Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: unusual

"July 20, 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first humans landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969 as part of NASA's Apollo 11 lunar mission." People are remembering this exciting, successful event this week. I was trying to remember where I was when this all took place, so I checked. In the week before, we flew from Seria, Brunei, Borneo, back to England for a short while. On the journey from Borneo, we spent 6th - 13th July in Hong Kong, then in Rome, Italy, from 14th - 18th July, arriving in Birmingham, England, at my parents' house on 18th July. We ended up in Holland in October 1969 and returned to Borneo about a week before Christmas 1969. So, I am guessing that we were with my parents when the Moon Landing took place. My parents never had a TV, and I can't remember watching it at any friend's house. So much packing, travelling and chaos : ) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 20 July 2019 - our temperature is 13C (windchill 11C) around noon. Risk of a thunderstorm this afternoon. This is summer?? A couple of days ago, after seven or so long, brutal months of winter (coldest on record?) and now endless weeks of rain and cloud, I finally decided, enough is enough. I have become a fair-weather photographer, and we don't get that much fair weather, especially this year. So, on 18 July 2019, despite the weather forecast for a thunderstorm, I decided to drive SE of the city mid-afternoon. A few more days, and I will be spending the day with my daughter, though I'm not sure yet where she will choose to go. She (me, too) loves the Saskatoon Farm, but also wants to get out to a few golden Canola fields. Thought I would scout around beforehand. My plan had been to go to the Farm first and have a meal, and then continue on to Frank Lake. Seeing the beautiful storm clouds on my drive south, I was torn as to whether to go to Frank Lake first and catch a few photos. Then it occurred to me that I could also get a few sky shots once I had turned off the main highway and on to the country road leading to the Farm. The Farm was pretty busy. So much wonderful colour everywhere that I almost forgot about the weather. That is, until I was eating outside under the open shelter. It was so cold, I had goosebumps, and the wind increased, sending a huge picnic table umbrella flying fast through the air. Just a short bit of rain and all returned to normal. As usual, I wandered around the grounds, shooting flowers, rabbits, landscape, clouds, and old tractors. One barn stood out to me and had me puzzled. I have visited the farm many times before, but I don't remember seeing this particular barn before. It looked so pretty, with its colourful flower border. Eventually, I continued my drive to Frank Lake. The storm clouds stayed with me. One side road has a small wetland on either side of the road and I pulled over to check what birds might be there. I was about to turn off my car when a loud buzzer sounded and a tornado alert was announced - to take shelter and if there was no shelter nearby, to get into a ditch or ravine. Then I heard that the area covered was further SE - in fact, where I had been a week earlier. "Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) confirmed a weak EF0 tornado touched down two kilometres northeast of Crossfield at around 2:15 p.m. Sunday, 14 July 2019, marking the 12th confirmed twister of the season." (This was roughly 50 km north of Calgary.) According to the weather agency, Alberta typically sees an average of 15 tornadoes per year with the peak season starting mid-to-late June and ending early-to-mid August. So far in 2019, there have been 12 confirmed tornadoes in Alberta and three probable ones. There have also been many reports of funnel clouds." From Global News. While i was standing by this wetland a White-faced Ibis flew in. I believe this was the first one I had really seen and photographed this year. Further on, when I was at the blind, there were so many Ruddy Ducks. The Barn Swallow pair flew back and forth to their nest that is just out of sight. I had checked to see if I could spot the Red Knot (bird), but without binoculars, it was pretty much impossible to check the very distant water birds. A very enjoyable afternoon/evening. Mid-evening, the main highway wasn't very busy, and the rain only started when I arrived home and had to get out of the car.

Two afternoons ago, on 21 September 2016, I left home in sunshine, but by the time I reached my destination south of the city, at the Saskatoon Farm, it was overcast and dreary. This interesting place is maybe a 20-minute drive SE from the southern edge of Calgary. You can collect your own Saskatoon berries in season, look around their outside green houses, and their inside gift shop full of unusual things, and buy special baking, jams, teas and so on. They also have a restaurant that offers great food - I had a delicious meal of quiche and sweet potato fries. www.saskatoonfarm.com/

