Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Canadian Rocky Mountain Ranch

Note: This is NOT my main photo of the three (i.e. the very last photo posted) I'm posting today! The Great Gray Owl is my main photo. Flickr is messing up yet AGAIN, showing my photos in a different order from what I post when some people look at them, which drives me nuts! Often, my second and third photos are much poorer quality (sometimes downright awful, lol), so that is what people see if they have Flickr set to show only one photo from each Contact, instead of what is usually the best of my 'daily three'. They are always displayed in the right order on my photostream. Even though these majestic Elk are raised at the Canadian Rocky Mountain Ranch, along with Buffalo/Bison, it's amazing to see them on the rolling hills SW of Calgary. Of course, one always prefers photos of animals in the wild, but I rarely get to see wild Elk and, when I do, they tend to be way off in the distance. Throughout history, elk have been hunted for their quality lean meat. More information on the Canadian Rocky Mountain Ranch can be found at the link below: www.crmr.com/ranch/ The light was so harsh when I arrived at a wetland in SW Calgary rather late in the afternoon of 5 June 2015. There didn't seem to be a lot of birds in sight and just the usual ones, so I didn't stay long. No sign of any young ones yet with the Red-necked Grebe, lying on her distant nest. From the wetland, I drove a few of the backroads SW of the city, seeing familiar birds that I often photograph, but always happy for the opportunity to shoot again. One hillside had numerous white-spotted baby Elk - raised on a ranch, but still so cute to see, despite not being wild. Three Mourning Doves were perched on a high wire in their usual spot. A herd of gorgeous Long-horn cattle and their cute youngsters were in a field that I passed, but again, the afternoon sun was just too harsh for photos. Stopped to photograph a pair of Mountain Bluebirds - there were flashes of blue along many of the backroads. A Snipe standing on a fence post in a different place completed my afternoon.

Yesterday, 14 November 2014, my daughter and I went to the Spruce Meadows Christmas Market. Afterwards, on a short drive SW of the city, we passed a few of the free-range Bison/Buffalo that belong to the Canadian Rocky Mountain Ranch. These animals, along with Elk, are raised for meat. Of course, I much prefer photographing wild Buffalo, in a place like Waterton National Park. However, we couldn't resist this chance to photograph one of these huge animals grazing in our recently fallen snow. It snowed yet again last night, but the sun is shining today. I have been ridiculously short of sleep the past couple of weeks, but I got a full night's sleep last night, resulting in posting today's photos so late (after 12:30 pm) and my plans for today went out the window. Yesterday was so cold - almost too cold to take photos. There are two living subspecies of WILD bison in North America: the plains bison (Bison bison bison) and the wood bison (Bison bison athabascae). "Two hundred years ago, the plains bison was by far the more common of the two subspecies. It was the dominant grazing animal of the interior plains of the continent, and it often occurred in large herds. A smaller population occurred east of the Mississippi. Today, there are comparatively few plains bison. A herd of about 600 is fenced in at Elk Island National Park, 64 km east of Edmonton. There are small numbers at Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan, Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, and Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta. There are at least 25 herds of plains bison in national and state parks and wildlife refuges in the United States, numbering more than 10,000 animals. There are more than 140,000 in private collections and on a large number of commercial ranches in both Canada and the United States. The wood bison has always lived to the north of its prairie cousin. In historic times its range was centred in northern Alberta and the adjacent parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and Saskatchewan. Herds made use of aspen parkland, the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, the lowlands of the Peace and Slave rivers, and the coniferous forests and wetland meadows of the upper Mackenzie Valley. The wood bison was never as abundant as the plains bison, probably numbering no more than 170,000 at its peak. In April 1994, there were approximately 3,000 wood bison in Canada, most in five "free-roaming" herds, the largest of which consists of more than 2,000 animals in the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary near Fort Providence, Northwest Territories. The source herd of 350 animals for the recovery program is at Elk Island National Park. The total population is small enough that the wood bison is considered threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). The other large free-roaming herd of bison is in Wood Buffalo National Park, on the Northwest Territories–Alberta border, where there are about 2,000 animals, descendants of mixed plains and wood bison stock." www.hww.ca/en/species/mammals/north-american-bison.html www.crmr.com/ranch/media/

Even though these majestic Elk are raised at the Canadian Rocky Mountain Ranch, along with Buffalo/Bison, it's amazing to see them on the rolling hills SW of Calgary. Taken on 24 June 2013. I did think of "removing" their ear tags, but I was just too tired to do it. Of course, one always prefers photos of animals in the wild, but I rarely get to see wild Elk and, when I do, they are way off in the distance. This closer shot shows what beautiful animals they are. Throughout history, elk have been hunted for their quality lean meat. More information on the Canadian Rocky Mountain Ranch can be found at the link below: www.crmr.com/ranch/ Yesterday, I finally copied all the photos from the computer I'm using on to a new external hard drive. This was supposed to be done as part of a full transfer by the people at the computer store, but it wasn't. Can't face carrying the two computers back to the store and back home, and being without a computer for a few days again, so I'm doing it myself. Took just over 7 hours to transfer yesterday - I kept off the computer while this was happening, as I didn't want to risk doing something wrong or making it take even longer to do. Sometime soon, I will have to hook up my "new" computer and transfer all my photos to that, and then comes the fun of trying to figure out Windows 7, ha.

One of the impressive Caribou on the Canadian Rocky Mountain Ranch. This place belongs to a cousin of a friend of mine and we called in to say Hello on our way out to hike the Fullerton Trail, out past Bragg Creek along the Elbow Falls Trail (Highway 66).

This morning, on the way to hike the Fullerton Loop by Allen Bill Pond, Elbow Falls Trail, we stopped at the ranch of a friend's cousin. This is the Canadian Rocky Mountain Ranch, which provides Elk, Buffalo (Bison) and Cariboo. www.crmr.com/ranch/index.php . We were introduced to their new pet - Tara, a two-month-old baby Buffalo! She was the cutest thing, following us around when we walked to see the Caribou, almost as if she thought she was a human and one of the "family". Imagine how enormous she will grow!