Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: cracks

THIS IS SUPPOSED TO SHOW AS MY MAIN IMAGE TODAY, but instead, photo number 03 is being seen as my main photo (i.e. last photo posted). So, Flickr messes up again - drives me nuts! Thanks so much for letting me know, Bonnie! Comes on top of the absolute mess with Stats! My photo doesn't do justice to the ice patterns that we saw from the bird blind at Frank Lake four days ago. As well as the way the ice had cracked into endless small pieces, there were bubbles in between the pieces. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that the bubbles were caused by methane gas escaping from all the plant material at the bottom of the lake? On 19 March 2016, I was on a birding day trip with a group of friends, going SE of Calgary, E of High River. Though the day started off rather cold, it gradually warmed up and was a beautiful day to be out in nature. I will add our leader's report that he sent into eBird, adding that I did not see all of the sightings, as the birds were much too far away. As always, my camera lens was turned to various other things, too. Thanks so much, as always, Andrew, for a most enjoyable day! Thanks, too, Anne (B), for driving - I really appreciated the ride! "We had 16 participants when we left Calgary on a sunny but frosty morning. We arrived at the main gate around 10:00 am and set off, in a chilly -5 deg C to walk down to the outfall and then around to the blind. The recent cold nights had refrozen some of the lake, but it is still mostly open water. Most obvious were the thousands of Pintails and hundreds of swans (mostly Tundra today). We did see the overwintering (presumably) Song Sparrow near the outfall. About 60-80 California Gulls, no other gulls that we could identify. We left and went to High River for lunch, stopping by the Sutherland Shelterbelt to acknowledge the resident Great Horned Owl. After lunch we circled the lake on the usual roads and ended up at the Basin 2 West Bay. Several more swans and finally, the Eurasian Wigeon, spotted by Tony Timmons. By lunchtime the temperature had reached about 10 deg C and continued to rise reaching ~14 deg C and making a perfect Alberta Spring (almost) afternoon. Leaving Frank Lake we stopped in at Blackie to find mostly Starlings, and a few Eurasian Collared Doves. The list for Frank Lake and Blackie was: Checklists included in this summary: (1): Frank Lake--NW lookout/blind Date: Mar 19, 2016, 9:55 AM (2): Sutherland's Shelterbelt (private property) Date: Mar 19, 2016, 12:30 PM (3): Frank Lake--Basin 2 (Southeast Corner) Date: Mar 19, 2016, 2:15 PM (4): Frank Lake--Basin 2 (West Bay) Date: Mar 19, 2016, 3:05 PM (5): Blackie (hamlet) Date: Mar 19, 2016, 4:10 PM 650 Canada Goose -- (1),(3),(4) 4 Trumpeter Swan -- (1) 225 Tundra Swan -- (1),(4) 3 Gadwall -- (1) 2 Eurasian Wigeon -- (4) 60 American Wigeon -- (1),(4) 160 Mallard -- (1),(3),(4) 2 Northern Shoveler -- (4) 4550 Northern Pintail -- (1),(3),(4) 24 Canvasback -- (1),(4) 76 Redhead -- (1),(4) 5 Lesser Scaup -- (4) 150 Common Goldeneye -- (1),(4) 2 Gray Partridge -- (2) 1 Northern Harrier -- (4) 2 Bald Eagle -- (1),(3) 5 Killdeer -- (1),(2) 80 California Gull -- (1) 6 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) -- (3),(5) 4 Eurasian Collared-Dove -- (5) 2 Great Horned Owl -- (2) 1 Merlin -- (5) 5 Black-billed Magpie -- (1),(2) 1 Common Raven -- (3) 3 Horned Lark -- (1) 51 European Starling -- (2),(5) 2 American Tree Sparrow -- (1) 1 Song Sparrow -- (1) 8 House Finch -- (5) 20 House Sparrow -- (2),(5) From Blackie we stopped by Third Lake on the way back to Calgary. A huge number of birds there, somewhere between 4000 and 8000, generally somewhat distant. Mostly Pintails, but we also saw American Wigeon, Mallard, a few Canada Geese, and California Gulls. Clearly Pintails are on the move right now." Andrew Hart

