Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Phalacrocorax auritus

This photo was taken on 24 September 2017. The meeting time for a trip east with other birders was given incorrectly in our newsletter, which said 9:30 am instead of 8:00 am that was given in a different place. Three of us arrived around 9:15 am, only to discover that no one else turned up. So, we went for a walk at the meeting place, Carburn Park, and afterwards, I decided that I would drive east of the city and wander around a few of the back roads. It was definitely a good decision as, though I didn't see many birds, two of them were beautiful Great Horned Owls. These Cormorants were the far side of the Bow River. I ended up driving very different back roads to what I had thought of doing. They were all in the south of the area, and many were new roads to me. Old barns outnumbered birds photographed, with about five new barns and just two owls. The first owl I came across flew low across the road in front of me. At first, I thought it was a hawk of some kind, as Great Horned Owls aren't often seen flying in the daytime, It landed on a fence post in a field, where it sat for a minute or two, before flying to a distant old barn window on a farm property. Later on, after getting myself completely lost, I realized that I was not too far from an old grain elevator that I had discovered four years ago. On that day, I remember being so happy to have come across this elevator. That day, when I got out of my car and walked a bit closer to get photos, I couldn't believe my eyes when I noticed a Great Horned Owl sitting in a window. I never expected that there would be an owl in the window again, but there it was! Happy day! The following day, 25 September 2017, I spent the day with a friend, travelling south of the city to the Pine Coulee Reservoir and area. The rolling hills of this whole area are so beautiful. The birds we saw were all far away, needing Tony's spotting scope, except for a Eurasian Collared Dove and several small birds. Meanwhile, I was enjoying the scenery and anything else that caught my eye. We called in at the Pine Coulee campground and the Willow Creek Provincial Park campground and did a walk at each. Both were deserted and very peaceful. At the Willow Creek Provincial Park campground, the silence was broken by the call of a Belted Kingfisher. There was a bright yellow sign warning that there was a Bear in the area, but it was nowhere to be seen. The weather was perfect all day, starting off chilly, but getting up to about 20C in the afternoon, and a sky full of clouds. Thanks so much for the invite, Tony - much appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed! Pure luxury, too, not having to drive.

A photo of two beautiful Cormorants from my archives, taken on 25 June 2012, on a drive NW of Calgary. This photo has been floating around in my archives and I always avoided deleting it. At last, I cropped it and added a texture to it (I think I used the Film Grain filter), and here it is. Now I can forget about it : ) That was quite a day I had on 25 June 2012, as I had a "forced" day away from my place as all my windows were supposed to be replaced. I had to remove my car from the parking spot, but I had no parking permit to park on the street. This meant that I was going to have to make sure I stayed out for the whole day. A drive NW of the city came to mind and it turned out to be a great day, which I'm so glad I didn't miss. When I got home, I discovered that the windows had not been replaced! Great Gray Owls were what I was hoping for and they didn't disappoint. On the way there, I passed a small lake, where I saw these two Double-crested Cormorants standing on a rock "island" in the middle. After stopping to get a shot or two of a Swainson's Hawk perched on a fence post, and pulling over to let a "real" cowboy on horseback herd his cattle along the road, I finally reached "owl country". Another find that was totally unexpected that day, was when I found myself staring into the eyes of an animal that I didn't recognize. It was hidden in the grass at the edge of the gravel road and, from a distance, I wondered if it was the Great Gray Owl that I had just seen flying and then disappeared. I managed to get a couple of very poor photos of it in the grass before it suddenly ran across the road and disappeared from sight. Had to wait till I got home and could do a Google search before I learned what it was! A Woodchuck - I didn't even know that we got Woodchucks here. The fact that a huge gravel truck and trailer were barrelling down the gravel road towards me, was a distraction and concern. Another couple of seconds and the truck might have hit the quite large animal! I was also concerned about my own safety, otherwise I might have tried to get a road-crossing shot! There was a fairly constant flow of these huge trucks that day, delivering gravel to cover the muddy road after all the rain we'd been getting, but the timing of this particular one couldn't have been worse, lol! As for Great Gray Owls, I think I saw two different adults, but also two absolutely adorable owlets perched side by side in a distant tree. Sadly, people just don't seem to be seeing owls in that whole area anymore. What a treat it was, while it lasted! How lucky we are. I was shaking my heard the whole drive back home, thinking about how lucky I had been in the previous two days (few weeks!), seeing so many "new" things.

