Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: dried grasses

Today, just realized that it is 1 March 2019, our temperature is -21C (windchill -31C). Awoke to find that we had had snow overnight. I think the very first Long-eared Owl that I ever saw was seen on 13 October 2006. SInce then, I have been very fortunate to have seen several other individuals (see my Album) - including the day before yesterday. These owls are very secretive and many birders go years between sightings. It is so important not to give the location of this species. Be careful that there is nothing in your photos that gives away the location. Various people had been posting photos of a Long-eared Owl recently, but I had no idea where they were seeing it. Someone had posted a photo and labelled it "Calgary" (totally untrue!), so I had thought it must have been seen in one of our local city parks. Two days ago, I decided to go for a short drive and get a bit of sunshine and fresh air. Our deep freeze has lasted for more than four weeks, and I have been home for most of that time. It was a milder day, so I decided to make the most of it, especially with more snow forecast for today. Imagine my surprise when a stranger told me just where it was, and my absolute horror when I came upon a huge crowd of photographers with their lenses raised! So how did they all know about this owl?? Apparently, Facebook has such a bad reputation for people trolling everyone's photostream there, finding out locations for all sorts of things (old barns included!). Then, of course, some people phone others, to ask or to tell. Others follow ebird religiously, dashing out to see every more 'special' bird that is reported and location given. I don't post many photos on Facebook and I certainly don't post the same photo to three groups. It gets so very boring to see the same photos everywhere. These people flood their own Facebook pages and the groups! The only reason I can see is to get as many Likes as possible. Anyway, most people were down in the ditch at the fenceline, so no doubt they were able to get stunning close shots, especially those with enormous lenses. My photos were taken from the road, which was twice as far away, with a point-and-shoot. I'm not out to try and get better photos than anyone else : ) As always, there is so much competition among photographers. I was also not out there all day, like various people always are, and often day after day after day. So, after saying those things, perhaps you can imagine how extremely upset (devastated, actually) I am to have been told (when I arrived at the owl) by a couple of friends (both of whom are superb photographers) that my photograph had been taken, along with two other people in it, standing at the edge of a road earlier in February. These friends thought it was hilarious and I sure was teased a lot. As they said, my "goody two-shoes" image was gone. They both know I have very high ethics, including when it comes to photography. This photo was posted on Facebook on a provincial birding page, pointing out how dangerous it is for people to stand by the road. This thread turned into a string of comments about people harassing the owls, etc., etc., etc. Actually, the other two people in the photo are both seen taking photos (when I was told they already had taken thousands). There's me, camera not raised, looking disgusted that an owl had been flushed so that they could take flight images. The reason I was out of my vehicle was that these two people were out of theirs and racing down the road at top speed to get yet more shots. When I was sitting in my car, these photographers blocked my view of the owl, so out I got and caught up with them. To prove that I was not planning on getting out of my car this trip, I was wearing just my thin summer jacket (over fleece) in a windchill in the minus 20C's. Sorry to rant, but it just upsets me so much that this photo was taken and posted on Facebook. Have barely slept the last two nights! The very last thing I would ever want is to be connected with bad ethics!! Of course, I must be such a bad person to actually stand by the road - ha, you should see all the dozens of people who do exactly the same (without being photgraphed)! That day, I took maybe 30 photos of the Long-eared Owl, and maybe a couple of dozen of a Short-eared Owl, almost every single one of the latter needing to be deleted, because they were all totally blurry, thanks to taking the photos from inside my car. You can be sure that most of the others went home with yet another memory card containing thousands of photos. Sorry for the rant, but I am hoping that now I won't be stressing out over it quite as much, every second of the day! Ain't life fun? To the man who took my photo (as far as I know, I have never met him), how about taking a few photos of the crowds of people, especially those who were as close as they could get to the LEO. Or those who stress out the owls day after day after day, often from morning till evening! You might just get lots of likes and comments on photos of those repeat "offenders". How about giving it a try? PS: I rarely allow people (i.e. friends) to photograph me. Not sure what right this man thinks he has, to take my photo and especially to then post it on a very popular Facebook group page. I would like it removed from Facebook, or at the very least, to have myself totally blurred out of the image. When this sort of thing happens, it can totally destroy a person's joy of photography! Actually, on a more serious note, something that I'm sure most people don't think of. You really need to be careful about taking a photo of someone and then posting it (without signing a consent form). For various security reasons, doing this could actually put someone in danger. For example, a woman (or vice versa) might not want their photo being advertised in this way, not wanting an abusive spouse/partner to know where they go sometimes or what they do. Just something to keep in mind.

