Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Beauty in nature

Another image from when I photographed a pair of beautiful Mountain Bluebirds on 24th May. This is the little female. Once again, I'm posting really late today. I'm having such a crazy few days at the moment, out almost all the time, but trying to add the occasional photo in case friends might want to see them, friends who were out on the same hikes/walks as I have been on. Was on a long walk in Weaselhead, called Dawn Chorus, from 3:30 this morning till roughly 7:15 a.m.. Called in to get a sandwich locally for "breakfast" and then repeated the walk with some birding friends from 9:00 a.m. till about 12:00 noon. I was then very fortunate to be invited to go along with a friend to do her Mountain Bluebird nesting box route this afternoon, outside the city. Thanks so much, Sue! We saw a mixture of Bluebirds and Tree Swallows and anything from an empty box to a box with nest, eggs, babies and even a couple of adults inside them. Just like yesterday, I will be going on a long, full-day botanizing hike tomorrow. Then, on Monday, I can totally collapse and hopefully get some sleep!!! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Bluebird talkaboutwildlife.ca/profile/?s=238

This is what everything looked like on Saturday morning, down near the Bow River. It was one of the most beautiful mornings I have ever seen! Every plant, bush, blade of grass, metal railing and fence, etc. was decorated so delicately with gorgeous ice crystals. By the time we turned around to retrace our steps, it had all melted : ( I would love to be able to watch these crystals grow under a microscope. Hey, Machel - if you look really closely and use a HUGE amount of imagination, you can see the faintest suggestion of dotted bokeh : )

I did actually use this photo to make one of fd's flickrtoys Motivator "cards" quite a while ago. It was shown in a much smaller size and the actual file size was just tiny. Thought I'd post the original photo to my Photostream, to keep safely. We had a lovely sunny day today (just when I had to spend the afternoon indoors, doing a volunteer shift), but snow is in the forecast for tomorrow, yet again. LOL, I found out the colour of my car today - yes, I washed it, after months of grime, snow, and dirty slush. Just hope all the car doors don't freeze shut overnight!

A friend very kindly invited me to go south of the city today to a place called Frank Lake. The weather was overcast for a good part of the morning but the sun did finally come through just before we returned home. We saw a great variety of birds, which was a real treat. Most were far away in the distance, but I have been able to bring them a little closer with cropping. I just liked the patterns made by the reeds in the Lake and their reflections.