Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: winter plumage

Taken at the Irrigation Canal in Calgary, when friends Dorothy and Stephen invited me to go with them, on 15 October 2012. Unfortunately, the light was worse than I had realized and I had to delete most of my photos from that outing. These are very common Gulls, but I so rarely get to places where I can see one on the ground.

Not the greatest shot (OK in this size), but my first shot of a Rusty Blackbird. I'd never really seen one of these birds properly, but we saw a total of 16 of them along the edge of the Bow River on 28 October 2012, between Hull's Wood and LaFarge Meadow. When I was taking the photos and looking through my viewfinder, they seemed to be just plain, dark birds, but when I checked the images, the beautiful rust colour showed itself. Lol, I've only just this second noticed that it looks as if the bottom edge of the photo (i.e. snow) has been ripped off, leaving a jagged edge. "Rusty Blackbird is one of North America’s most rapidly declining species. The population has plunged an estimated 85-99 percent over the past forty years and scientists are completely puzzled as to what is the cause. They are relatively uncommon denizens of wooded swamps, breeding in the boreal forest and wintering in the eastern U.S. In winter, they travel in small flocks and are identified by their distinctive rusty featheredges and pallid yellow eyes." www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Rusty_Blackbird/id en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_Blackbird