Two days ago, on 17 February 2018, a small group of us headed way SW of the city - and into yet another snow storm. I kept checking to see if the trip was going to be cancelled, but fortunately, our leader had only read about the "few flurries" for the day. I had read further detail that said that a huge snow storm was moving into the area, bringing up to 25 cm of fresh snow, poor visibility, white-outs, treacherous roads! I knew taking photos was going to be a challenge, and seeing anything in the first place was going to be an even bigger challenge. So glad we went, though - even more so, that I wasn't driving, other than to our local meeting place in the city. The main reason for the trip was to look for Golden Eagles, though of course we were happy to see anything else, too. Last year, we saw five, but this time we couldn't find any. With such poor visibility, they could still have been out there. We did see Bald Eagles, though, and quite a few (mainly very distant) Sharp-tailed Grouse. At one location, they were on the road way ahead of us. I was able to get two or three closer shots of one of them, and managed to sharpen the 'best' one as much as I could, enough to make it just about fit to post yesterday. They are such beautiful birds. I thought we might see some small birds during the day, but we saw no Snow Buntings or Horned Larks. A very distant Great Horned Owl was seen in the yard at one of the places we always used to call in at when we were doing the annual Christmas Bird Count for the area. Also spotted a distant Merlin perched in a bare-branched tree. Three Moose were seen - one on its own and two others together at a different location. The one on its own had been standing but took a few steps and lay down in the deep snow. The other two were spotted when we were almost at the top of a steep, snow-covered back road. Our leader slowed down and, though I normally don't ask someone if they would stop for something, I did so this time. Oops, sorry, Tony, lol! We were stuck, unable to continue our climb to the top of the steep hill. Luckily, Tony is really good at reversing (and trying again)! There were also many Mule Deer to be seen, especially along the coulee. I love the landscape in this whole area and always enjoy photographing it. On this day, the weather was so bad that much of the landscape was just a faint shape in the distance, or else had completely vanished. Sometimes, it was difficult to tell if the distant shapes were actually hills or clouds! A great day, despite the weather. Thanks so much, Tony, for the ride and for another most enjoyable day!

Today, the sun is actually shining, with a temperature of -17C (windchill -29C). I was longing to go on the annual Snowy Owl Prowl east of the city, but, after being out yesterday, I just couldn't face the long drive across the city to today's meeting place. So glad that I did go on the successful Pre-Owl-Prowl outing the other week. Instead, I plan to join several friends for a local walk this afternoon. It would be just so easy to hibernate the whole winter and I am trying to make sure I don't let that happen : ) So, yesterday, 17 February 2018, a small group of us headed way SW of the city - and into yet another snow storm. I kept checking to see if the trip was going to be cancelled, but fortunately, our leader had only read about the "few flurries" for the day. I had read further detail that said that a huge snow storm was moving into the area, bringing up to 25 cm of fresh snow, poor visibility, white-outs, treacherous roads! I knew taking photos was going to be a challenge, and seeing anything in the first place was going to be an even bigger challenge. So glad we went, though - even more so, that I wasn't driving, other than to our local meeting place in the city. The main reason for the trip was to look for Golden Eagles, though of course we were happy to see anything else, too. Last year, we saw five, but this time we couldn't find any. With such poor visibility, they could still have been out there. We did see Bald Eagles, though, and quite a few (mainly very distant) Sharp-tailed Grouse. At one location, they were on the road way ahead of us. I was able to get two or three closer shots of one of them, and managed to sharpen the 'best' one as much as I could, enough to make it just about fit to post this morning. They are such beautiful birds. I thought we might see some small birds during the day, but we saw no Snow Buntings or Horned Larks. A very distant Great Horned Owl was seen in the yard at one of the places we always used to call in at when we were doing the annual Christmas Bird Count for the area. Also spotted a distant Merlin perched in a bare-branched tree. Three Moose were seen - the one in this photo and two others together at a different location. This one had been standing but took a few steps and lay down in the deep snow. The other two were spotted when we were almost at the top of a steep, snow-covered back road. Our leader slowed down and, though I normally don't ask someone if they would stop for something, I did so this time. Oops, sorry, Tony, lol! We were stuck, unable to continue our climb to the top of the steep hill. Luckily, Tony is really good at reversing (and trying again)! There were also many Mule Deer to be seen, especially along the coulee. I love the landscape in this whole area and always enjoy photographing it. Yesterday, the weather was so bad that most of the landscape was just a faint shape in the distance, or else had completely vanished. Sometimes, it was difficult to tell if the distant shapes were actually hills or clouds! A great day, despite the weather. Thanks so much, Tony, for the ride and for another most enjoyable day!

