Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: filter

A BEAUTIFUL FLOWER FOR YOU, PAM! THINKING OF YOU, AS ALWAYS : ) This evening, I have just added 12 more photos from my visit to the Saskatoon Farm, on 18 July 2019. I will not be posting any images tomorrow. Having noticed that my Cover photo/banner has disappeared, I did wonder if I would be able to upload any photos. A few problems, but all uploaded eventually. A few days ago, after seven or so long, brutal months of winter (coldest on record?) and now endless weeks of rain and cloud, I finally decided, enough is enough. I have become a fair-weather photographer, and we don't get that much fair weather, especially this year. So, on 18 July 2019, despite the weather forecast for a thunderstorm, I decided to drive SE of the city mid-afternoon. My plan had been to go to the Farm first and have a meal, and then continue on to Frank Lake. Seeing the beautiful storm clouds on my drive south, I was torn as to whether to go to Frank Lake first and catch a few photos. Then it occurred to me that I could also get a few sky shots once I had turned off the main highway and on to the country road leading to the Farm. The Farm was pretty busy. So much wonderful colour everywhere that I almost forgot about the weather. That is, until I was eating outside under the open shelter. It was so cold, I had goosebumps, and the wind increased, sending a huge picnic table umbrella flying fast like an arrow through the air. Just a short bit of rain and all returned to 'normal'. As usual, I wandered around the grounds, shooting flowers, rabbits, landscape, clouds, and old tractors. One barn stood out to me and had me puzzled. I have visited the farm many times before, but I don't remember seeing one particular barn/shed before. It looked so pretty, with its colourful flower border, so maybe that is why it caught my eye. Eventually, I continued my drive to Frank Lake. The storm clouds stayed with me. One side road has a small wetland on either side of the road and I pulled over to check what birds might be there. I was about to turn off my car when a loud buzzer sounded and a tornado alert was announced - to take shelter and if there was no shelter nearby, to get into a ditch or ravine. Then I heard that the area covered was further SE - in fact, where I had been a week earlier. "Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) confirmed a weak EF0 tornado touched down two kilometres northeast of Crossfield at around 2:15 p.m. Sunday, 14 July 2019, marking the 12th confirmed twister of the season." (This was roughly 50 km north of Calgary.) According to the weather agency, Alberta typically sees an average of 15 tornadoes per year with the peak season starting mid-to-late June and ending early-to-mid August. So far in 2019, there have been 12 confirmed tornadoes in Alberta and three probable ones. There have also been many reports of funnel clouds." From Global News. While I was standing by this wetland, a White-faced Ibis flew in. I believe this was the first one I had really seen and photographed this year. Further on, when I was at the blind, there were so many Ruddy Ducks. The Barn Swallow pair flew back and forth to their nest that is just out of sight. I had checked to see if I could spot the Red Knot (bird), but without binoculars, it was pretty much impossible to check the very distant water birds. A very enjoyable afternoon/evening. Mid-evening, the main highway wasn't very busy, and the rain only started when I arrived home and had to get out of the car.

On 21 December 2015, my daughter and I had our Christmas get-together. Like the previous year, she asked if I wanted to spend the day out of the city, looking for Snowy Owls (and other things). We were both so happy to at least see a (very distant) Snowy Owl, which she cleverly spotted, even though we had hoped to find a much closer one. Thank goodness, last year, my daughter and I did see and photograph beautiful Snowies that were closer. Finding one of these magnificent birds of prey was not the only purpose in our minds, though. It was our Christmas get-together, and we had a great day, in beautiful sunshine and in one of my favourite areas to explore. We had first planned to go NE of the city, but my daughter, waiting for her surgery on 11 January 2016, didn't feel up to travelling that far. So, plans changed and instead, we went first to the Saskatoon Farm for breakfast. This interesting place is maybe a 20-minute drive SE from the southern edge of Calgary. You can collect your own Saskatoon berries in season, look around their outside green houses, and their inside gift shop full of unusual things, and buy special baking, jams, teas and so on. They also have a restaurant that offers great food. www.saskatoonfarm.com/ Afterwards, we then went a bit further south, to drive some of the roads east of High River, hoping to possibly find a Snowy Owl. We went as far as Mossleigh, where we stopped to take a few quick photos of the three grain elevators and later found a group of several old barns that I don't remember seeing before. These barns were off the main road, but fortunately the gravel road/trail had enough snow packed on it that the short drive was very smooth. From there, we stopped at the little wooden church at Dinton. Later in the afternoon, we couldn't resist the temptation to call in at Glamorgan Bakery on the way home and buy a few Christmas goodies, followed by a desperately needed food shopping trip. I just hadn't had a chance to go grocery shopping and had run out of even basic things. This was a huge relief, especially as I had a very long day the next day, taking part in the Drumheller area Christmas Bird Count. Thanks so much for a great day out, Rachel. The best kind of day, as far as I am concerned : ) Many thanks, too, for the beautiful, very carefully chosen (as always!) Christmas gifts. Love the owl that looks rather like a furry, stuffed children's toy, that is in fact a wonderful heat pad (that you warm in the microwave), full of lavender.

On 9 January 2016, when I took part in a Mid-winter Bust-out trip east of the city, led by Terry Korolyk. Eight of us, plus our leader, took part in this day trip - maybe when everyone else saw what the temperature was first thing in the morning (-23C, not counting windchill, which would have made it much colder), they changed their mind about going! Everything was covered in a heavy layer of hoar frost, which turned everywhere into a beautiful winter wonderland. The sky was blue for some of the time - what more could anyone want? Well, a few birds would be nice, of course : ) The highlight of the day was seeing 6 Short-eared Owls, in addition to 6 Snowy Owls (7 seen by the people in the other cars, when we split up at the end of the day). As a photographer, though, the only birds that were close enough were two of the Snowy Owls and even they were quite a long way from us. All the Short-eared Owls were tiny dots in the landscape. I don't know how anyone was able to spot them! Our meeting place was right across the city; a drive that I never enjoy at all, but I really didn't want to miss this outing. Some of the roads we travelled were ones that I had driven several times before. Most of the time, though, I had no idea where we were : ) As always happens on any day that I go anywhere, I turned my camera lens to anything else of interest/beauty, even more so when the birds are way, way off in the distance. The splash of pink in an otherwise white world meant that that this distant barn just had to be photographed. Unfortunately, the image was very distorted due to heat haze distortion and was only fit to be deleted. So, I tried putting it through a filter in post-processing and quite liked the result. Most of the photos I took of anything yesterday are so blurry and not fit for use. Zoomed in shots, especially, suffered from the heat distortion - and distorted they are! I will add the list of bird species seen that Andrew H. compiled. Many thanks for driving some of us. Thank you, Terry - it was a great day and much appreciated, as always! You did an excellent write-up of the whole day (not posted here). 3 Canada Goose 4 Rough-legged Hawk 6 Snowy Owl 6 Short-eared Owl 1 Downy Woodpecker 34 Black-billed Magpie 46 Common Raven 73 Horned Lark 1 Black-capped Chickadee 75 Snow Bunting 511 Common Redpoll 1 Hoary Redpoll 32 House Sparrow

”Just” the usual Lily photo, but I did love the colour! This gorgeous, vivid orange Lily was growing at the Reader Rock Garden on 23 July 2014. Added a filter in post-processing, just for a change.