Interesting ... I never used to click on the word Flickr (right before the words You, Explore and Create. For maybe a week, I have been clicking on it and this evening I left a thank you comment under today's main image and noticed that this main photo is nowhere to be seen on the Flickr page - vanished. My second and third photos are there and all three of yesterday's images and all sorts of old photos from deeper in my photostream. I wonder if this has been happening on other days. If so, then this would be something that affects views and comments on a particular photo. I never leave comments on other people's photos by scrolling down the Flickr page - I always go to My Contacts page and usually open their photostream and have a browse while I'm there. Hmm .... interesting. HAPPY FIRST DAY OF FALL, everyone! This morning, the sky is somewhat overcast , and the temperature is 6°C (43°F), supposed to rise to 10°C (50°F) this afternoon. Rain is in the forecast. I love this idea for an outside wall, seen at the Saskatoon Farm yesterday, 21 September 2016. This interesting place is maybe a 20-minute drive SE from the southern edge of Calgary. You can collect your own Saskatoon berries in season, look around their outside green houses, and their inside gift shop full of unusual things, and buy special baking, jams, teas and so on. They also have a restaurant that offers great food - I had a delicious meal of quiche and sweet potato fries. www.saskatoonfarm.com/

While my birding friends had their binoculars and scope focused on the very distant birds at this location at Frank Lake, my eyes began to wander. Couldn't resist this rather fancy fence post and barbed wire : ) I wonder if the orange dents were made by hunters shooting their weapons of destruction. Yesterday, 19 March 2016, I was on a birding day trip with a group of friends, going SE of Calgary, E of High River. Though the day started off rather cold, it gradually warmed up and was a beautiful day to be out in nature. I will add our leader's report that he sent into eBird, adding that I did not see all of the sightings, as the birds were much too far away. As always, my camera lens was turned to various other things, too. Thanks so much, as always, Andrew, for a most enjoyable day! Thanks, too, Anne, for driving - I really appreciated the ride! "We had 16 participants when we left Calgary on a sunny but frosty morning. We arrived at the main gate around 10:00 am and set off, in a chilly -5 deg C to walk down to the outfall and then around to the blind. The recent cold nights had refrozen some of the lake, but it is still mostly open water. Most obvious were the thousands of Pintails and hundreds of swans (mostly Tundra today). We did see the overwintering (presumably) Song Sparrow near the outfall. About 60-80 California Gulls, no other gulls that we could identify. We left and went to High River for lunch, stopping by the Sutherland Shelterbelt to acknowledge the resident Great Horned Owl. After lunch we circled the lake on the usual roads and ended up at the Basin 2 West Bay. Several more swans and finally, the Eurasian Wigeon, spotted by Tony Timmons. By lunchtime the temperature had reached about 10 deg C and continued to rise reaching ~14 deg C and making a perfect Alberta Spring (almost) afternoon. Leaving Frank Lake we stopped in at Blackie to find mostly Starlings, and a few Eurasian Collared Doves. The list for Frank Lake and Blackie was: Checklists included in this summary: (1): Frank Lake--NW lookout/blind Date: Mar 19, 2016, 9:55 AM (2): Sutherland's Shelterbelt (private property) Date: Mar 19, 2016, 12:30 PM (3): Frank Lake--Basin 2 (Southeast Corner) Date: Mar 19, 2016, 2:15 PM (4): Frank Lake--Basin 2 (West Bay) Date: Mar 19, 2016, 3:05 PM (5): Blackie (hamlet) Date: Mar 19, 2016, 4:10 PM 650 Canada Goose -- (1),(3),(4) 4 Trumpeter Swan -- (1) 225 Tundra Swan -- (1),(4) 3 Gadwall -- (1) 2 Eurasian Wigeon -- (4) 60 American Wigeon -- (1),(4) 160 Mallard -- (1),(3),(4) 2 Northern Shoveler -- (4) 4550 Northern Pintail -- (1),(3),(4) 24 Canvasback -- (1),(4) 76 Redhead -- (1),(4) 5 Lesser Scaup -- (4) 150 Common Goldeneye -- (1),(4) 2 Gray Partridge -- (2) 1 Northern Harrier -- (4) 2 Bald Eagle -- (1),(3) 5 Killdeer -- (1),(2) 80 California Gull -- (1) 6 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) -- (3),(5) 4 Eurasian Collared-Dove -- (5) 2 Great Horned Owl -- (2) 1 Merlin -- (5) 5 Black-billed Magpie -- (1),(2) 1 Common Raven -- (3) 3 Horned Lark -- (1) 51 European Starling -- (2),(5) 2 American Tree Sparrow -- (1) 1 Song Sparrow -- (1) 8 House Finch -- (5) 20 House Sparrow -- (2),(5) From Blackie we stopped by Third Lake on the way back to Calgary. A huge number of birds there, somewhere between 4000 and 8000, generally somewhat distant. Mostly Pintails, but we also saw American Wigeon, Mallard, a few Canada Geese, and California Gulls. Clearly Pintails are on the move right now." Andrew Hart

