Swainson's Hawk

I have just added seven extra photos tonight, just in case I don't post any tomorrow morning. There are maybe three or four more to edit and add from this day trip and then I am done.

"It's late August and it's SNOWING. There's a windchill too. Monday, August 27, 2018, 9:59 AM - We know it's Monday, so we won't blame you for doing a double or even triple take of this August snow in Alberta. That's right we said SNOW. As the final week of August wraps up, snow has been reported west of Calgary along with a windchill making things feel closer to the freezing mark. Get ready for a possible repeat performance on Tuesday as well." From the Weather Network. Hopefully, some wildfire areas will have the same weather! Our temperature this morning is 6C, windchill 1C.

www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/alberta-snow-canm...

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Thank you so much, Shirley, for inviting us all out to visit you the day before yesterday (25 August 2018) while you were out again at your summer trailer at Eagle Lake for the weekend! It was a fairly cool day, which was great, but the smoke is still being blown in from the wildfires in British Columbia. I was just reading an article this morning about the awful air quality in Seattle and theirs has been roughly the same as ours. They reckon the very poor air quality is equivalent to smoking seven cigarettes a day.

It was such a pleasure to see some of "your" birds that you enjoy so much. Compared to our visit on 17 June 2017, there were fewer species to be seen, but enough to keep us happy. I think the highlight for me was a Western Kingbird that posed so beautifully on a tangle of metal pipes down near the edge of the water. The soapsud "icebergs" were interesting to see, too, but no doubt were polluting the lake!

I also loved taking a couple of quick shots of a cute goat just as we were leaving. We had stopped so that one of us could get out and buy several food items from a Hutterite stand that was in the trailer campground. I got out to get a bottle of water from my backpack in the back of the car and a friend in the car behind caught my attention and pointed out this animal posing so nicely.

Great to see everyone who went, and we all enjoyed an array of delicious salads and desserts that left me feeling full till the early evening. We also enjoyed meeting your two Grandchildren, Shirley, who happened to be staying with you for the weekend. So good to see them both making lists of the bird species seen.

Many thanks, Anne B, for driving some of us us east across the prairies. Hugely appreciated, as always!