The joy of winter roads

Our bitterly cold weather continues. Yesterday, 6 February 2017, the forecast for this morning was -28C (windchill -35C!). Forecast for tomorrow morning is -27C (windchill -36C). After that, things are supposed to warm up, thank goodness. I haven't been out anywhere the last few days - too much new snow and such cold, cold weather. Almost unheard of, birding walks for yesterday and today were cancelled. Normally, many people will go, no matter how bad the weather. I tend to be a fair-weather photographer : )

This photo was taken on 29 December 2016, when three of us took part in the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the Cochrane Wildlife Reserve area, NW of Calgary. I'm not sure why it's called a Wildlife Reserve, as it consists of backroads and farms just like on our other Counts. We all travelled in just one car, and the area we covered was east of Highway 22/Cowboy Trail (across from the Water Valley area). We had to be way NW of the city by 8:00 am, ready to start driving our Count area. There always seems to be a beautiful sunrise when we start this Count.

One of the highlights of this Count for me is seeing several Llamas on one of the farms. Unfortunately, it was very overcast all day. Several of the backroads were in bad condition and I was expecting us to get stuck, which fortunately didn't happen. A huge bag of gravel and a snow shovel were in the back of the driver's vehicle, just in case.

Another of my favourite farms to stop at has a shy, old dog named Fang, along with beautiful cats, and I always look forward to seeing them each year. The neighbouring farm, which is also included in our area, has two beautiful old, red barns and I was longing to see these again. Unfortunately, we drove in past them, but didn't stop - of course, it IS a birding trip : ) A bit further in, we did get out of the car while our leader tried to find someone to ask permission for us to get out and look for birds. No one could be found, but it gave me the chance to take two rapid shots through the trees of the second barn, from a side view, which I had never seen it from before.

So, it was a very enjoyable day, though there were not all that many species or individual birds to be seen. Many thanks, Andrew, for driving our leader and myself. You did a great job of handling the roads that had not been cleared of snow. I will add a list of the bird species seen, in a comment box below.