Snowy's, snowy's, Horned Lark, Grey Partridge. (20140209) A very frosty morning

With my knee still providing me with discomfort I thought a cruise for Snowy's might be in order, it had been some time since Jamie has had the chance to shoot these beautiful birds.  It was very cold but the promise of sun had us anxious to get out and shoot.  As we moved through the early hours. The white birds were hard to locate. It is a pretty slow day when I decide to stop and shoot a Landscape or two.

It truly was a beautiful morning, but we moved into and out of ice fog, at times it was so thick our visibility was severely restricted. you can see a little in the background here.

We got to see our first Whitetailed Jackrabbit in the wild out here this trip and I am expecting Jamie to supply a shot for the blog here. The Grey's were out in full force too. 

It was 10:15 before we found our first target bird which put us way behind schedule considering Middy and I had 7 by this time 10 days earlier. Even spotting this bird was tough as we were "in the fog".

After a second "building bird" we ran into a large flock of horned larks. I got out of the truck and tried to sneak up (doing a belly crawl) to see if I could get a decent shot, what do you think?

Our next "white bird" treated us to a first ever as I have watch eat a mouse/vole, it was a long way off, but it was a bit of a treat:) This next owl, we were able to spend a little time with and watched as it hunted in an area for a while. unfortunately here it looked away as it took off.

By Lunch time we had found 5 different birds, and things picked up in the afternoon. Here is another image of the same bird, doing a fly by. 

An hour later I was finally fortunate enough to have a bird on my side of the truck. With the wind the birds were very skittish and would rarely offer us a close shot. I am expecting some additional images from Jamie as he had the privilege of being in the "shot gun" chair and was provided more opportunities than I. It remained cold all day as you will see from the frost on the wires in this shot.

We spotted many more birds in the afternoon, including this "fence bird". 

We also spotted a Prairie Falcon at one point but it took off and flew what seemed like for miles. As a total is was a record best day with  15 different Snowy Owls spotted, and we were still home before dark a highly successful day! 

Drop by to Calgary and get me to find you a snowy or two for your photo album:)

Turbo

Here are some comments and images from Jamie:

Our first out of the city Whitetailed Jackrabbit

"The conditions during the first part of our drive are obvious in the Gray Partridge 

and Llamas photos where the wind was howling and the surface snow blowing up almost whiteout conditions."

Jamie
You can see more of Jamie's great images at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crzycnuk/with/12553264964/