Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Panasonic FZ200

It's a miracle that I'm posting anything today, lol! What a nightmare getting my photos on to my "new" computer. I did eventually find them - I was puzzled by the fact that so much space was taken up on my new computer, yet there was no sign at all of my photos, other than about a dozen that were in My Pictures folder. After hours of trying one thing or another, I eventually discovered everything in a folder that was inside another folder. A "black screen of death" was not what I wanted to see, either, ha! One thing after another decided that it needed to update on this new machine - and I eventually fell into bed, exhausted, just before 4:00 a.m. this morning, lol. The only reason that I am posting my "daily three" is that I had edited them on my old computer the other day. The thing that puzzles me now, is why is my new computer much slower than the old one, despite having tons of memory?? After nine days at home, giving my 16 stitches from minor surgery a chance to start healing properly, an invitation by friends Cathy and Terry to go birding, on 7 March 2014, 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, 9 Snowy Owls, and 2 Great Horned Owls. The beautiful Great Horned Owl, seen in my photo, was the highlight of the day for Cathy and myself! Cathy had spotted it from the road but from the opposite side of the distant barn. All she had seen was a tiny head silhouette with what looked like ear tufts : ) We turned a corner and drove just a little way to see if we could get a better view from the other side. How we longed to be able to get a closer look, but the barn was on someone's private property, of course. While we were there, a truck suddenly appeared around the corner and turned into the driveway of the farm. Needless to say, we (thanks, Terry!) couldn't resist the chance to go and ask the owner about his owl and, wonderfully, he allowed us to walk through his farm yard to get a less distant view. So, Justin, you arrived home "just-in" time for us (Terry's humour)! Thanks so much for happily letting us on to your property. It was so much appreciated. We definitely didn't want to risk disturbing the owl or make it fly - so this is a 48x zoomed image and cropped somewhat. We loved both the owl's pose and the beautiful, red, peeling paint! "Just" a Great Horned Owl, but what a delightful sight! 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. www.flickr.com/photos/annkelliott/13267533345

Digging into recent archives after yet another day of snow yesterday, to find something bright and cheery. Taken at the Reader Rock Garden on 7 August 2013.

We are seeing so few birds and so few species when we go on our birding walks. There are no cones on many of the coniferous trees, meaning that there is no food for birds such as Crossbills this winter, and birds such as Redpolls are non-existant. That's why I say "Thank heavens for Chickadees"!! They are there to greet us, no matter what! Such tough little guys, though they are always only 24 hours away from death if they can't get enough fat stored into their body to last overnight. This was a lucky shot, taken through the snow-laden trees somewhere between Bebo Grove and Shannon Terrace in Fish Creek Park, on 29 October 2013. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-capped_Chickadee www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-Capped_Chickadee/id

I'm always happy to come across a group of these beautiful mushrooms - Pholiotas? Love the texture on the caps. Found this and a few others in Brown-Lowery Provincial Park, SW of Calgary, on 17 August 2013. Apparently, 2013 was not a particularly good year for fungi, but I only got out maybe four or so times to look for them. So many places were closed due to devastation caused by Alberta's Flood of the Century in June. It was a strange and quite depressing summer for everyone, especially, of course, for all the many thousands who suffered damage to their homes or lost them completely..

Sometimes, you get all sorts of reflections in icicles. Saw these ones when I was out for the day along the Smith-Dorrien/Spray Trail with friends Cathy and Terry, on 15 December 2013. It's snowing yet again today. CBC News reported on 21 December 2013: "December 2013 SNOWFALL in Calgary has broken a 112-year record according to the city. The City made the announcement in a tweet Saturday morning after weeks of on-and-off heavy snowfall left many residents complaining about the lack of snow removal in parts of Calgary. "A total of 43.8 cm of snow has fallen in Calgary this month. We haven’t seen this much snow in 112 years!" tweeted the City." By the end of December, I think we had had about 52 cm for the whole month of December.

Today, 3 October 2013, I decided I would do the long drive NW of Calgary (total drive was about 280 kms), hoping I might just see an owl of some kind, but also wanting to find some beautiful fall colours. The weather forecast was for a mix of sun and cloud, which sounded good. However, it was thick, grey cloud for the whole journey out there, and I even had a few minutes of very light, very fine snow at my furthest point. My main sightings were cows and horses, though I did see a couple of dead Coyotes on the road, and a Hawk that flew before I came within shooting distance. Nothing to be seen, just nothing - where is everything? Not as much fall colour as I had expected, either, and I'm not sure if I was too early or too late (suspect the latter). Of course, without the sun, fall colours seem dull and lifeless, so maybe that was part of it. On my way home, I drove a few backroads SW of the city and found this small splash of colour. As you can see, by the time I was almost home, the sun managed to squeeze through the clouds - better late than never. This is a zoomed in shot, so the Rocky Mountains look closer than they really are. Once I was within city limits, I drove a couple of the gravel backroads and experienced about a minute of tiny hail. I don't know if it rained in the city yesterday, but these two roads were very wet and muddy and unpleasant to drive on. There were a couple of large vehicles at the side of the road, so maybe they were preparing the road in order to put down new gravel?