Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: interestingness#301

Taken on a drive along some of the backroads SW of Calgary, on 21 June 2014. This male Mountain Blackbird was busy helping to catch insects to feed to their babies. He caught a very nice Grasshopper this time : ) It had rained the few days before this, so I really, really wanted to get out for a short time, even though I needed to get my things ready for a very early start the next morning, for the day trip to Dinosaur Provincial Park. In Bluebirds, the blue colour is produced by the structure of the feather - there is no blue pigment. "Tiny air pockets in the barbs of feathers can scatter incoming light, resulting in a specific, non-iridescent color. Blue colors in feathers are almost always produced in this manner. Examples include the blue feathers of Bluebirds, Indigo Buntings, Blue Jay's and Steller's Jays." www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mountain_Bluebird/id www.jstor.org/discover/pgs/index?id=10.2307/4077277&i...

I had been hoping to see a Snowdrop again this year, and this one that was growing at the Reader Rock Garden recently was the first and only one I've seen this spring. Such dainty little flowers : ) Since I took this photo, the poor flowers have been buried by further snow falls!

Happened to notice a small bunch of these vivid pink fringed Gerberas at Safeway yesterday. It was the only bunch and I was sure it had my name on it, LOL. Needless to say, I just HAD to buy them. Just enough natural light was coming through my window,

LARGE SIZE shows the fine details better, if you have time! Thanks, Synapped! Oh, boy, please bear with me!! 'Tis the season of greys and whites, and this season is going to be a long five or six months. Like last winter, many of my photos will be colourless, except when I visit the Zoo in sheer desperation for some COLOUR! It was -23C with the wind chill factor this morning and it was COLD on my walk. I was supposed to go on a bird walk across the city, but 40 minutes after leaving home, I was still just down the road. Road conditions were atrocious and traffic was barely moving. So, rather than try to reach my original destination, I decided I would go locally and check on "my" Great Horned Owls (saw two of them again, but they were in separate locations). There were so many hungry Chickadees, but I had no seeds with me as you can get a large fine if you are seen feeding these little friendly birds in the parks. Some of these little guys would land on my frozen index finger that was ready to press the shutter button! Chickadees darting in every possible direction are impossible to photograph - this was just a very lucky shot : )! It was grey and gloomy out, really bad for taking photos : )

Took this photo of a Prairie Crocus gone to seed, a few months ago, in north Weaselhead.