Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: E and NE of Calgary

Not a good quality image, though it may look all right in small size. I don't usually get photos of Snowy Owls in this position, so thought I would post it. At the time, it looked like this owl was about to fly, but it didn't, instead remaining sitting upright in the more usual pose. Focal Length (35mm format) - 1200 mm, so the owl looks much closer than it actually was. Back in December, I had been longing to get out there, especially to the E and NE of the city, to look for these spectacular birds of prey. I finally got out, after my youngest daughter asked if I wanted to go looking for Snowies for our Christmas get-together on 20 December 2014. She had never seen a Snowy Owl, so I was really, really hoping that we'd find one! As it turned out, we saw 10 definite individuals, plus two others that we weren't quite sure about - one certainly looked like a very distant Snowy and the other was possibly a repeat of an owl we had seen earlier in more or less the same area. Part way through the day, almost as if it were meant to happen, a car came from the opposite direction - it was my friends, Cathy and Terry! For the rest of our trip, we followed behind them, thoroughly enjoying every new find. Late afternoon, we went home different ways and my daughter and I saw our last two owls. My daughter was so thrilled to see these breathtaking birds and was quite happy and content after seeing the very first, distant one. Three of the owls gave us close or reasonably close views, the rest were very distant. The owl in this photo is a male, as it is pure white. In contrast, it was one of those days when the sky was amazingly blue. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/snowy_owl/lifehistory en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_owl After these wonderful sightings, we returned to Calgary and went back to my daughter's place to exchange Christmas gifts. I reckon the Snowy Owls were the "best" gifts she received that day : )

Towards the end of last year, I had been longing to get out to look for Snowy Owls, especially to the E and NE of the city. I finally got out, after my youngest daughter asked if I wanted to go looking for Snowies on our Christmas get-together on 20 December 2014. She had never seen a Snowy Owl, so I was really, really hoping that we'd find one! As it turned out, we saw 10 definite individuals, plus two others that we weren't quite sure about - one certainly looked like a very distant Snowy and the other was possibly a repeat of an owl we had seen earlier in more or less the same area. Part way through the day, almost as if it were meant to happen, a car came from the opposite direction - it was my friends, Cathy and Terry! For the rest of our trip, we followed behind them, thoroughly enjoying every new find. Late afternoon, we went home different ways and my daughter and I saw our last two owls. My daughter was so thrilled to see all these breathtaking birds - she was quite happy and content after seeing the very first, distant one. Three of the owls gave us close or reasonably close views, the rest were very distant. The owl in this photo is either a female or young one, as it has so much dark streaking. It was the very last owl that we saw that day. After these wonderful sightings, we returned to Calgary and went back to my daughter's place to exchange Christmas gifts. I reckon the Snowy Owls were the "best" gifts she received that day : ) www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/snowy_owl/lifehistory en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_owl

Sometimes, you just can't get in the right position to get a photo of a Snowy Owl - this one only glanced in our direction a couple of times, but I thought the sun shining on it made it worth posting. This photo was taken NE of the city, on 20 December 2014. The winter of 2014/2015 has been really good for Snowy Owls, though various people have been reporting that recently, there seem to be far fewer to be seen. Back in December, I had been longing to get out there, especially to the E and NE of the city, to look for these spectacular birds of prey. I finally got out, after my youngest daughter asked if I wanted to go looking for Snowies on our Christmas get-together on 20 December 2014. She had never seen a Snowy Owl, so I was really, really hoping that we'd find one! As it turned out, we saw 10 definite individuals, plus two others that we weren't quite sure about - one certainly looked like a very distant Snowy and the other was possibly a repeat of an owl we had seen earlier in more or less the same area. Part way through the day, almost as if it were meant to happen, a car came from the opposite direction - it was my friends, Cathy and Terry! For the rest of our trip, we followed behind them, thoroughly enjoying every new find. Late afternoon, we went home different ways and my daughter and I saw our last two owls. My daughter was so thrilled to see these breathtaking birds and was already quite happy and content after seeing the very first, distant one. Three of the owls gave us close or reasonably close views, the rest were very distant. The owl in this photo is a male, as it is almost pure white. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/snowy_owl/lifehistory en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_owl After these wonderful sightings, we returned to Calgary and went back to my daughter's place to exchange Christmas gifts. I reckon the Snowy Owls were the "best" gifts she received that day : )

If you've never had the chance to look for Snowy Owls, this photo is an example of how challenging a search can be. Occasionally, you might find one perched fairly close on a tall power pole at the edge of the road. More often than not, though, you see a brilliant splash of white in the middle, or at the far side, of an enormous field. They may be perched on such things as one of the irrigation structures seen in the background in this photo, on a very distant fence, or on the ground. Even in a tree, if you are really lucky - think I've only ever seen a Snowy in a tree on two occasions. This photo was taken on 20 December 2014, when my youngest daughter and I went E and NE of the city for the day. Not the best photo, but at least it shows how the white bird shows up, even when extremely distant.