Early yesterday morning, 18 October 2014, I joined a group of friends for a few hours of birding. We started off at Frank Lake but didn't go to the blind/hide area at all, for safety reasons. We just drove along the short road that goes from half way down the east side of the lake to near the edge of the lake. The last half of this backroad is so very deeply rutted that it's impossible to drive, so we had to walk the last part. It's hunting season and we could hear the shots being fired. We were totally disgusted by the hundreds of empty shells that littered the ground!!! Too bad the hunters don't have such a huge sense of guilt at killing these beautiful birds, that they end up picking up their empty shells out of a sense of guilt and shame - yeah, right! This is my/our opinion only, of course! From Frank Lake, we drove (carpooled) north to Carseland and stopped at the Reservoir, where we saw this beautiful Double-crested Cormorant with wings spread out to dry. Their wings are not waterproof, so they have to spend time drying them after being in the water. Also spotted a Loon way out in the water and several Grey Partridges on a distant slope. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Double-crested_Cormorant/id en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-crested_cormorant The rest of the day was spent driving the backroads east of the city. We called in at Eagle Lake and another lake - I never drive to this whole area, so I'm not sure exactly where we went. Andrew's detailed list will provide me with answers and I will add it here when it is posted. He always does a superb job of his reports, as well as taking us all out on a very enjoyable day. Weather-wise, it couldn't have been more perfect. Thanks so much, Andrew! Link to Andrew's very detailed account and list: groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Albertabird/conversations/mes... Actual account of the day: "Fifteen participants set off on this trip. The weather was beautiful. The temperature rose from about 10 deg C to 20 deg C by the middle of the afternoon. Sunny all day. Generally light breezes but extremely windy at Chestermere Lake. The original plan was to spend most of the day in the Frank Lake area. But I had not accounted for the impact of the hunting season. Under the auspices of the Alberta Conservation Association 17,000 pheasants are released at approximately 60 sites in Alberta during October. One of those sites (and the only one in its immediate area) is, of course, Frank Lake. The advertized release dates for Frank Lake are October 15 to November 12. So the scene at the parking area near the blind today featured far more vehicles than usual and many hunters with dogs, all wearing red fluorescent safety gear, and systematically moving to flush pheasants, and whistling as they went. So a couple of problems if you are birdwatching. First you sure need to have your own highly visible safety clothing, second the large number of hunters, dogs, and gunshots tends to scare off the birds. Just, to be clear, I recognize that the hunting community probably contributes much more to the upkeep of areas like Frank Lake then the birding community does. On my scouting trip yesterday I spent some time in fascinating and educational discussions with some of the hunters. But there are just some days when the two do not mix. So we headed off down to the SE corner of Basin 2. No hunters in immediate evidence, but dozens of spent shotgun cartridges on the ground. We did see some duck hunters, who do not wear fluorescent safety gear, and heard several shotgun blasts. The hunters employed several decoys (both audible and visible), but they had little impact on the majority of birds on the lake. The highlight here was three late Marsh Wrens found and photographed by Jan Roeseneder. Next we headed to Carseland, spotting two Rough Legged Hawks en route. At Carseland we parked above the weir. The campsite is still closed but we could see several boats across at the boat launch area. From there we went to the SW corner of Eagle Lake and had lunch. Looking further east we saw several hundred (at least) Greater White-fronted and Snow Geese, which appeared to have been flushed by some wind surfers. So we headed one RR east and went down to the lakeshore there. There were about four wind surfers having a great time, no geese in sight. The windsurfers only occupied a very small area of the lake. Ken Burton spotted a female White-winged Scoter flying across the lake. Our next stop was Alkali Lake where we were hoping to see the large flock of Snow Geese reported yesterday by Bill Walker. We stopped at another slough about half a km short and saw a huge cloud of Snow Geese rising from Alkali Lake and flying away. As far as we could tell there