flickr to a new server. Hard to imagine, and I'll keep my fingers crossed that the transfer all goes smoothly. There will probably be a few glitches to iron out afterwards, but these will no doubt eventually be fixed. The day before yesterday, 19 May 2019, I was out for the day with my daughter, to celebrate Mother's Day and yet another birthday for me. I always look forward to a day like this - my favourite way to spend a day! I hope she enjoyed it as much as I did. Unfortunately, the weather was cloudy and windy, especially when we went to Frank Lake after spending time at the Saskatoon Farm. We both still managed to get a few photos and, today, the colourful ones are most welcome, as we have yet another gloomy day. I think it must have rained again last night, as I can see there are puddles out there. Our day started with a delicious breakfast at the Farm, after which we walked around the grounds. I always enjoy seeing the farm cats and dogs wandering about, inside and outside. Visitors are not allowed to bring dogs, which means that the farm animals can roam in peace. The gardens have not yet been planted with flowers - just as well, as I noticed that there was a risk of frost on two recent nights. There are flowers blooming in the greenhouses, though. Our next destination was Frank Lake, where we hoped to see at least a few birds. It was very quiet, with little to photograph - not the best time of the day. Two Eared Grebes were swimming near the blind, but what a challenge they were! Non stop swimming and constantly changing direction, fast. I think I ended up with a couple of photos that might be sharp enough to post - the rest have been deleted. A Yellow-headed Blackbird, perched on a cattail, was swaying in and out of the viewfinder. It felt really good to get out, as I have been spending so much time going through all the images from our trip to South Texas. It did feel a little strange to be driving, as I have barely been out the last few weeks.