Dug into my archives last night and came across this shot, taken at the Calgary Zoo on 9 April 2013. “The white stork has been rated as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It benefited from human activities during the Middle Ages as woodland was cleared, but changes in farming methods and industrialisation saw it decline and disappear from parts of Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Conservation and reintroduction programs across Europe have resulted in the white stork resuming breeding in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Sweden. It has few natural predators, but may harbour several types of parasite; the plumage is home to chewing lice and feather mites, while the large nests maintain a diverse range of mesostigmatic mites. This conspicuous species has given rise to many legends across its range, of which the best-known is the story of babies being brought by storks. According to European folklore, the stork is responsible for bringing babies to new parents. The legend is very ancient, but was popularised by a 19th-century Hans Christian Andersen story called The Storks. German folklore held that storks found babies in caves or marshes and brought them to households in a basket on their backs or held in their beaks. These caves contained adebarsteine or "stork stones". The babies would then be given to the mother or dropped down the chimney. Households would notify when they wanted children by placing sweets for the stork on the window sill. From there the folklore has spread around the world to countries such as the Philippines and South America. Birthmarks on the back of the head of newborn baby, nevus flammeus nuchae, are sometimes referred to as stork-bite.” From Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_stork

When I was down at Frank Lake on 15 March 2014 with a group of friends, it was a rather strange feeling walking over this ground. I guess the wind (which often blows and blows strongly at this location) had flattened and twisted this dried grass. I also discovered that it's not just snow in between, but water! The wooden building you see in the distance is the Frank Lake bird hide (blind). On this day, temperatures rose from about zero to plus 10 deg C, with sunshine all day and gentle breezes at most. "Frank Lake is a restored wetland located 6 km (3.7 mi) east of High River, Alberta, 50 km (31 mi) south of Calgary, and about 2 km (1.2 mi) south of Blackie. The lake is controlled by Ducks Unlimited Canada for wildlife management purposes, and is an Important Bird Area. It is one of four Alberta lakes with the same name. The lake has had a history of years of being completely dry, and years of being flooded. The main goal of managing Frank Lake is to ensure that the lake is a permanent waterbody, which will improve wildlife habitat. Water control measures have been implemented to help ensure that water levels are maintained. Measures include the building of dikes and water control structures as well as the building of a pipeline from High River to channel treated effluent from the town of High River and a local food processing plant. Water quality is regularly monitored. Nesting boxes, nesting platforms, and rock islands are among the structures placed around the lake to encourage nesting and improve habitat. The Important Bird Areas program considers Frank Lake to be the most important wetland in southwestern Alberta for the production of waterfowl and other water birds. The lake and its surrounding upland areas attracts many species of birds. Waterfowl and shorebirds and other birds use the lake for staging during migration, and nesting. Some birds that can be seen here include: Tundra Swan, Trumpeter Swan, Canada Goose, Northern Pintail, Franklin's Gull, Ring-billed gull, California Gull, Common Tern, Short-eared Owl, Eared Grebe, Marbled Godwit, Long-billed Dowitcher, Black-crowned Night-Heron, and Black-necked Stilt. Birdwatching is a popular activity." From Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lake_ (Alberta) www.ducks.ca/your-province/alberta/wetlands-area/frank-lake/ "In 2005, it was estimated that there were 50,000 Franklin’s Gull nests at Frank Lake. That makes it one of the largest breeding population of Franklin’s Gulls in the world. Local counts of the numbers of White-faced Ibis, Western and Eared Grebes indicate that the lake supports some of the largest breeding populations of these species in Alberta and Canada." From Town of High River website. www.highrivertourism.com/birding

