Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: glove

Almost embarrassing to say that I think this snowman was the highlight (for me) on yesterday's Bird Count, lol! The sun was shining exactly on it, while the surrounding area was in shade. Yesterday, 1 January 2014, was the 21st annual Fish Creek Park New Year's Day Bird Count and, as you can see from the blue sky, it was a gorgeous day out there. Sunny, calm, -8 to -5C, with 5cm new snow that had fallen overnight. We walked from 9:00 a.m. till noon, and my small group covered the area from Bebo Grove to bridge 6 and back. Twenty people turned up for the Count in this part of the park, so we split into two groups. Other small groups covered other parts of the park and just after noon, some participants met at Tim Horton's for coffee and lunch. Always tastes so good after being outdoors for a few hours : ) Always feels so good to meet up with friends and spend a few hours in this way! Results for my small group (the other half of the group had very similar results, also with a total of 11 species) are listed below. As you can see, nothing spectacular or rare, though we did look in vain for the Three-toed Woodpecker and kept our eyes open for one of the tiny Northern Pygmy Owls that had given us so much pleasure two or three winters ago. Downy Woodpecker-8 Hairy Woodpecker-3 Northern Flicker-1 Black-billed Magpie-4 Common Raven-20 Black-capped Chickadee-37 Boreal Chickadee-1 Red-breasted Nuthatch-1 White-breasted Nuthatch-5 Townsend's Solitaire-2 Bohemian Waxwing-300 Talking of snow, CBC News reported on 21 December 2013: "December SNOWFALL in Calgary has broken a 112-year record according to the city. The City made the announcement in a tweet Saturday morning after weeks of on-and-off heavy snowfall left many residents complaining about the lack of snow removal in parts of Calgary. "A total of 43.8 cm of snow has fallen in Calgary this month. We haven’t seen this much snow in 112 years!" tweeted the City."

We saw this little guy on a botanizing day on Raymond Nadeau's ranchland, west of Head-smashed-in Buffalo Jump, way down south towards the US/Canada border just over a month ago. I still haven't been able to find it on Google - if I ever get time, I need to post it on one of the Bug websites. It was such a beautiful colour. Later: many thanks to Dr. Ted Pike (Calgary) for the ID - a Sawfly larva. "Sawflies are a relative of bees and wasps. There are three or four families of these things which feed on leaves just like this one. I can't tell you more without an adult specimen to key out.". ID much appreciated. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawfly

This was just one really tiny Wandering Garter Snake that we found, measured, recorded and released two weeks ago, when we did our Snake Monitoring in Fish Creek Park. By the way, not MY hand, LOL!

It was gently snowing yesterday when we did our full-day Christmas Bird Count in the Snake's Head/Sundre area, north west of the city. I was wearing bright red, fleece mitts when we got out of the car occasionally to call in at someone's homestead. I thought this tiny snowflake was SO gorgeous, looking (to me) rather like a diamond ear-stud. If only I could have brought it home with me (LOL) so that I could try to photograph it properly with my macro lens and table-top tripod! The light snow today had no beautiful flakes, just tiny specks of white : (. Lyn (and Howard), if you happen to see this sometime, it's to say "Thank you" for the all-day ride yesterday. You, too, Dorothy (and Stephen), for getting me to and from the Count meeting place! Rebecca, you might like this one, too? : ) Oh, and by the way, I'm not interested in real diamonds (not "me" at all!) - only the kind that fall from heaven : )

The ground was covered in wet leaves on a recent walk in South Glenmore Park. However, this was the leaf that caught my eye : ) This actually made it to Front Page (interestingness#5) on 28th October 2009 - thanks so much, EVERYONE! I never bother with this, but after a few people left comments here to let me know, I just had to check the screen shots they very kindly left for me! Much appreciated.