Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: female or young

On 17 September 2015, I went with friends on a walk that started (after the first heavy frost of the season overnight) at the Bow Valley Ranch area in Fish Creek Park. No sign of the Great Horned Owl pair. We then drove to the end of the park road, to walk in the Boat Launch area. Perhaps the highlight of the morning was seeing a very distant female Pileated Woodpecker, plus 35 American White Pelicans and 20 Double-crested Cormorants and all "the usual". After the walk, I decided to drive SW of the city and SW of Millarville. A few years ago, after a day of botanizing someone's land, we called in (with permission) at a nearby field to see a wonderful display of Amanita mushrooms. We don't get the red ones (Fly Agaric / Amanita muscaria) with small white spots here, but we have seen bright yellow ones and sometimes even an almost orange one, with small white spots/flecks. I think I have only ever seen these three times - at West Bragg Creek, Rod Handfield's land, and I think Marsden Creek in Kananaskis. I was so longing to see one again and thought it was worth the drive just to check. Well, I found the field easily, but had forgotten about the sign there that said No Trespassing, No shooting, Patrol Area. I wasn't sure what Patrol Area meant, but I could almost imagine several Dobermans being released to attack me! I never go anywhere that has a No Trespassing sign, anyway. So, I walked through the trees along the edge of the field and tried to peer into the field, being careful not to catch the barbed-wire fence. I caught sight of a cluster of three fungi that looked like they were Amanitas, though they were fully "opened" and I couldn't see any spots. On my drive, I spotted this beautiful White-tailed Deer a long way up the road. A second one had just crossed the road and disappeared into the bushes and trees. How I wish it looked like this outside today, 19 November 2015! Instead, everywhere is covered with snow and ice and it will be another day of extremely slippery conditions. Temperature is -8C with a windchill of -14C this morning, but it is supposed to be a sunny day.

This is a poor quality photo, as you can tell, but I did want to post it for the record. It was taken yesterday evening, 12 February 2015, SE of Calgary, at one of the ramps leading from another road, right next to the main, busy highway. The lighting comes from car headlights and street lamps, giving the owl a rather unpleasant colour. We had pulled off the ramp on to one of the small patches where a car is able to stop. We really hoped the owl knew what it was doing and that it would soon leave for the fields. While we were there, it flew alongside the car and pounced on some kind of small rodent (Meadow Vole?) for a snack. Seeing this beautiful Snowy Owl certainly made a great ending to a day of exploration in a mostly familiar place! Yesterday, 12 February 2015, was spent SE of the city, with friends Cathy and Terry. They picked me up around 7:00 am and I think I was home somewhere around 7:30 pm, after a great day of searching for owls, barns, and anything else that caught our eye. The weather was beautiful, despite a cloud layer. The temperature reached a brief high of 13C around 1:00 and 2:00 pm, which felt so good, especially for mid-winter. Many of the roads we travelled along were roads that I had driven on myself, some of them a number of times. A few of the roads were new to me, which was a treat, including a "trail" that was so deeply rutted and snow-covered that I'm amazed that we ever got out of there! This track and another backroad that was new to me led to a few old barns that I really appreciated being shown. I think my friends were amused that I fell asleep on this very rough track - after only an hour and a half's sleep the previous night, on top of always being very sleep-deprived, I'm really not surprised. It's strange how some fields in the whole area were more or less bare and yet others had a lot of snow covering the stubble, with piles of snow lining the edges of the road. As far as wildlife was concerned, we saw 11 owls - 8 Snowy Owls and 3 Great Horned Owls. The Snowies, other than the one in this photo, were all extremely distant, so my photos are of white specks in a nice setting, ha. If I hadn't been with two people who can spot "everything", I'm sure that I would never have found most of these owls! One of the Great Horned Owls gave us a lovely view, although not close, with no branches getting in the way. Loved hearing it calling to its mate, who was presumably tucked into one of the neighbouring trees. Other birds included a flock of Snow Buntings, plus two individuals that were perched on a fence - haven't checked yet to see if I have a sharp enough photo. We had to deal with a lot of heat distortion during the day, so some photos are far from sharp. Another bird we saw was a beautiful Falcon perched on an electricity pylon - not a large bird, so presumably a Prairie Falcon, not a Gyrfalcon. Many thanks, as always, Cathy and Terry, for a great day out, including the delicious chili you made and brought along. Fun and rewarding! Really appreciated being with you, doing what we all enjoy so much. Thanks, too, for giving me time to photograph the various barns we came across!