Happy first day of WINTER, everyone! Yesterday, 21 December 2015, my daughter and I had our Christmas get-together. Like last year, she asked if I wanted to spend the day out of the city, looking for Snowy Owls (and other things). We were both so happy to at least see a (very distant) Snowy Owl, which she cleverly spotted, even though we had hoped to find a much closer one. Thank goodness, last year, my daughter and I did see and photograph beautiful Snowies that were nice and close. Finding one of these magnificent birds of prey was not the only purpose in our minds, though. It was our Christmas get-together, and we had a great day, in beautiful sunshine and in one of my favourite areas to explore. We had first planned to go NE of the city, but my daughter, waiting for her surgery on 11 January 2016, didn't feel up to travelling that far. Once she has recovered from her surgery, we can always go NE of the city and try for owls again. So, plans changed and instead, we went to the Saskatoon Farm for breakfast. That is where I photographed this amazing and unique wall of teapots. I was surprised to see that the trees and plants had been removed from in front of the wall and paving stones ahd been laid down, resulting in a clear view of the wall. This interesting place is maybe a 20-minute drive SE from the southern edge of Calgary. You can collect your own Saskatoon berries in season, look around their outside green houses, and their inside gift shop full of unusual things, and buy special baking, jams, teas and so on. They also have a restaurant that offers great food. www.saskatoonfarm.com/ Afterwards, we then went a bit further, to drive some of the roads east of High River, hoping to possibly find a Snowy Owl. We went as far as Mossleigh, where we stopped to take a few quick photos of the three grain elevators and then found a group of several old barns that I don't remember seeing before. They were off the main road, but fortunately the narrow gravel road had enough snow packed on it that the short drive was very smooth. From there, we also stopped at the little wooden church at Dinton, seen in my next photo. Later in the afternoon, we couldn't resist the temptation to call in at Glamorgan Bakery on the way home and buy a few Christmas goodies, followed by a desperately needed food shopping trip. I just hadn't had a chance to go grocery shopping and had run out of even basic things. This was a huge relief, especially as I have a very long day tomorrow, taking part in the Drumheller area Christmas Bird Count. Actually, last year, my small group saw several Snowy Owls on the long drive to and from the Badlands of Alberta, so maybe I'll be lucky tomorrow. Thanks so much for a great day out, Rachel. The best kind of day, as far as I am concerned : ) Many thanks, too, for the beautiful, very carefully chosen (as always!) Christmas gifts. Love the owl that looks rather like a furry, stuffed children's toy, that is in fact a wonderful heat pad (that you warm in the microwave), full of lavender. Haven't used it yet, but it will feel so good on my neck and shoulders that are painful from whiplash, thanks to the woman driver who suddenly came out of a parking lot exit and cut across my lane of moving traffic about three weeks ago! Nothing I could do, as I couldn't stop in time to avoid impact. So, I'm looking forward to having an owl on my shoulder : )

I love this idea for an outside wall, seen at The Saskatoon Farm yesterday, 13 October 2014. They also had other colours of teapots on different parts of the wall, including a lovely shade of bright blue, which I have posted before. I had spent a few hours east of the city, driving the backroads, looking for barns and anything else to photograph. Heading back to Calgary, I took a wrong turn just outside the city and ended up on Deerfoot Trail heading south. All I could do was keep driving on this major highway until I came to somewhere famiiiar where I could turn around. This happened to be The Saskatoon Farm. I was just in time to have a meal in their restaurant before heading home. This interesting place is maybe a 20-minute drive SE from the southern edge of Calgary. You can collect your own Saskatoon berries in season, look around their outside green houses, and their inside gift shop full of unusual things, and buy special baking, jams, teas and so on. They also have a restaurant that offers great food. www.saskatoonfarm.com/

You can't help but think of the movie, "The Sound of Music" when you see this unusual flower. The song "Edelweiss", which is about the flower, is from Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1959 musical The Sound of Music, which takes place in Salzburg, Austria, before World War II. I've only seen this plant in two places in Calgary, neither wild. One plant was in someone's garden, and the plant in this photo was photographed in front of someone's gravestone in St. Mary's Cemetery. "The plant is unequally distributed and prefers rocky limestone places at about 1800–3000 m altitude. It is non toxic, and has been used traditionally in folk medicine as a remedy against abdominal and respiratory diseases. The dense hair appears to be an adaptation to high altitudes, protecting the plant from cold, aridity and ultraviolet radiation. As a scarce short-lived flower found in remote mountain areas, the plant has been used as a symbol for alpinism, for rugged beauty and purity associated with the Alps, and as a national symbol especially of Austria and of Switzerland. Leaves and flowers are covered with white hairs and appear woolly (tomentose). Flowering stalks of Edelweiss can grow to a size of 3–20 cm (in cultivation, up to 40 cm). Each bloom consists of five to six small yellow clustered spikelet-florets (5 mm) surrounded by fuzzy white "petals" (technically, bracts) in a double star formation. The flowers bloom between July and September." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leontopodium_alpinum

