Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Langdon

A friend very kindly invited me to go with him yesterday afternoon in search of Snowy Owls and Short-eared Owls. He found us one Snowy Owl and four Short-eared Owls east of the city, near Langdon, at Weed Lake. The latter spent most of the time flying low over the field, searching for food. Occasionally, one would perch on a distant fence post or on top of a very tall pole - key words here are "distant" and "tall"! I managed to get about four OK photos that were very distant and so are heavily cropped. Good enough for ID purposes, though, and for memories of such a great sighting. I really hope all these birds survive, as they sometimes swooped down low across the road when a vehicle was approaching, they were so intent on their hunt.

A friend very kindly invited me to go with him yesterday afternoon in search of Snowy Owls and Short-eared Owls. He found us one Snowy Owl and four Short-eared Owls east of the city, near Langdon, at Weed Lake. The latter spent most of the time flying low over the field, searching for food. Occasionally, one would perch on a distant fence post or on top of a very tall pole - key words here are "distant" and "tall"! I managed to get about four OK photos that were very distant and so are heavily cropped. Good enough for ID purposes, though, and for memories of such a great sighting. I really hope all these birds survive, as they sometimes swooped down low across the road when a vehicle was approaching, they were so intent on their hunt.

This is a female Snowy Owl (adult males are pure white but females have this heavy, dark brown barring). My friend found it for us east of Calgary, in the Langdon area, yesterday afternoon, along with four Short-eared Owls a little further on. I feel rather bad, as I didn't do the greatest job of photographing this owl after all the trouble my friend went to in finding it (light was a little dim for my point-and-shoot, I suspect). They are such spectacular birds and they just take your breath away! This photo is almost identical to photos taken by other people. Almost always sitting on one of these poles! My photo when the owl was looking straight at us came out a little blurred, so I thought I'd post this less spectacular pose but at least it's a little more pleasant on the eyes! The same friend found a beautiful, pure white male Snowy Owl last winter and I posted a photo of that one a while ago.