Horses and Moose (20131207) Supplemental to an excellent day!

When you have a day like Kerri and I had supplemental posts are a great way of providing you all with a couple more images, and impressions on the day. Don't be mistaken, when I say a day like we had, I mean a whole day. I picked Kerri up @ 8:00 a.m. and returned her home right around 5:30 p.m. truly a full day.
Here are a couple of shots from our first herd of the day, the first is a mare that I believe might be pregnant, but it is so hard to tell with these mountain horses as they have developed the real barrel type bodies.

 This next shot is of a foal that ws with the first group we found. I really like the colouration of its mane and tail, especially how the top of the tail starts off dark then lightens up.

I thought that I would throw this shot of moose into the mix as it shows the type of environment that they live in, these stream bottoms are full of deadfalls and rocky terrain. These magnificant animals move through that tangle like we walk on hardwood floors.

And while see where they live, did you find the second moose in the shot? these two big fellas have been hanging out together and they move almost in sync.

And now lads bow to the left :)

A beautiful pair of mature mammals. And now back to some Wild horse shots of the day. This is a shot of one of the mares in the second group we found, I love the snow falling from the tree around the horse.

Youngsters seemed to be at a premium with only one or two per herd, here is a shot of our third herd colt, there were 6 horses in that group.

Here is a shot of "Dirty Face's" colt on the run. We were in poor position with regards to the sun so I have had to lighten this up quite a bit. Even at this age these critters move through their environment with a great deal of confidence. The don't really run fast, but a lot faster than I could ever attain:)

Here is a shor of another horse from that herd, I believe it is great example of the structure of these horses. They are short legged, stocky build, with a bulky head.

This is a brand new herd tht I know I have never seen before, it seems to be led by this Bay Mare, but has nine blacks in the population!  Another beautiful herd of 10 horses, and I believe only one of them is a youngster.

I will conclude this wild horse and Moose supplemental post here. As you can see we had great light, and some cooperative subjects. At 56 ponies, that is a personal best for me, although I have never gone out to try and finad as many as possible. I am confident if we had been in the area earlier, and stayed later we could have easily "found" more of these majestic animals. In my opinion this is a terrific natural resource that many people are totally unaware of, what a great place to live and hunt of photography subjects.
Turbo

Wild Horses, Moose, Northern Pygmy Owl (20131207) a first for Kerri

We had been struggling to decide where to go for our "track" over the past couple of days, so I tossed out the idea of going for horses, I knew it was going to be bone chilling cold, so these critters ould be out feeding as much as possible. Kerri had never been out to the area and was pumped with the idea. So inspite of the -30C with -40C wind chill values we headed out. I was a couple of minutes picking up Kerri but things were good and we had the promise of a good looking day. We made out initial pass through promising territory for otrher critters on the way to Wild Horse country but the cold weather obviously had everything shutdown. The key to being on alert for horses is finding "apples", We did that around 11:00, and at about 11:01 we spotted our first herd of the day a beautiful group of eight horses with a gorgeous stallion.

You can see the frost on his eyelashes! Here is a shot of the entire family. I will be doing a supplemental later with some individual shots of many of the horses we found today. I love the two horses in the top left back in the trees, it looks like we will have more mirror images of the Stallion running around our here.

So this was a great start with some terrific light. Giving the time and distance we had to cover, I was focussing heavily on the road when Kerri popped out with "Moose"! I spied a second immediately and we got stopped and lined up our first shots.  This is a young immature moose, just laying in the sun.

We then got out and started looking for the first moose that Kerri had spotted. It turns out that there were actually two nice mature bulls, and they even paused long enough for a shot or two. Hopefully these fine gentlement have worn themselves out passing their genes onto many cows this past breeding season.

Coming into our Lunch joint we found "apples" and this little group of 6 mustangs, this is the Stallion of this group. I will post a couple more shots later.

Our usual spot was closed for business today so we couldn't grab lunch before we heading into some of my areas for more opportunities. Our first spot yielded 6 ponies very quickly. These fine specimens were way up on a ridge and we had great blue sky for a back ground, that brought our total for the day to 20.