My youngest daughter treated me to a great day out on Saturday, 24 May 2014, for my birthday, which was actually the following day, but I had the annual May Species Count that day. After trying to find a few birds close to Frank Lake, SE of Calgary, we then went to the Saskatoon Farm for a delicious lunch and to wander the grounds with our cameras. I kind of liked this Gecko, embedded in a colourful outside wall - there were a couple of frogs in the wall, too. Felt so good to see colourful flowers after such a long, brutal winter. Thanks so much, Rachel, for such an enjoyable day, with so many treats! www.saskatoonfarm.com/

I took a photo of the view through this "frosted" window two years ago, when I went on my first "bear trip" with friends, Cathy and Terry. I love the way the window in this building (that I can't remember the name of!) has a few of these fancy outlines, leaving the clear glass showing. This time, I made sure I avoided including all the cars in the parking lot! Not sure if I ever posted a similar photo taken from that trip. My friends and I had left Calgary early morning on Wednesday (14 May 2014) and I think it was around 12:15 a.m. midnight (Thursday, 15 May 2014), that they dropped me off at home after two long, wonderful days in the Rocky Mountains, west of the city. Wednesday night was spent in a spotless motel, in a place that had so many Mountain Sheep roaming the streets, lol! Though we were hoping to see at least one Bear, I was happy as can be (as always) to see absolutely anything beautiful : ) Over the two days, we had 7 bear sightings, with three definitely different Black Bears (no Grizzlies), and possibly four. The rest of the sightings were of Bears we had already seen. My friends are good at telling individual bears, often by a certain scar and, of course, the actual location. Many of the bears we see, they have seen before. Basically, it's all about timing, as with any wildlife. A few minutes earlier or later and we would have missed seeing something special. We just happened to be lucky. All wildlife/nature photographers know it's all about timing : )

I love this idea for an outside wall - they also had other colours of teapots on different parts of the wall. Taken two days ago, 6 February 2014, when I went with my youngest daughter to the Saskatoon Farm after a few hours of searching for a Snowy Owl in vain. You can collect your own Saskatoon berries in season, look around their outside green houses, at their inside gift shop full of very unusual things, buy special baking, jams, teas and so on, and they also have a restaurant that offers absolutely delicious food!

Unusual colouring for Paintbrush. Photographed on Plateau Mountain, Kananaskis, on 13 July 2012. Many thanks, Mark, for your expert information on this - much appreciated, as always!

The quality of this photo is really bad, but I did want to post it, as I don't remember ever seeing a Two-toned Eastern Grey Squirrel before. There were lots of black Eastern Greys together, running around a wooded park area in the residential area of High River, but this one stood out because of its mixed colours. A few of us were standing there, hoping for the appearance of a wonderful, rare visitor to Alberta - a Red-bellied Woodpecker. Though quite a few people have been lucky enough to be there at the right time, some of us were out of luck that day, when we were doing the High River Christmas Bird Count. I have marked the town of High River on my map, but not the exact location of the park. I read that some people call them “Copper Tails” and others call them “Brown Backs.” Haven't yet been able to find out for sure what causes this colouration.

A banded cliff wall being eroded in typical fashion at Horseshoe Canyon, near Dumheller, Alberta. We were surrounded by rock walls like this one when we spent a few hours on July 14th exploring the walls and the floor of the canyon. Most people tend to stand on the canyon rim, breathing in the spectacular view, but the hike down in the canyon reveals all sorts of interesting things. Last summer, we even found a family of Great Horned Owls down in the Canyon.

