Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: explore2014May14

Mountain Bluebirds are back, and I was so happy to see this colourful male, perched near a nesting box, SW of the city, on 8 May 2014. There were several Tree Swallows circling over and around a nearby nest box and the Bluebird was keeping an eye on them. I thought this might be the same male that used this nest box last year, but I noticed that this one has not been banded. In Bluebirds, the blue colour is produced by the structure of the feather - there is no blue pigment. "Tiny air pockets in the barbs of feathers can scatter incoming light, resulting in a specific, non-iridescent color. Blue colors in feathers are almost always produced in this manner. Examples include the blue feathers of Bluebirds, Indigo Buntings, Blue Jay's and Steller's Jays." www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mountain_Bluebird/id www.jstor.org/discover/pgs/index?id=10.2307/4077277&i...

Almost without fail, whenever I see a male Great Horned Owl , especially in the late winter / early spring time, he will be asleep. When he has to hunt for food to bring to the young ones and his mate, he has to work hard during the night, so during the day he needs to sleep. My photo is of Dad, in a local park, seen on 7 May 2014, when I called in for just a few minutes. No wonder he is able to catch things like Pheasants, when you see his talons! Though it looks like I was pretty close, he was in fact perched high in a distant tree.

On a day of nothing but very distant birds, which I was unable to photograph, a pair of beautiful little Tree Swallows appeared within camera reach : ) Taken on a full day out, on 8 May 2014, with a group of friends, driving around Frank Lake to see what birds we could find. A total of 53 species was found, though without binoculars, I did miss many of them. One highlight was a very distant Clark's Grebe, which I had only ever seen once before (at Carburn Park in Calgary). We are enjoying real spring weather just at the moment, which feels so good after having snow and ice on the ground for 7 long months of winter. Supposed to get up to 17°C this afternoon and 19°C and 17°C for the next two days. However, after that, five days of rain, unless the forecast changes. (Had a problem with Flickr for a short while just now. As soon as my three photos uploaded, if I clicked on them, or tried to do anything at all, all I got was a blank white page. Don't remember having that particular problem before. Later: this problem has been going on now for almost three hours, for me. No problems to be seen on the Test Page (all green x's).