The Purple Martin photos posted yesterday and the 7 extra photos I have just posted tonight were all taken after our morning birding tour with Tom Hince had finished. This was Day 3 of our trip in May to Point Pelee in Ontario, and Tadoussac in Quebec. I guess I ended up posting rather a lot of photos of the Purple Martins, but they were so beautiful with their hanging gourd nests. Normally, I don't see Purple Martins in Alberta, except for once at someone's acreage near Chestermere years ago, and at the Ellis Bird Farm. On Day 3, we had arranged for a guide, Tom Hince, to take us out between 6:00 am and 11:00 am, so it was an extremely early start, There were so many birders on the trails! Funny how so many birders are very tall people, so I often could not even see anything and missed a lot of the sightings. However, I was happy to see what I did see. After lunch, we made a second visit to the Hillman Marsh Conservation Area and this time, we went for a walk. This area is further north along the coast from Point Pelee. This is where we had seen a wonderfully creative barn with a Heron scene on the front of it, on a different day. Saw a few interesting things, including several Painted Turtles and a green frog. I will be glad to get as far as photos from later in the afternoon, when we walked the Homested Trail at Pt Pelee, thoroughly enjoying two or three beautiful old buildings as well as the nature along the way. It feels good to get back to sorting through and editing a few more of my photos from a trip with friends to Pt Pelee in Ontario, and Tadoussac in Quebec, in May 2018. Will have to work on this in between an absolutely mammoth clearing-out of my home, partly because of the mouse/mice that have totally stressed out and drained me for the last seven or so months. Though I started off using mouse traps, nothing was caught, which is when I had to pay for a pest control guy to come - useless. Friends and I placed several simple, disposable traps recently and, hey presto, one mouse was caught (to my horror, ha). Since then, after my friends very kindly came and removed it, I have seen no sign or sound from any further mice, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I try to post in more or less the order in which my images were taken - this helps me remember things a little more clearly. I have a lot of images that I want to add to my albums for this holiday, many of poor quality or of little interest to others. I wil try and post a lot at night, when most people are probably off Flickr. Please bear with me. Four friends (four of the six friends with whom I went to Trinidad & Tobago in March 2017) and I left Calgary airport on 6 May 2018 and flew to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. There, we rented a van and did the long drive to Point Pelee for four whole days of birding. We stayed at the Best Western Hotel in Leamington, which is close to Point Pelee National Park. It fills up very quickly (with birders) and our rooms were booked months ahead of time. Our four days walking at Point Pelee and area were very interesting and I, for sure, saw various things I had never seen before, including my very first Raccoon : ) Various friends had told me that the Warblers at Pelee were fantastic - so many and numerous species, and so close. Have to disagree with the "closeness" when we were there! I don't have binoculars as cameras are enough for me to carry around, so I know I missed all sorts of birds. Though my Warbler count was lower than my friends' counts, I was happy to at least get a few distant photos of some species. So many of my shots are awful, but I will still post some of them, just for the record of seeing them. Some photos are so bad that I doubt anyone can ID them. We covered several different trails at Pelee, and also drove to a few places somewhat further afield, such as Hillman Marsh. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the magnificent barn at this Conservation Area! I was in so much pain that I wasn't sure if I would be able to walk across a grassy area to take a few photos. However, it was so unusual and beautiful, that I reckoned I could try and move forward inch by inch - or crawl (ha, ha) if necessary. Another place we enjoyed was Rondeau National Park. One amazing and totally unexpected sighting just outside Pelee was a very distant male Snowy Owl sitting in a fieldl!! We walked every single day that we were at Pelee and the areas mentioned above, seeing not just birds, but a frog/toad, snakes that we suspect were mating, several Painted turtles, a few plants (including both white and red Triliums, that I had never seen growing wild before, and a couple of Jack in the Pulpit plants). The Friends of Point Pelee have food available at lunch time that one can buy. They also have a shuttle bus that one can take from the Visitor Centre all the way to the southern tip of Pelee, which is the most southern part of Canada. They have birding walks with a guide each day (there is a charge), but we walked the trails on our own, except for one morning. On 9 May, we spent the morning from 6:00 am to 11:00 am on a birding walk at Pelee with guide, Tom Hince, whom we had contacted while we were still in Calgary. At the end of our stay at Point Pelee, we had to drive all the way back to Toronto, from where we flew to Quebec airport. From there, we had a four-hour drive to Tadoussac on the coast of the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is such a delightful, small place and in a beautiful setting. One of our friends, Anne B, and her husband have a summer cabin further along the cliff from the few stores and port. She had invited the four of us to go with her from Pelee to spend a week at her beautiful home. What an absolute treat this was! We were able to meet some of her relatives, too, who also have built cabins out there. We were looked after so well, and we were able to see and photograph all sorts of birds and other things. We made several trips to see different places, including the Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Area, where we were able to see endless thousands of Snow Geese. Breathtaking! We also had two boat trips from Tadoussac - one was a whaling trip in a Zodiac, where we saw very, very distant Beluga and Minke Whales. The Belugas looked almost like the white wave crests - but they were Belugas. The other boat trip was to the Brandy Pot Islands, inhabited by thousands of Razorbills and Common Murres, which were new birds for us, and Double-crested Cormorants that were nesting in tree tops. That long boat trip (in a tiny boat named Juno) started off in the rain and dark clouds and it was soooo cold! Thermal underwear, layers of fleece and toque and gloves were needed. This day was arranged through a contact of Anne's and it was so much enjoyed! Of course, we anchored a distance away from the island and sat there and ate our sandwiches and took endless photos. It is forbidden to land on the island at nesting time. Anne B, I can't thank you enough for organizing this holiday for us all and for inviting us to spend a week at your cabin. You worked so hard and it was so much appreciated by each and every one of us. Thank you for doing all the many hours of driving, too! Janet and Anne, thank you so much for compiling the lists of birds seen each day at various locations, and posted to ebird. These entries will be a huge help while I try and sort out where we were and when, and what species we saw. Miss your cookies and muffins, Janet, that you kindly made for us in Tadoussac, to go along with the wonderful meals that Anne planned and made for us : )

Six days ago, on 27 April 2016, I had a volunteer shift and afterwards, as the sun was peeping through the clouds, I decided to call in at the Reader Rock Garden. There was a reasonable number of plants in bloom, including several shrubs/trees covered in blossom. I wasn't sure if I was going to be too early or too late for Tulips, especially as this year has so far been most unusual, weatherwise, but there were a number in various colours. There was also a bush of gorgeous pink Hellebore flowers, hanging their heads as they tend to do. There was enough colour and variety of plants to make this visit worthwhile - and it should only get better and better with the coming weeks, hopefully. We desperately need rain, though. In fact, this week's botany walk was changed, as either the wildflowers were already over or else they just hadn't grown because everywhere is so dry.

