Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: explore2009February6

One of my archived flower photos from last spring. Not the sharpest, but I like the mixture of colours.

A second distant and heavily cropped photo of this rare to uncommon (in Alberta) Northern Hawk Owl. This was the first time I had really seen one and the first chance I'd ever had to photograph one. It was so high up in the tall tree, that I couldn't see which way its head was turned and I ended up with rather too many head-turned sideways shots : ) Seen in the Water Valley area, northwest of the city and of Cochrane. The weather was sunny enough, but the wind was strong and cold.

Isn't this 7-year-old male Barred Owl amazing? Not seen in the wild and not even seen at the Zoo this time. Instead, I got the chance to see and photograph (and stroke, awww) him at a meeting I went to yesterday evening. I've never seen a Barred Owl in the wild, but I do enjoy seeing the two at the Calgary Zoo. My camera can't deal with indoor light and I can't use flash successfully. Managed to rescue a few of the images, though. This owl was injured (damaged eye that he can't see out of), so would not have been able to be released.