So far, the winter of 2014/2015 seems to be really good for Snowy Owls. The last two or three weeks, I had been longing to get out there, especially to the E and NE of the city, to look for these spectacular birds of prey. I finally got out, after my youngest daughter asked if I wanted to go looking for Snowies on our Christmas get-together on 20 December 2014. She had never seen a Snowy Owl, so I was really, really hoping that we'd find one! As it turned out, we saw 10 definite individuals, plus two others that we weren't quite sure about - one certainly looked like a very distant Snowy and the other was possibly a repeat of an owl we had seen earlier in more or less the same area. Part way through the day, almost as if it were meant to happen, a car came from the opposite direction - it was my friends, Cathy and Terry! For the rest of our trip, we followed behind them, thoroughly enjoying every new find. Late afternoon, we went home different ways and my daughter and I saw our last two owls. My daughter was so thrilled to see these breathtaking birds and was quite happy and content after seeing the very first, distant one. Three of the owls gave us close or reasonably close views, the rest were very distant. The owl in this photo is a male, as it is almost pure white. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/snowy_owl/lifehistory en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_owl After these wonderful sightings, we returned to Calgary and went back to my daughter's place to exchange Christmas gifts. I reckon the Snowy Owls were the "best" gifts she received that day : ) Yesterday, 20 December 2014, was the 22nd (?) annual Fish Creek Park New Year's Day Bird Count. I ended up with photos of just three birds - a Black-capped Chickadee, a Great Horned Owl and a female Three-toed Woodpecker. Am meeting up with a different group of friends this morning in the same area, and hoping that we might just be lucky enough to find the tiny Northern Pygmy-owl this time. That's the only reason I am up so early this morning!

So far, the winter of 2014/2015 seems to be really good for Snowy Owls. The last two or three weeks, I had been longing to get out there, especially to the E and NE of the city, to look for these spectacular birds of prey. I finally got out, after my youngest daughter asked if I wanted to go looking for Snowies on our Christmas get-together on 20 December 2014. She had never seen a Snowy Owl, so I was really, really hoping that we'd find one! As it turned out, we saw 10 definite individuals, plus two others that we weren't quite sure about - one certainly looked like a very distant Snowy and the other was possibly a repeat of an owl we had seen earlier in more or less the same area. Part way through the day, almost as if it were meant to happen, a car came from the opposite direction - it was my friends, Cathy and Terry! For the rest of our trip, we followed behind them, thoroughly enjoying every new find. Late afternoon, we went home different ways and my daughter and I saw our last two owls. My daughter was so thrilled to see these breathtaking birds and was quite happy and content after seeing the very first, distant one. Three of the owls gave us close or reasonably close views, the rest were very distant. The owl in this photo is a male, as it is pure white. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/snowy_owl/lifehistory en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_owl After these wonderful sightings, we returned to Calgary and went back to my daughter's place to exchange Christmas gifts. I reckon the Snowy Owls were the "best" gifts she received that day : )

So far, the winter of 2014/2015 seems to be really good for Snowy Owls. The last two or three weeks, I had been longing to get out there, especially to the E and NE of the city, to look for these spectacular birds of prey. I finally got out, after my youngest daughter asked if I wanted to go looking for Snowies on our Christmas get-together three days ago. She had never seen a Snowy Owl, so I was really, really hoping that we'd find one! As it turned out, we saw 10 definite individuals, plus two others that we weren't quite sure about - one certainly looked like a very distant Snowy and the other was possibly a repeat of an owl we had seen earlier in more or less the same area. Part way through the day, almost as if it were meant to happen, a car came from the opposite direction - it was my friends, Cathy and Terry! For the rest of our trip, we followed behind them, thoroughly enjoying every new find. Late afternoon, we went home different ways and my daughter and I saw our last two owls. My daughter was so thrilled to see these breathtaking birds and was quite happy and content after seeing the very first, distant one. Three of the owls gave us close or reasonably close views, the rest were very distant. The owl in this photo is a male, as it is pure white. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/snowy_owl/lifehistory en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_owl After these wonderful sightings, we returned to Calgary and went back to my daughter's place to exchange Christmas gifts. I reckon the Snowy Owls were the "best" gifts she received that day : ) I'm posting very early this morning (4:15 am), as I have to get ready to go on the Drumheller Christmas Bird Count, NE of the city, in the Badlands of Alberta. I almost stayed up all night again, as I wasn't sure I would hear my alarm clocks go off and I really did not want to risk missing this Count. It takes roughly an hour and a half to get out there.