Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Cochrane Wildlife Preserve

We passed this herd of Mule Deer towards the end of our Christmas Bird Count in the Cochrane Wildlife Preserve/Water Valley area on 29th December. Not sure I included all the deer - a lovely sight as we drove past them.

Though this beautiful Tabby looks like it was resting peacefully, in fact it was no such thing. It was a hyper little cat, constantly on the move and almost all my photos are ready to be deleted, LOL! Seen at one of the farms on our Bird Count yesterday in the Cochrane Wildlife Preserve and Water Valley area. Such a friendly kitty and simply beautiful. Out of the whole, long day, I saw one bird to photograph - a Pine Grosbeak - and even that one was right at the top of a very tall Spruce tree, LOL!

On our Christmas Bird Count in the Cochrane Wildlife Preserve and Water Valley area yesterday, a gentleman told us that he had seen hundreds of Snow Buntings "down by the cows". So, the seven of us set off in our two vehicles. When we reached this snow-covered field, one car decided that the ground was just not a good surface to travel. The owner of the other, smaller car decided that Snow Buntings were worth the risk. After this very bad start, they succeeded in making it into the distance - and, of course, were lucky enough to see the wanted birds, LOL. We also saw Coyote-1, White-tailed Deer-6, Mule Deer-25, Moose-4. Temperature for the day was -15 to -05C, and snow depth was 20cm. Bird species recorded: Rock Pigeon- 21 Downy Woodpecker-5 Hairy Woodpecker-1 Blue Jay-1 Black-billed Magpie-41 Common Raven-26 Black-capped Chickadee-4- Mountain Chickadee-1 Red-breasted Nuthatch-4 White-breasted Nuthatch-1 European Starling-12 Snow Bunting-40 Pine Grosbeak-1 Common Redpoll-22 House Sparrow-225 Total hours afield: 8; Total by car-5.5; Total on foot-1; total feeder watching- 1; Total kms; 100km; Total by car 98km; Total on foot-2km.

I just liked the contrast of the blue sky reflected in the vehicle with the lovely orange cat. This was such an active cat the whole time we were watching it - only a couple of my shots came out sharp enough. Taken on 29th December, when a handful of us were doing the Christmas Bird Count in the Cochrane Wildlife Preserve/Water Valley area. I always enjoy seeing the dogs and cats that come out to greet us when we call in at various homesteads/ranches : ) I rarely manage to get bird photos on these Counts, but scenery, pets, Llamas and so on make up for it (for me).

This was a lovely little red barn on one of the ranches we called in at during the Chirstmas Bird Count in the Cochrane Wildlife Preserve/Water Valley area (north west of the city), on 29th December.

This was the only bird photo I managed to get on our Christmas Bird Count in the Cochrane Wildlife Preserve/Water Valley area on 29th December! The few birds we did see were far away, much too distant to get photos. I don't usually see Pine Grosbeaks, so wanted to add this to my Birds of Alberta Set, even though it's a distant and rather uninspiring capture, LOL.