Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: explore2014January26

This is the second morning in the last three days that I've posted my "daily three" very late in the morning. After getting to bed each night around 3:00 a.m.or 3:30 a.m., I overslept till about 11:00 a.m., which messes up my day. The reason for today's lateness is that I spent an amazing day out yesterday with friends Cathy and Terry, south of Calgary, and then got to bed so late after getting things done on my computer. I had found an e-mail on my computer around 12:45 a.m., just as I was about to turn off my computer for the night. Did I want to go birding tomorrow and, if so, to meet at 8:00 a.m.? A full day of excitement and enjoyment left me tired out, but so happy. Can you believe that we saw 17 owls yesterday? SEVENTEEN! I didn't photograph quite every single one, but my friends will let me know exactly how many of each owl we found, once they've gone through their photos. It was something like 10 Snowy Owls and 7 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. The photo above is going to be the best of them, partly because it was seen in such a beautiful setting! To me, the golden stubble looks rather like those outside, front door, sisal mats : ) Perhaps I should add that maybe 16 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! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Owl

Found deep within my archives, taken on 24 February 2008. That morning, we managed to find two of the Northern Pygmy-owls in Fish Creek Park. Both were extremely high up in trees in the same area. After lunch, I went back to have a quick look again and came across this little guy immediately. Couldn't believe my luck! Unfortunately, the light in amongst the trees was not good at all, especially for my little point-and-shoot camera. Not the best quality, but some sharpening and brightening did help. These tiny popcan-size owls were the highlight of many people's day! A few people do see them outside the city, but it has been such a long time since I saw one. Grabbed two or three of these old photos before sending the file to my external hard drive, where it will probably never see daylight again : ) www.flickr.com/photos/annkelliott/12133398984