Layers and stripes

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, EVERYONE!

I love the blues, browns, whites and golds of our Alberta winters. They appeal to me far more than the rich greens of spring and summer. Of course, when it comes to temperatures, the cold winters are not my favourite. Not going to complain about this winter, though, as we have been really lucky with weeks of milder weather.

This photo was taken two days ago, 12 February 2015, which was spent SE of the city, with friends Cathy and Terry. They picked me up around 7:00 am and I think I was home somewhere around 7:30 pm, after a great day of searching for owls, barns, and anything else that caught our eye. The weather was beautiful. The temperature reached a brief high of 13C around 1:00 and 2:00 pm, which felt so good, especially for mid-winter. There was an unusual layer of white haze along the foot of the mountains for much of the day.

Many of the roads we travelled along were roads that I had driven on myself, some of them a number of times. A few of the roads were new to me, which was a treat, including a "trail" that was so deeply rutted and snow-covered that I'm amazed that we ever got out of there! This track and another backroad that was new to me led to a few old barns that I really appreciated being shown. I think my friends were amused that I fell asleep on this very rough track - after only an hour and a half's sleep the previous night, on top of always being very sleep-deprived, I'm really not surprised. It's strange how some fields in the whole area were more or less bare and yet others had a lot of snow covering the stubble, with piles of snow lining the edges of the road.

As far as wildlife was concerned, we saw 11 owls - 8 Snowy Owls and 3 Great Horned Owls. The Snowies, other than the one perched on the "Wrong Way" sign that I posted yesterday, were all extremely distant, so my photos are of white specks in a nice setting, ha. If I hadn't been with two people who can spot "everything", I'm sure that I would never have found most of these owls!

Other birds included a flock of Snow Buntings, plus two individuals that were perched on a fence - haven't checked yet to see if I have a sharp enough photo. Another bird we saw was a beautiful Falcon perched on an electricity pylon - not a large bird, so presumably a Prairie Falcon, not a Gyrfalcon. Also a group of Grey Partridge that suddenly flew before we had noticed them. We had to deal with a lot of heat distortion during the day, so some photos are far from sharp.

Many thanks, as always, Cathy and Terry, for a great day out, including the delicious chili you made and brought along. A fun and rewarding day! Really appreciated being with you, doing what we all enjoy so much. Thanks, too, for giving me time to photograph the various barns we came across!