This photo and the previous one were taken on 6 May 2015, when I called in at the Reader Rock Garden after a volunteer shift. Each year, I try and take quite a few photos of various garden flowers, ready to have something bright and colourful to post during our long, cold, snowy winter months. This winter has been ridiculously mild, apart from a number of very cold periods that brought snow, so I haven't really needed as many bright photos to post. Spring is almost here, so this is a reminder of what is yet to come. It's very overcast this morning (14 March 2016) and +3C, with a forecast for wet flurries (snow and rain) for this afternoon. Scattered flurries for this evening and overnight. We, especially the farmers, desperately need moisture. However, like it seems to have happened many times, the forecast could easily change and there will be no sign of 'the white stuff'.

This photo was taken at the Reader Rock Garden a month ago, on 6 May 2015, when I called in after a volunteer shift. Not sure what tree species this blossom belongs to, but my guess would be Crabapple. It's a grainy photo, but I thought the single flower was pretty enough to post.

This photo was taken at the Reader Rock Garden two weeks ago, on 13 May 2015, when I called in after a volunteer shift. Quite a few flower species are in bloom now, which is such a joy. Blossom trees were full of their tiny flower clusters, though when I visited the garden again yesterday, 27 May, the blossom trees were well past their prime. I can't tell one blossom tree from another, so I'm not sure of the ID for these white flowers.

What a mess Flickr has made of things! By creating a new system where people can automatically upload all the photos on their computer to Flickr in one batch, to me it seems pretty obvious, given how many millions of people use Flickr, that this would cause one enormous overload problem!!! Happily, I finally managed to upload all three of my new images for today. This photo was taken at the Reader Rock Garden five days ago, on 6 May 2015, when I called in after a volunteer shift. I can't tell one blossom tree from another, so don't know the ID for these pink flowers.

OMG, what a mess Flickr is this morning, after all the changes they made!!!I No doubt many of you are experiencing all these new problems, too. What a mess they have made of something that worked just fine!! Great difficulty or impossible to add tags. When something has been done to one of the photos, I can't get back to my photostream - have to close Flickr and open in a new tab, etc., etc.. When I open my photostream in a new tab, the most recent changes have not always been saved. And all those extra tags that Flickr has added to each photo! The tags "pet" and "dog" were added to my photo of a wild Moose suffering from a bad case of tick damage, lol! I always tag all my photos carefully and, with almost 11,000 images on my photostream, there is no way I could ever go through every photo deleting Flickr's inappropriate extra tags! This photo was taken at the Reader Rock Garden three days ago, on 6 May 2015, when I called in after a volunteer shift. I can't tell one blossom tree from another, so don't know the ID for these white flowers.

"For many Native American tribes of the Northern Rockies, Northern Plains, and boreal forest region of Canada and the United States, chokecherries were the most important fruit in their diets. The bark of chokecherry root was once made into an asperous-textured concoction used to ward off or treat colds, fever and stomach maladies by native Americans. The inner bark of the chokecherry, as well as red osier dogwood, or alder, was also used by natives in their smoking mixtures, known as kinnikinnick, to improve the taste of the bearberry leaf. The chokecherry fruit can be used to make a jam, jelly, or syrup, but the bitter nature of the fruit requires sugar to sweeten the preserves. Chokecherry is toxic to horses, and moose, cattle, goats, deer, and other animals with segmented stomachs (rumens), especially after the leaves have wilted (such as after a frost or after branches have been broken) because wilting releases cyanide and makes the plant sweet. About 10–20 lbs of foliage can be fatal. Symptoms of a horse that has been poisoned include heavy breathing, agitation, and weakness. The leaves of the chokecherry serve as food for caterpillars of various Lepidoptera." From Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_virginiana Taken on 10 June 2014, in North Weaselhead. This was a most unfortunate day, for many of us. In the afternoon, four of us met up to go for a botany walk in North Weaselhead. Shortly before we were supposed to start, a lady came over to us in the parking lot, to let us know that our leader, Karel Bergmann, had just been in an accident. She said that he was so concerned about the rest of us wondering where he was, that she very kindly offered to drive to the park and find us and give us the news. I had seen a fire truck blocking the road, and so had turned up the road just before the one I needed, but of course never dreamt that it was there to help Karel. He was riding his motorcycle, when a young man (who was very upset over the accident, apparently) turned in front of him, cutting him off. Karel's leg was broken, which means that he will be missing the joys of summer - and we will be without a great leader for plants and mushrooms. We are all so thankful that the accident wasn't worse than it was! Good luck with your recovery, Karel! It will be so good to have you back with us once your leg has healed. Two of us decided that we would still go on the walk, despite Karel not being with us. I knew that we would most likely see only a few of the plants, but we did our best, and enjoyed ourselves. Towards the end of our walk, I heard a rustling in the leaves and bushes at the edge of the path and was really hoping that it might be one of these beautiful, small Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrels. We found two of them! Such a treat.