This is another landscape photo from Red Rock Coulee, in SE Alberta, taken on 23 September 2013. Two friends and I left Calgary on Monday morning, 20 September 2013, and had to reach Elkwater in the Cypress Hills (not that far from the Saskatchewan border), several hours' drive away, where we were going to stay in a little rustic cabin for three nights. On the way there, we stopped at Red Rock Coulee, which is just 56 kms (35 mi) southwest of Medicine Hat. Actually, this particular photo was taken on Monday, 23 September 2013, when we called in again, this time walking down the hillside and into one of the coulees. While my friends searched for Lichens, I wandered around, taking photos of the scenery and anything else I came across, including the dry, cracked ground. We didn't know what the plant in this photo was. Most of the flowers on this plant were dead, but there were still just a few that were bright yellow. The extremely high winds were not pleasant at all, to say the least! In fact, strong winds were everywhere in many parts of SE Alberta. I was expecting a lot of my photos to be blurry, as I could barely keep my balance or hold my camera. This is Rattlesnake territory, too, but fortunately we didn't come across any, thank goodness! At least, not here, but one was seen (not by me!) at the Pinhorn Grazing Lease, when we were monitoring the Yucca plants. "The main feature of this natural landscape is the huge red boulders; some measuring 2.5 m across. They are scattered over a relatively small distance. Bedrock is close to the surface in this area, covered by only a thin layer of soil. Water erosion has carved the landscape over time and a badlands topography has formed in places. The bands of colour visible in the exposed bedrock are made of dark gray shales, greenish and gray sandstones, bentonitic clays and thin bands of ironstone. The most striking features of this landscape are the round reddish boulders. These are sandstone concretions and at up to 2.5 m in diameter, they are among the largest in the world. The boulders were formed in prehistoric seas as layers of sand, calcite and iron oxide collected around a nucleus formed by shells, leaves or bones. The concretions grew larger as the circulating waters deposited more layers. The reddish colour comes from iron oxide." From Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Rock_Coulee

I've no idea what kind of mushroom this is, but I rather liked the pattern that formed on the cap when the thin outer layer cracked and peeled. Taken at Waiparous trails, NW of Calgary, on 31 August 2012. I didn't get the chance to go to more than a handful of locations where fungi were growing this year, but did see several really special ones. Also, it seems to have been yet another poor year for fungi, so hopefully next August will be a lot better.

Found this little family of fungi huddled together, growing in mulch, in the same area that I photographed the amazing Stinkhorns recently. I've no idea what kind of mushrooms these are, but I love the way they develop cracks and wrinkles as they get older - kind of sounds familiar, ha! Now, they are all just piles of dead caps and stalks, unfortunately. Any chance these might be Cracked-Cap Mushroom / Agrocybe dura?

You'd be amazed at where some mushrooms grow, ha. I was certainly taken by surprise yesterday, when I happened to find about four of these very small mushrooms growing on top of Plateau Mt., Alberta. This one may have been about three-quarters of an inch across. I liked the dome in the centre of the cap, and the way the surface had cracked. For me, this was one of the highlights of yesterday, when a small group of us were privileged to be able to drive past the locked top gate on the way up to Plateau Mt.. This gate is always kept locked and is only a service road for workers going to the gas plant right at the top of the plateau. This area - the Plateau Mt. Ecological Reserve - is only open for scientific study. Normally, one has to do a long walk up the road in order to reach the lower meadows, and it's much too far to continue walking right up to the plateau top.

Spotted this very small spider (sorry, fotographix.ca, you commented before I typed my description!) on the cracked, parched floor of Horseshoe Canyon three days ago. This Canyon is part of the spectacular Badlands of Alberta - land of the Dinosaurs! - and is found just before you reach Drumheller, coming from Calgary. Haven't identified this little guy, but he looks different from spiders that I've seen before. (By the way, I added the black frame because the photo just looked so washed out on a white page background. I do this with some of my photos, but just for myself at home. I find that photos without frames make more attractive (to my mind) mosaics, which is why I don't normally post the framed versions here on Flickr.) Thanks so much to The Kav (Pat Kavanagh) and Lynette S. for the ID of Wolf Spider (probably Pardosa sp.). Much appreciated.

Discovered this beautiful plant growing up at Ptarmigan Cirque in Kananaskis. The colour is really shown off by the pale grey scree on which it grows.