Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: explore2014August25

Five days ago, on 19 August 2014, I was lucky enough to have the chance to try and photograph a couple of these absolutely adorable little creatures : ) After a while, I was beginning to despair of ever getting any decent shots at all. These tiny Pikas, also known as Rock Rabbits, hardly ever remain still and they are extremely fast! Imagine a mountain hillside covered in sharp, jagged rocks of all sizes and then try to picture how difficult it is to find in the viewfinder the single rock on which one of these Pikas might happen to sit for a second or two, lol! As time passed, I managed to take quite a few photos, though many will need to eventually be deleted. Hope you don't get tired of seeing these little guys, but they are just so very cute. This is a zoomed capture and at this point, the Pika was very close. A couple of times, it came bounding over the rocks near to where we were standing and just "froze" for more than two seconds, which is when I managed to get this shot. They are about 15 to 23 centimetres (5.9 to 9.1 in) in body length, so really are pretty small. And, no, I didn't put one in my pocket to bring home with me, lol! The weather forecast was not good for that day, but we were so lucky that, apart from a few raindrops, the rain stayed away. The sun actually came out at two locations we stopped at for a short while. Our 18-hour day (from 6;00 a.m. till midnight!) started off with the thrill of seeing these Pikas and ended with a brief sighting of a black Wolf (could it be Skoki?) crossing the road ahead of us in the dark. It disappeared into the blackness, but shortly afterwards, we heard three separate Wolves howling (possibly four). We just stood there, in total awe, listening to this amazing sound. The only wild Wolf I had ever seen before was when I was in Yellowstone National Park two years ago. Friends and I saw two Wolves feeding on a Bison carcass across a huge valley - so they were just distant specks, that became larger specks when my camera was in full zoom, ha. In between these two highlights, we saw several Deer, a small group of Mountain Sheep on the road, a tiny Chipmunk, a few Cedar Waxwings, Columbian Ground Squirrels, a beautiful Red-tailed Hawk that sat on a branch out in the open for a long time, and two tiny Bats that flew very close over our heads when it was getting dark. We also saw an adult and two young of some bird species (can't decide if they were Ptarmigan or Grouse) - have posted a really awful shot of one of the young ones today, hoping that someone might be able to recognize what it is. Searching online left me more confused than ever! Then, of course, there is the scenery! Blue sky to go with the splendour of the mountains would have been wonderful, but we've been having cold and gloomy weather recently. Highway 40 and the Smith-Dorrien/Spray Lakes Trail both run through such spectacular scenery, so it was a real treat for me, especially as I won't drive those areas myself. Thanks so much, Cathy & Terry! Thanks, too, Terry, for spending at least an hour (?) removing one of the car wheels and fixing whatever was wrong with it!

A week ago, on 17 August 2014, I joined another group of friends to go birding at Carburn Park. For me, the highlight of the four-hour stroll was seeing this beautiful female White-tailed Deer and just a very quick view of her twin fawns (complete with their spots). I had been in the same park the previous day with other friends and we had been very lucky to see this little family - we got a slightly better view of the young ones that day. This second day, Mom came out of the trees and into the tall grasses and I was able to get a few photos - most of them have nice sharp grasses in the foreground with a blurry Mom in the background : ( This doe was so thin, you could see her rib cage. There is plenty to eat at this time of the year, so I don't know why she is so skinny, though I'm sure her growing twins must keep her very busy. She tried to be brave enough to approach us, no doubt hoping for food of some kind, but was still some distance away. One of the main purposes for the walk was to search for species of tiny Warblers - this is the time they are back in the city. A few species were found, though without binoculars, I couldn't really see them and definitely couldn't photograph them. As always, I turned my camera lens on to other things - such as a Cabbage White Butterfly and some Black Henbane seedpods.