were no blue geese and no Ross's Geese in the flock. They did not come back! We went on to the lake anyway and saw the reason why. There were at least two hunters in and around the lake, who had presumably fired at the geese. Our final stops were along the east side of Chestermere Lake. We were unsuccessful in locating the Red Throated Loon. We were the "other group of birders" that Mark Conboy mentioned the Little Gull sighting to. After meeting Mark we looked carefully at the the gulls, but could only identify Ring Billed, Franklin's and Bonaparte's. The wind at Chestermere was really strong making solid ids challenging on many of the far off water birds. Apart from the Great Horned Owls, Harriers and the Rough Legged Hawk, we did not see any raptors. And we did not see any of the 17,000 pheasants that are being released! This did spare us the ethical challenge of deciding whether or not they were countable. The closest we came was some Gray Partridges at Carseland. However, a very enjoyable day. The complete checklists, which likely underestimate most of the waterfowl numbers, are summarized below. Number of Checklists: 6 Number of Species: 49 Checklists included in this summary: (1): Frank Lake--Basin 2 (Southeast Corner) Date: Oct 18, 2014, 9:15 AM (2): Carseland Weir Date: Oct 18, 2014, 11:15 AM (3): Blackie Date: Oct 18, 2014, 10:45 AM (4): Eagle Lake SW corner RR 250 Date: Oct 18, 2014, 12:20 PM (5): Alkali Lake Date: Oct 18, 2014, 2:20 PM (6): Chestermere Lake Date: Oct 18, 2014, 3:25 PM 750 Greater White-fronted Goose -- (4) 2750 Snow Goose -- (4),(5) 21 Canada Goose -- (1),(6) 4 Trumpeter Swan -- (1) 40 Tundra Swan -- (1),(4) 10 Trumpeter/Tundra Swan -- (5) 43 Gadwall -- (1),(2),(4),(5) 150 American Wigeon -- (1),(4),(5) 129 Mallard -- (1),(2),(4) 1 Blue-winged Teal -- (1) 11 Northern Shoveler -- (1),(4) 28 Northern Pintail -- (1),(4) 6 Green-winged Teal -- (5) 302 Canvasback -- (1),(4) 100 Redhead -- (1) 2 Ring-necked Duck -- (1) 32 Lesser Scaup -- (4),(5) 1 White-winged Scoter -- (4) 50 Bufflehead -- (4),(6) 55 Common Goldeneye -- (2),(4),(6) 1 Hooded Merganser -- (2) 82 Common Merganser -- (2),(6) 180 Ruddy Duck -- (1),(4) 15 Gray Partridge -- (2) 5 Common Loon -- (1),(2),(6) 4 Horned Grebe -- (1),(4) 6 Eared Grebe -- (1),(4) 9 Western Grebe -- (1),(6) 1 Double-crested Cormorant -- (2) 6 Great Blue Heron -- (2),(4) 3 Northern Harrier -- (1),(4) 1 Rough-legged Hawk -- (3) 350 American Coot -- (1),(4) 13 Killdeer -- (1) 1 Greater Yellowlegs -- (2) 3 Wilson's Snipe -- (1) 106 Bonaparte's Gull -- (1),(4),(6) 1 Franklin's Gull -- (6) 1333 Ring-billed Gull -- (2),(5),(6) 23 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) -- (1),(2) 2 Great Horned Owl -- (1) 13 Black-billed Magpie -- (1),(2),(5) 1 Common Raven -- (1) 3 Marsh Wren -- (1) 12 European Starling -- (1) 20 American Pipit -- (1) 13 Lapland Longspur -- (1),(5) 12 American Tree Sparrow -- (1) 10 House Sparrow -- (1)" Andrew Hart, Calgary --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not sure what I did in the last two or three days, but the very painful inflammation of the rotator cuffs in my shoulders is back in full force. I can barely lift my right arm even an inch, which makes it impossible to do most things, once again. All I can think of is that I went food shopping and finally bought a pack of bottled water (12 small bottles?), I had avoided doing this for months, because of the weight. I always like to have one pack in the house in case of "emergency". Hard to believe that just this one heavier thing would be enough to end me right back at the beginning with many months of healing ahead, though, but I can't think of anything else that might be the cause. Once the snow arrives, I'm not going to be able to clear the snow off my vehicle, which is one of my biggest concerns. Last winter, I had to stay home and miss so many things for the same reason. Argh!!!

This beautiful Double-crested Cormorant was perched with two others on this piece of driftwood that stays in place in the middle of the Bow River at the Inglewood bird Sanctuary. Photographed on 3 September 2012. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-crested_Cormorant

This dead log in the middle of the Bow River at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary is a popular perch for Double-breasted Cormorants and sometimes Harlequin Ducks. Taken on September 20th. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-crested_Cormorant

I had to drag myself out for a short walk yesterday afternoon, but seeing this Double-crested Cormorant on the Bow River at Hull's Wood, Fish Creek Park, made the effort worthwhile. It was only a very distant shot, just at the bird began to take off. I don't see these birds very often, so am always happy when one is sighted.