The following is a detailed report by Andrew Hart, who led a group of us on a day trip SE of Calgary on 15 March 2014. I'm adding it mainly as a reminder for myself. My photo shows just the NW edge of Frank Lake, when you start walking in from the gate. A bit closer to the blind, there were more very distant birds in the water or on the ice, including four beautiful Tundra Swans. As you can see, some fields were bare of snow, though others still had a good covering of the white stuff. Now you can see just how far away the Rocky Mountains are - totally different from the few 48x zoomed images I've posted, lol. Andrew's report: "A beautiful spring morning. Temperatures rising from about zero to plus 10 deg C. Sunny all day and gentle breezes at most. Fourteen people showed up to enjoy this. The birds must have thought so too, because migration seems to have got a kick start today. We started at the main entrance to Frank Lake, we walked down to the outfall and then swung back around the blind back to the gate. On this swing we saw: Canada Goose 2000 Tundra Swan 4 American Wigeon 3 Mallard 750 Northern Pintail 2000 Lesser Scaup 3 Common Goldeneye 100 Common Merganser 2 Bald Eagle 3 California Gull 60 Horned Lark 3 European Starling 500 The Canada Geese were mostly on the ground, in a wide arc stretching from the outfall anti clockwise to the left of the blind. The four Tundra Swans touched down on open water near the outfall, swam around for about ten minutes, and then flew away. The Pintails were more intruiging. When we arrived there were only 20-30 mostly on the ice near the outfall. But in the two hours we were in the area continual successive groups ranging in size from 20-30 to 150+ kept flying either in or by. If we counted every sighting I would have reported 5000 plus, but we think we saw some of them more than once (but hard to really be sure). After a lunch break we drove on a long circuit of the area ending up at the Basin 3 carpark. We saw: Canada Goose 300 Mallard 20 Bald Eagle 1 Great Horned Owl 4 Merlin 1 Black-billed Magpie 1 Common Raven 3 Horned Lark 6 European Starling 10,000 All of the Great Horned Owls were on nests. We first saw the Starlings when we noticed a black cloud swirling around in and above the field in the corner of Township 184 and RR281. Closer inspection revealed almost countless numbers of Starlings swarming around. They settled in the field (becoming almost invisible) then rose up and flew around. We suspect that at any time we were watching there were at least as many hidden in the stubble as we could see flying around. One of the transmission towers and several bushes were almost dripping Starlings. Various people in the group estimated 5000 plus, 10,000 plus and "10,000 is a very conservative number". We left, and following a hot tip from Anne Elliott (about the Eurasian Collared Doves) stopped in at Blackie on our way back to Calgary. There we saw: Rock Pigeon 24 European Starling 50 Eurasian Collared-Dove 6 Downy Woodpecker 2 Black-billed Magpie 2 Black-capped Chickadee 8 House Sparrow 12 A short video to show what a murmuration looks like, for anyone who isn't familiar with this phenomenon: youtu.be/XH-groCeKbE

Apologies to anyone who is kind enough to visit my photostream regularly! You will be so sick and tired of the same or very similar description under so many photos. The main reason I do this is to remind myself of just where I was and when, for each photo. After nine days at home, giving my 16 stitches from minor surgery a chance to start healing properly (now healed well and taken out), an invitation by friends Cathy and Terry to go birding yesterday was welcomed with open arms - as it always is! What a great day we had, searching SE of the city, and finding some really neat birds. Most were impossible to photograph because of distance, but also because we had "heat wave" distortion all day long, making it difficult to get photos that were sharp. It was one of THOSE days, out of the house from 7:15 a.m. to about 8:15 in the evening. By the end of the day, we had seen a total count of 19 owls, from three species - 8 Short-eared Owls, 8 Snowy Owls, 2 Great Horned Owls and one mystery owl. We couldn't decide if the latter was a Snowy Owl or a Short-eared Owl, as it was perched on top of a metal silo, way off in the distance. Later, an excellent birding friend, to whom I sent a photo, identified it as a Snowy Owl. We missed a good photo opp with one of the Short-eared Owls, when we were pulled over, further down the road than several other photographers. We did see this one down on the ground near the edge of the road in a different place, hiding in the dried grasses, but, again, my photo is blurry and grainy. However, it does show how well-camouflaged these owls are when down on the ground among the dried grasses. The eyes do give it away, but if the head is turned away, it's even harder to spot. We saw this one thanks to Ian, who had noticed it and had pulled over just ahead of us down the road. Also saw a Prairie Falcon and lots of Horned Larks - the latter constantly in flight or down on the road ahead of us. The "heat wave" distortion made it impossible to get anything but rather blurry shots of these, but I did post the "best" one of them yesterday - they are so cute with their tiny "horns".

On 25 January 2014, I spent an amazing day with friends Cathy and Terry, SE of Calgary. The crazy weather soared to a balmy 11C, though a lot of the day was colder, with a strong wind! Along one of the roads, we came across these abandoned old buildings. Much as I love seeing and photographing birds, I have always loved old barns and homesteads, too. They have so much charm and character and always make me wonder who used to live in them and why they left. Unfortunately, there are people who enter such places, out of curiosity or to photograph the insides, and sometimes to steal various old items. These buildings always stand on land that is owned by someone, so removing any object is stealing. Also, of course, many of the crumbling buildings are unsafe. Sometimes, a No Trespassing sign is in view. My friends and I always stay on the road and photograph from a distance - thank goodness for zoom. Much as I would love to see the inside of some of these fascinating places, I've only ever been inside one, and that was on a botany day trip a few years ago, where we were shown around the farm buildings by the owner of the land. We were lucky enough to see 16 owls that day! 8 Snowy Owls and 8 Great Horned Owls. The closest Snowy Owl was seen when it was early evening and the light had gone, and my photos are all blurry. The other owls were little more than a tiny speck in the far, far distance, but I still managed to get some kind of shot of some of them, using 48x zoom plus cropping. Perhaps I should add that maybe 15 of the owls that were seen would never have been seen by less experienced birders (and I include myself in that category!). My friends have brilliant eyes when it comes to spotting owls! Just left me shaking my head each time they found one! I'm not too bad at finding owls, but not at that distance!