Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Cornell Lab of Ornithology

The American Crow was taken by yours truly and it is much appreciated that one of my images was used. This pack of ID cards arrived in my mailbox just yesterday. They are beautifully made - and would make a great gift for a child. I took this quick shot last night and really should have thought a bit more carefully about it and turned over one of the cards to show the range map and information that is given for each bird. “A set of 38 large, colorful photos and interesting facts about common North American birds helps build bird identification skills. Revised, updated, and expanded!" These cards are one of the BirdSleuth Resources – others include a BirdSleuth Science Process Discovery Poster, Scavenger Hunt Cards, Bird Bingo Cards, Pocket Naturalist®, and BirdSleuth Poster 6-pack. For use with kids from Kindergarten to Grade 11. BirdSleuth Bird ID Cards help kids become experts on identifying common backyard birds. The front of each card is a beautiful, full-color 5x8 image while the back of the card describes the habitat, food preferences, and breeding biology of the bird, along with a range map, trivia questions, and cool facts. Each one of the 38 full-color laminated cards provides information on one of the most common birds. They are a great way to teach bird identification: each child in a group can become an expert on a bird or an individual can quiz herself on the bird names. There are also fun and easy-to-play games suggested, as well as BirdSleuth trivia questions and cool facts on every card. The cards also come in our Most Wanted Birds kit.” www.birdsleuth.org/502/

Just wanted to pass on this beautiful Thanksgiving e-card from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Needless to say, I was delighted that the tiny Northern Pygmy-owl from down in our local park is being shared with so many people! I love these little popcan-sized owls! Congratulations to the other four photographers whose images are on this card (not to mention all the runners-up) - I think you can tell they enjoy what they are doing. My thanks to anyone who might just have happened to vote for my image - I really appreciate it. If you have never used Cornell's birding website, please do take a look. Tons of excellent information there. www.birds.cornell.edu/Page.aspx?pid=1478 Apologies for posting yet another photo today.

Though House Sparrows tend not to be popular little birds, you have to admit that they are quite attractive. I love these little birds, with their beautifully patterned feathers. This male was actually down at the Calgary Zoo yesterday (flying freely, of course!) and I was quite pleased with this backlit (?) shot. "House Sparrows are not closely related to the other North American sparrows: they belong to the family of Old World sparrows (Passeridae)." From Birds of Alberta by Chris Fisher and John Acorn.

A gorgeous Great Horned Owl seen at the Coaldale Bird of Prey Centre yesterday. I actually had this beautiful bird sit on my hand - the most amazing feeling! I was also lucky enough to hold a tiny Burrowing Owl. It is so much fun photographing the birds at this Centre, but of course there is nothing like photographing them in the wild. We seem to have SO many Great Horned Owls in Calgary, LOL! No wonder it was chosen as the Provincial Bird.

I saw this whole huddle (?) of adorable Canada Goose goslings yesterday, when I went with Ron (Flickrite Ronaldok) down to the Coaldale Bird of Prey Centre near Lethbridge in southern Alberta. They were hanging out with Mom and Dad near one of the ponds at the Centre. We'd been watching several goslings and then suddenly Mom stood up and revealed this tightly packed bundle of downy feathers : )