Thursday morning Cross walk

Bruno and I did our Cross patrol this morning as I have an  interview scheduled for tomorrow, and thought we should get in a little exercise. We found a cow moose with last year's calf up on the flats, then in the SE corner we found these 10 Whitetails:

Things were pretty quitefrom there up to the top of the Pine Creek trail, where we found our freshest looking cougar tracks this year. I would say that that they were likely made within the past 24 hours, if not in the last 6.  Part the way down the hill we spotted three more Whitey's, and I think this is a decent shot of the lead doe:

Oh, I should throw in the Bald Eagle as well.  The wind came up pretty hard around 10:30 a.m. as seems to be the case here this spring.

Turbo

New Moose Country

Skipped out for a morning tour, headed out to find the NHO or the Short Earred this morning, with no luck for those particular birds. There was significant activity though, starting with a Coyote, 10 whitetails, 8 Roughies, and 4 moose.  I did spot a Shrike again, but was too slow on the draw. A Bald eagle maintained its distance, so no decent shots of that unit either. I did see my first Red Tail Hawk of this spring so the migrations are beginning.  Here is a shot of a moose that I spotted laying down. It was there for at least 90 minutes (10:30 a.m. until noon) on my last pass by it, there was a second moose behind it feeding. Bruno and I are headed out to the Cross tomorrow.

Have a GREAT day!

Turbo

Sunday amble

I owe everyone an apology, I have been holding on to the Sunday update, and here it is Thursday, Sheesh!  The Morning startedoff with a coyote, which I hammered out a couple of shots of but nothing worth posting. We were then off to find the two pairs of GHO’s that are nesting in the area.

This is the second male standing guard over the female as she sits on the eggs. 

Here is a shot of her, she is in the hollowed top of this cottonwood tree, all you can see is one eye and her ear tufts in this shot.

The place was CRAZY with woodpeckers and flickers this morning, here is a shot of a Hairy:

Sorry for the delay in getting this posted.

Turbo.

Friends at FCPP

I am trying out a different camera lens this week, and I have been experiencing terrible results, as you can probabaly tell by my photo posts for this weekend. In order to try and work through what is going on I headed back down to Fish Creek PP to shoot some friends that are usually close at hand. On my walk I did manage to find this Ringed necked pheasant, so I thought I would post his portrait.

I was very disappointed with my Nuthatch and Chickadee shots, and couldn't find a cooperative Downy of Hairy woodpecker, but this Northern Flicker shot seems okay.

She was watching me as closely as I was watching her.
Changed configuration settings on the camera and we are out again tomorrow for our Sunday walk. It will be an hour earlier tomorrow as the clocks "spring ahead" tonight for Daylight savings time.

Turbo

Owl Prowl

With now two owls in one area that we wanted to get shots of Jamie and I headed out to look for the elusive Northern Hawk owl and the newly added to the list, Short Earred owl. We didn't get out of the neighbourhood when Jamie had me scrambling for my camera, one of my target specie was on the loose, but we weren't going to get too close.

We found another target of mine while out today, and if this keeps up we will continue to look for the NHO, and find other stuff that we weren't necessarily looking for.

A Juvenile Northern Shrike.  While out exploring, as this was our other purpose for the morning, we happened upon these domestic horses, and I thought a couple of shots deserved posting.

Other critters of note were Mule deer, Whitetails, a couple of mature Bald Eagles, several Roughies, and a cattle drive with about 300 head and 10 cowboys, gotta love Alberta and the cowboys!

Turbo



Flying Squirrel outing.Ruffed Grouse

Dan asked if I would be interested in getting out for a flying squirrel expedition, I was all over it like white on rice:)  Rocky and Bullwinkle are two of my favourites. During set up this little Ruffed Grouse popped in for a visit.  I apologize for the poor quality of the photo, but we were in the woods and it was probabaly 45 minutes after sundown, to get any shot was remarkable, without using a flash.

A little earlier in the evening my "sensitive" side came out and I shot these rose hips.

Unfortunately the squirrels didn't make the meeting, Dan and I might try again next Friday night.

Turbo

Hunchback Moose of Cross Conservation

With Bruno and I out on our weekly patrol, we had a moose and two Whitetails sighted before we left the parking lot. the we found this group of Muley's soaking up some early morning sun.

Just a little further down the path we found our second moose of the day, and when I looked at the photos, I was thinking we should call it Quasimodo! It looks to have a rather odd hump on its back. We will need to keep an eye out for this particular moose once again.

We picked up some more cougar tracks that were likely 3 days old. We look forward to the day when we find feet still in some of these markings:)  Other than that a very quiet (animal wise) walk.  The wind came up, and I find very little in the wind.

Turbo