We next found my favourite herd of 10 horses, with my "dirty faced girl". We were very fortunate as we usually have to walk in to get photo's of this group and the snow and conditions would have made that highly unlikely, and three of the horses were up next to the road. Here is my favourite of this group.

Here is a shot of two mares and a foal, they were being protected by an all black stallion just to the right of these georgous critters.

We had sight to another herd of 8 more mustangs just up the road, they too were quite a way off but held for some shots. before heading down into the willows. We finished the day off with 56 "brombies", 6 moose, and close to 80 deer in all. For birds we had a Bald Eagle, a single Rough Legged Hawk, and this little sweetheart that I have been hard for all year, a Northern Pygmy Owl.

Kerri and I have had several "false alarms" with this bird, and we even amanged to find one that was pretty unapproachable once about two months ago. We were in the last light of the day, but this bird was pretty close and allowed about 12 minutes of its time before it disappeared into the night.

I managed to grab several decent shots of this beautiful little predator, so I will be doing a supplemental post with more images when I get some time. Ignacio, sorry I couldn't find it when you were here, maybe in the spring.  I'll wrap this post up here on an amazing day! Calgary in the freezing cold, no better place to be!
Turbo

Horned Lark, Snow Buntings (20131204) Snowy Investigation.

Although there have been a few Snowy Owls seen around here this year it is nothing like the irruption happening on the east coast. Everyone is scratching their head over why this has happened after just having a great year two years ago.  Since Jamie and I had spotted a couple of birds further north I thought I would check my route that has been so productive over the past two years. It has been cold here and we just had a blizzard go through so there was no telling what I might find. The first birds of note was a small flock of 100 buntings, and just up the road I found some Horned Larks.

With the wind fluffing these birds they look like little cotton balls.

I found a flock of 20+ Grey's but with the open country and windy conditions they weren't sticking around for photo's.  My next encounter was with a large (3-500) flock of Snow Buntings.

I was fortunate that I was able to sit in the truck as they worked around in the nearby field. It is the first time I have been this lucky. This guy looks like he doesn't like the taste of his seed.

It was a great way to while away a little of the afternoon. These little birds are quite intricantly coloured.

I guess that with a lack of water in these temperatures a little snow comes in handy.

I found several small flocks of Larks and there were a lot of Magpies out and about. I spotted 4 Whitetails and three Mule Deer. A great day considering the -20C weather and 30kph winds. I hope we get some of these migrating Snowys to settle in the area, they are just a joy to shoot! Have a great day,
Turbo

Snowy Owls, Grey Partridge. Coyote (20131201) Outing with Jamie

Recent reports of Snowy owls have had Jamie and I anxious to get out and get some early shots. The day had some promise and our hopes were high as we headed out around 7:15 a.m. The promise of the day held true as we found our first Owl just prior to sun up.

This owl almost disappeared on this fence post. With the past couple of years of great Snowy activity we were not expecting to find any this year, their irruptions are unpredictable at best. Let'see if you can find our second Owl in this shot, it doesn't look anything like Waldo.

We found this owl 30 minutes after we left our first of the day. We were fortunate that after watching it for a little while it decided to move a little closer to us. I was able to get a couple of images of it landing on the fence line.

After it landed and got squared away in the new location, it did a little "fluff".

Hee is a little wider view of the environment. It was a great looking morning.

And here is a final look at our second, and last owl of the morning.

We covered a lot of ground and found very little, a couple of coyotes and a Prairie Falcon that wouldn't stop for us to get photo's. We did see a couple of flocks of Grey Partridge, there were at least twenty birds in flock.

On the way home we found this very cooperative Coyote. It seemed to be just standing out in the field for some reason. It just moved off, but not due to us.

The day started off with a boom and then whimpered out pretty much by 10:00. We did see a couple of flocks of Snow Buntings, one of about 100 birds and the second had 2-300 birds. I great day in the flats around Calgary. It looks like a year where if you drop by I might be able to get you your own Snowy experience!
Turbo

Whitetails, Ruffed Grouse (20131129) A quick run with Ignacio

After getting home and spending most of Thursday resting up, Ignacio and I made arrangements for a quick run to see if there were any GGO's out and about. The woods here are full of hunters as the 30th is the last day of the season for many types of game including Whitetails. It was not unusal to find a group of four Doe's in an area of rural houses.

