Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: raised

This is a male Hooded Merganser (uncommon in Alberta) that flew in and landed on a large patch of open water in the lagoon at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary on 17 March 2011. Such beautiful birds with the white crest edged in black. This can be raised, as in this image, or lowered. He looks quite spectacular in his breeding plumage. Not the best photo, but I only have a few photos of this species. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Hooded_Merganser/id en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooded_Merganser

Ran out of time and energy late last night to find and edit just two shots for this morning : ) Also, posting really early, as I have a long day ahead of me today (unfortunately, on just one and a half hours of sleep). It's going to be a mainly sunny day with temperature of -2C (windchill -5C) this morning, but it's supposed to soar to a balmy +9C (windchill +7C) this afternoon. From my archives, a distant capture of this beautiful Horned Lark, taken SE of Calgary on 3 February 2013. Friends, Cathy and Terry, and I, had stopped along one of the roads to look at an old homestead and we heard a bird singing so beautifully. I hadn't seen and photographed a Horned Lark for several years, so I was thrilled to see this handsome, horny male perched on a fence post : ) These birds tend to fly dangerously close along the road in front of ones car. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Horned_Lark/id en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_Lark

A heavily cropped capture of this beautiful Horned Lark, taken SE of Calgary on 3 February 2013. Friends and I had stopped along one of the backroads to look at an old barn and we heard a bird singing so beautifully. I hadn't seen and photographed a Horned Lark for several years, so I was thrilled to see this handsome, horny male perched on a fence post : ) These birds tend to fly dangerously close along the road in front of ones car. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Horned_Lark/id en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_Lark I wasn't expecting SNOW again this morning, lol! Which of course makes me think immediately of all those people over in the east (Boston, etc.), who are experiencing dreadful conditions with the huge snowstorm that is hitting that whole area. Really, really feel for those who were hit so hard by Hurricane Sandy just a few months ago and still have not recovered from all the damage ,,,. and now this! So many people dealing with so much hardship - my thoughts are with them. Anyone else finding Flickr extremely slow today?

A heavily cropped, very grainy image, taken in very poor light, but it was the "best" of all the shots I took. I didn't realize just how poor the light was and I ended up deleting almost all the photos I took. However, I wouldn't have any of these photos if my friends, Dorothy and Stephen, hadn't very kindly invited me to go along with them to the Irrigation Canal in the city. I rarely see Hooded Mergansers and, when I do see one, it's always a long way away. Quite spectacular ducks, especially the males, who have a crest at the back of their head and can raise this black and white "hood" (as in my photo) or lower it. I really liked the water patterns - except for the awful graininess, ha. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooded_Merganser

On my short drive SW of the city a couple of days ago, I passed a fenced, hilly meadow where Buffalo were grazing (raised just for meat, presumably). Put my lens through the wire fence and snapped a few photos of this huge male. His winter coat will certainly need to be replaced with a brand new fur coat next winter. I'm pretty sure that this animal belongs to the Canadian Rocky Mountain Ranch, which also raises Elk for meat. There are two living subspecies of wild bison in North America: the plains bison Bison bison bison and the wood bison Bison bison athabascae. "Two hundred years ago, the plains bison was by far the more common of the two subspecies. It was the dominant grazing animal of the interior plains of the continent, and it often occurred in large herds. A smaller population occurred east of the Mississippi. Today, there are comparatively few plains bison. A herd of about 600 is fenced in at Elk Island National Park, 64 km east of Edmonton. There are small numbers at Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan, Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, and Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta. There are at least 25 herds of plains bison in national and state parks and wildlife refuges in the United States, numbering more than 10 000 animals. There are more than 140 000 in private collections and on a large number of commercial ranches in both Canada and the United States. The wood bison has always lived to the north of its prairie cousin. In historic times its range was centred in northern Alberta and the adjacent parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and Saskatchewan. Herds made use of aspen parkland, the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, the lowlands of the Peace and Slave rivers, and the coniferous forests and wetland meadows of the upper Mackenzie Valley. The wood bison was never as abundant as the plains bison, probably numbering no more than 170 000 at its peak. In April 1994, there were approximately 3 000 wood bison in Canada, most in five "free-roaming" herds, the largest of which consists of more than 2 000 animals in the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary near Fort Providence, Northwest Territories. The source herd of 350 animals for the recovery program is at Elk Island National Park. The total population is small enough that the wood bison is considered threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). The other large free-roaming herd of bison is in Wood Buffalo National Park, on the Northwest Territories–Alberta border, where there are about 2 000 animals, descendants of mixed plains and wood bison stock." www.hww.ca/en/species/mammals/north-american-bison.html