Photographed these Saskatoon flowers when I was on a walk west of Calgary, at Bow Valley Provincial Park, on 15 May 2010. It's a very common shrub here in the city, too. "Amelanchier alnifolia, the saskatoon, Pacific serviceberry, western serviceberry, alder-leaf shadbush, dwarf shadbush, chuckley pear, or western juneberry, is a shrub with edible berry-like fruit, native to North America from Alaska across most of western Canada and in the western and north central United States ..... The name "saskatoon" derives from the Cree inanimate noun misâskwatômina (misâskwatômin NI sg saskatoonberry, misâskwatômina NI pl saskatoonberries). The city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan is named after the berry. Canadian growers are currently moving to position saskatoon berries as a superfruit, following the vogue for such fruits as wild blueberries, cranberries, pomegranates, and açaí." From Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelanchier_alnifolia A short distance south of Calgary, is the Saskatoon Farm, where they sell plants and also different food items, such as Saskatoon berry pie, that contain these berries. They also have a small restaurant where you can have lunch - I've had their quiche and hashbrowns, which are so good! You can also go and pick your own berries. "The saskatoon has long been a treasured wild fruit and a prairie tradition, having been a plentiful staple fruit for the prairies for years. It is often compared to the blueberry in terms of the berry's size, texture and flavor with an almondy flavor." www.saskatoonfarm.com/main.htm

Another shot grabbed from my archives while I was backing up a few old photo files. This is part of the upper garden at the Reader Rock Garden in Calgary. You keep climbing uphill from street level to reach this little peaceful spot. Usually, there is no one else there when I'm there. Without the trees and bushes, you could look out over the Stampede Grounds and downtown, but the greenery hides that unwanted view. Taken on 8 June 2011.

Shouldn't really be posting this evening, as I am totally, totally exhausted after a long, long day in the heat, botanizing Purple Spring Sand Dunes, down near Taber, south eastern Alberta. Left home at 5:15 a.m. and arrived back a short while ago, at 8:00 p.m.. A three-hour drive there and three hours back home, plus the driving we did when we were down that way, and of course the walking we did. Much too hot for me! The area doesn't really live up to its beautiful name - basically, it just looks like prairie grassland, but we did see some good plants, including several new ones. On the way home, we also called in at a park in Lethbridge to see what birds (and plants) we could find. One of our highlights was seeing a Prairie Garter Snake - a new species, certainly for some of us, as we don't get these up in Calgary. This pink blossom was taken at Reader Rock Garden more than a month ago.

I noticed this blossom growing in the gardens at the Calgary Zoo recently. Just thought the colours and bokeh were pretty and soothing. Just spent a good part of the day botanizing the beautiful acreage belonging to Keith and Sandy Logan, near D’Artique Hall, near Bottrel. This area isn't far from the Water Valley area north west of Cochrane, Alberta. A lovely day of mixed sun and cloud and a few interesting things to see including a Mountain Chickadee and an Evening Grosbeak (who insisted on hiding deep within a tree of tiny, tangled branches. We also found quite a few Sweet Coltsfoot plants in bloom - so pretty and unusual, I think. Now I'm almost falling asleep at my computer - and it's only 4:45 p.m.! That doesn't hold too much promise for this evening!

I took this photo on 23rd May last year (2008), but wasn't sure whether to post it or not. Now I'm feeling the need for some colours that are different from all the greens and yellows and beiges that have been in so many of my recent forest shots. This blossom tree was growing down south of us, at the Coaldale Bird of Prey Centre, near Lethbridge.

This photo was taken in the garden of friends, Phil and Jen, the other day. The blossom on this bush was just beginning to open and I ended up with a bit of pretty bokeh, too.

I don't usually take photos of blossom, but the flowers on this tree at the Coaldale Bird of Prey Centre were such a gorgeous colour yesterday, that I just had to take shot : )

This gorgeous blossom was beautiful to see in Phil and his wife's garden, when I went over to photograph the family of Blue Jays that have made this garden paradise their home. I don't know what kind of blossom it is, but I love the shade of pink. Note: thanks, Phil, for the ID - a Weigela Shrub. It is a member of the Honeysuckle family.