Friend Doug found this unusual pink Forget-me-not plant, on our slow hike in the alpine meadows of Plateau Mountain on July 17th. Its tiny pink flowers were so pretty, but something about them not being gorgeous blue just didn't feel right, lol. Can you believe that it's only 12C (54F) here in Calgary this afternoon? Such a relief to get some cool air after a few hot days. Unfortunately, it's also raining, though we do need it. Two possible trips this weekend, so I'm hoping it brightens up before then! Glad I took myself west of the city for the afternoon yesterday, as the weather was beautiful. Saw a few interesting things, from Ladybug larva and nymph to an Osprey catching a fish (no photo) to seeing my first Skunk in the wild (a few blurry, useless shots, but I might still post one for my own records - and you are more than welcome to laugh : ) Wish I could send some of this refreshing rain and coolness to all you guys out there who are having dreafully hot weather! Oh, panic! Had an e-mail from one of my good friends in England today, saying that one of our other friends "thinks your shipment is on the move via Toronto but no more details". I'm reading that as meaning that the 12 boxes of belongings (of my Brother and my parents) that are coming from England may have landed in Canada and might actually be on the road to Calgary! Oh, my goodness, I have so much to do before they arrive, including guessing at a value for around 400 little sentimental items that Canada Customs insists that I make. My friends sent me a list of all items, I just have to think up the values. I was motivated enough a couple of months ago, but then everything came to a halt when the busiest time of the year, for me, arrived. I need to do some more clearing and definitely some cleaning (which never even makes my priority list or any kind of list, ha!) before I want to let anyone in through my front door. Also, a slight hitch in the sale of my brother's house in England. Apparently, the buyer is asking for a further reduction, reckoning that survey estimates that he had done, were inaccurate. I will be so relieved when all this has been seen to - it has been a very long seven months! I also have to see to getting someone to come and remove all plants and bushes from my garden (someone is going to find out about the landscape people who see to the Condo's landscaping), with the possibilty that I might end up having to get a "platform deck" built, to fill the complete, tiny back garden. This would solve the problem once and for all! Need to find some names and pricing.

This is where we spent the day botanizing on Saturday, 21st August - Horshoe Canyon, near Drumheller, in the Badlands of Alberta. To the north east of our city, there are endless miles of flat prairie. Then, suddenly, one comes across the amazing Badlands - our own mini Grand Canyon! This is one of the best-known sites in the Canadian Badlands, located 17 kilometres west of Drumheller on Highway 9. Horseshoe Canyon is about 145 km (88 miles) from Calgary. It takes between 1½ hours and 2 hours to drive there from Calgary. This shot was taken just before I reached the top rim after a day of plant search. Unfortunately, the invasive Creeping/Canada Thistle was growing here in abundance. "Horseshoe Canyon is an isolated pocket of badlands amidst the Alberta prairie. Apart from its aesthetic value, Horseshoe Canyon also represents three unique habitats or ecosystems: the prairie, the wooded coulee slopes and the badlands." www.natureconservancy.ca/site/PageServer?pagename=ab_ncc_... www.tyrrellmuseum.com/

Came across a couple of groupings of these little Earthstar fungi at Shannon Terrace, Fish Creek Park, three days ago. Fascinating things and it's always a treat to come across one on a rare occasion. Whenever I've seen them, they are loose, and simply resting on top of the soil and leaf litter, so can easily be picked up (and then replaced in the same spot). The weather was so grey and gloomy that I picked this one up and took several steps in the hope that I might get more light coming through the trees - but there just wasn't any decent light at all, hence not the best quality image. Fun, all the same : ) "The outer, leathery wall (peridium) splits open into the rays of a star, but the rays fold down into "legs" that support the spherical spore case that sits on a short stalk or pedicel. The rays are firmly attached to a clump of mycelium and leaf debris." From waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0504 . This is a very short video showing how an Earthstar works. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY6mwnRPiRU "Time lapse Earthstar fungi splitting open and then rising off the forest floor. It raises itself up so that the puff-ball is above the leaf litter and gets a better chance of being struck by raindrops which expels its spores." Filmed by Neil Bromhall copyright www.complete-gardens.co.uk

This enormous tropical flower was blooming in the butterfly room in the ENMAX Conservatory at the Calgary Zoo. It is Aristolochia, also known as Dutchman's Pipe, Calico Flower, Birthworts and Pipevines, a fast growing vine with large heart shaped leaves. It has a carrion smell – rotting meat - to attract insects. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristolochia

This beautiful 8" Squash caught my eye when I was searching for a regular Acorn Squash in Safeway recently. Isn't nature just amazing?! I've always been fascinated by pumpkins, squash and gourds. There is a label underneath, giving cooking instructions, so I think I may actually cook it and eat it - yes, I bought it to take photos of it, LOL. Does anyone know if these taste really good? A bit later: it has now been in the oven almost half an hour, so is about half way cooked. I should have looked more carefully at the label, as it gives the name, Turban Squash : ) Hope it tastes good, as there is a LOT of it, ha, ha. Much later: yummy, it WAS good!