While it was a very quiet day we did manage to find this male Ruffed Grouse. I love the feather patterning on these birds, all grouse really, they are designed to not be seen!

I'll post this next shot for two reasons, the first is that it is likely my best Grouse in flight shot :) , the second is that you can clearly see the full black band on the tail feathers that is the signature of the male Ruffed. 

The light was starting to fade when Ignacio spotted two nice Whitetail bucks. This is a very nice 8 pointer. While his antlers are a little thin or light, they extend out well passed his ears, an indication of a nice buck!

It was nice to see that these two fine fellows had made it through the rut and had been passing those genes on to another generation of thier kind. Hopefully they survived the evening and the next day as the season closed out.  It was a light afternoon, I believe things will pick up after the hunting pressure is removed.

Glad to be back in Calgsary chasing first class critters, come on out and we can chase some together.

Turbo

Pheasants, Ducks, Ruffed Grouse (20131127) Last couple of days in N.S.

For my last couple of days in Nova Scotia I returned to Len's place, he is much closer to the airport when departure time comes. As you know when you are Len's Pheasants are the target and we were visited often. This shot wa taken through the living room window.

This fellow didn't hang around long, so I cracked off a second shot.

Inspite of the rain and breeze we decided to take a little ride and grabbed this bird right in the neighbourhood.

Are you getting tired of thesepheasant shots yet? Not me, I love that I get the chance to photo them.

We swung by the same route we took when I was down last year. We spotted this Northern Shoveler, the first good look Len has had at one of these units.

I liked the colours presented in the light we had of these female Mallards wings.

We topped our drive off with this nice Ruffed Grouse. He was quite a distance up a tree with powerful backlighting. I was lucky to get any detail at all out of this shot.

This pretty well wrapped up the Nova Scotia trip. I am anxious to get back to Calgary and the best wildlife spots in Canada for some real activity:)
Turbo

Buffleheads, Eagles, Pheasants (20131126) Nova Scotia Catch-up

Well I have been a little re-miss in getting my last couple of posts out from my Nova Scotia trip, so Hopefully I can get this rectified and get myself back on track and my viewers up to date. Len and I headed over to the Hubbards/Deep Cove area to do a little exploring to see if we could find the NCC property located there. On the drive over we were presented with an opportunity to grab these buffleheads.

we found the property and did a little exploring but our time was limited so we headed back home, hopefully he and David will be able to get out there for a "track" in the spring and summer of next year. The next day we took a ride over to Cape Split, a new spot for us, but a place that we will return to when we have more time and the weather is better. It is a 16km long round trip, to the tip of the park, stuck out into the Bay of Fundy. I grabbed my first ever Rough Legged hawks that I have seen in NS.

It was dancing on the 50 kph winds we were enjoying during our tour:) We did also manage to scrounge up a couple of Bald Eagles on the trip.

For those of you that may be unaware, the Bay of Fundy has some of the highest tide diferentials in all of North America. I believe the tide was already on the way in, but as you can see, this boat has a long way to go before it will be supported by enough water to float it to the point you could walk onto it from the dock!

On the way back we found this nice '50's looking spot, I believe the white car is a DeSoto, the make of car that the original Batmobile was based upon. I love the look of this unit:)

This is a property that looks like it is in the process of trying to "recreate" a certain atmosphere, here is a shot of another building.  There were other vehicles in various states of repair hanging around as well.

Before we got home Len spotted this Pheasant, these aren't great shots, but...

And my best wing shot this year, I think.

The next day I went out on my own, Len was back at work, and I found a few Bald Eagles.

Here is a shot of 5 different birds, I believe that there were at least 7 in this area. the conditions just didn't allow for any closer shots. I'll also throw a shot in here of a Cooper's hawk.

I'll wrap this post up here. The weather had provided very difficult conditions for shooting, it was dark and windy most of the time I was "down the Valley".
Turbo