Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: wingspan

This photo was taken almost a week ago, on 6 April 2014, when I went with a group of 10 friends to Frank Lake for several hours. This was a "by car" day with barely any walking. Sometimes when we pull over and get out, I can be found looking in the opposite direction to everyone else, taking a photograph of something totally unrelated to birds, lol. You need binoculars or a scope to see most of the birds we come across, which I don't have, but I can never resist the scenery. In this case, I decided to see if I could catch a row of beautiful Tundra Swans flying overhead. Will add Tony Timmons' report for the day - thanks, Tony, both for writing up the list and for taking us down to one of my favourite areas outside the city: "Eleven people were on the trip today, birding Frank Lake and area. We tallied 35 species. Most of the lake is still covered in ice. As many as 10,000 Northern Pintails were seen in the fields, sloughs and flying overhead. Two hundred swans were feeding in the fields. Of note were two Eurasian Wigeons spotted in the shallow sloughs. Canada Goose Tundra Swan Trumpeter Swan Gadwall American Wigeon Eurasian Wigeon Mallard Cinnamon Teal Northern Shoveler Northern Pintail Green-winged Teal Canvasback Redhead Ring-necked Duck Lesser Scaup Bufflehead Common Goldeneye Common Merganser Ruddy Duck Bald Eagle Northern Harrier Rough-legged Hawk Coot Killdeer Ring-billed Gull California Gull Great Horned Owl Horned Lark Robin Rock Pigeon,Magpie,Crow,Raven,Starling,House Sparrow" As you can see from the list, birds are returning after being elsewhere all winter. Only very distant views of them all, except for one Great Horned Owl on her nest - impossible to get a proper shot because she was hidden by a tangle of branches. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/tundra_swan/lifehistory animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/tundra-swan/

To be honest, I really don't know what my little point-and-shoot is capable of when it comes to taking in-flight shots. All I know is that I don't usually bother to even try, as photos really don't turn out. However, I was just lucky with this shot of a gorgeous American White Pelican that just happened to fly overhead. I was sitting watching a Harris's Hawk do a flight training demonstration at the Coaldale Bird of Prey Centre just over a week ago and caught sight of this guy.

This photo shows the enormous wingspan of Shirley, the recently acquired female Andean Condor at the Calgary Zoo. The wingspan can get up to 12 feet!

Not a very good quality photo, but it does show the huge 9-feet wingspan of these birds and the black feathers under the wings.