Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: wooden pole

Lol, this is certainly a different perch from the more usual power pole, but I do wish they would perch on fence posts or trees more often! Had a great day on 22 December 2013 with friends Cathy and Terry, driving the backroads SE of the city, hoping to see an owl or two. The day started off with a Long-eared Owl and ended with a Short-eared Owl! In total, we saw 5 Snowy Owls, 4 Great Horned Owls, 1 Long-eared Owl and 1 Short-eared Owl. Plus a few other species, including a Northern Shrike, many Grey Partridges (all of which flew before we could take photos, other than a couple of very distant ones), Horned Larks, Ravens/Crows, owls in barn windows, a beautiful Gyrfalcon and a colourful sunrise. Not a bad day, I think you'll agree : ) The only thing we didn't see, except briefly, was the sun, so we had low light all day, unfortunately! It was so unbearably cold all day, windchill temperature was -30C. A few seconds out of the car and fingers were so painful, despite wearing gloves. Difficult to hold the camera steady when one is shivering, ha. This morning, 5 January 2014, it's -25C with a windchill of -31C and so it's going to be a long, brutally cold day of birding on the Nanton Christmas Bird Count, roughly an hour's drive S of Calgary. Had to set my alarm for 4:30 a.m. (after getting to sleep around 2:15 a.m.). Be back later. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Owl www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/snowy_owl/id

I fall so far behind with posting photos - and most of the photos I want/need to post never see the light of day, believe it or not, seeing as I have still posted so many photos on Flickr, lol. Didn't have to dig too far into my archives for this one, though, taken E of the city on 28 February 2013. Couldn't get those beautiful yellow eyes, but I did get a tall, wooden pole instead of the more usual insulator of an electricity pole. And no, I wasn't standing two feet away from it - you have to love zoom! A Snowy Owl was seen in the last few days, but most (if not all by now) will have left and migrated north, so we have many months to wait before we see these magnificent birds of prey again. They were here in Alberta in great numbers this year, but maybe next year there will be far fewer of them. All depends on the Leming population up north.

This was one of 12 Snowy Owls (in addition to 5 Great Horned Owls) that friends Cathy and Terry and I saw SE of Calgary on 3 February 2013. This male Snowy posed like this long enough to get a handful of fully zoomed photos. Unfortunately, the position of the sun made one beautiful, bright yellow eye and the other one more or less black because of the shade. It looked so strange, so I tried to correct this just a little. Now he has one shiny eye and one dull one - but, oh, well : ) He's still such a handsome guy. I know it looks like I might have been standing three feet away, but I can assure you I wasn't, lol!

I've had such a problem trying to adjust the colour of this image - and now I give up. Looking up into an overcast sky just never seems to work for me and my camera. I just can't do justice to this magnificent Snowy Owl female (or juvenile?) that we saw yesterday afternoon, east of the city. In the morning, a few of us had got together with owl bander, Richard Chamberland, who had come down to Calgary. He very generously invited a few of us to go looking for a certain Northern Hawk Owl, which we didn't manage to find. From there, we drove south and then east of the city, hoping to be able to find and band a Snowy Owl. One was seen, far in the distance, on the ground. It flew to a couple of very high poles, but stayed there. After Richard had had to leave to do other things, three friends and I continued to travel the backroads, coming across this beautiful female in a place where they had seen her before. She posed for us on an aerial of some sort as well as a couple of very tall poles. This particular one was wooden, which made a welcome change. From my photo, you would think that she was around eye-level and close, but no such luck, ha. The best view for marvelling at this owl's wonderfully dark feather pattern was when we saw her from the side - will post those photos over the next little while. Thanks so much, Richard, for giving up your morning for us - it was good to see you again - and thanks, Phil and Rob, for the ride around the Prairies and for showing Bonnie and me this beautiful bird. Much appreciated! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Owl

A white, snowy backdrop for this little White-breasted Nuthatch, seen on 24th March at Shannon Terrace, Fish Creek Park - on one of the few occasions that I have been out since the start of the year! www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/white-breasted_nuthatch/id

This was taken yesterday, in the rain and snow, when we were doing the annual May Species Count in Fish Creek Park. This Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularius syn. Actitis macularia) looked less than impressed! We spent about six hours in temperatures of 0.8-2C! Out came the winter boots, the sweater, the fleece jacket, the thick winter jacket, toque, two pairs of gloves and long-johns - and it's June the day after tomorrow, lol. I was halfway to being soaked to the skin! An enjoyable walk, though, as usual. We saw a total of 47 bird species, compared to 58 species May 2009. I'd never taken a photo at ISO 400 before (can you believe it?), so hardly the best quality : )