Sunday, March 15, 2009

Horned Larks

Yesterday I had an enjoyable trip with a friend around Blackstrap, Dundurn and the old Regina Highway.

Highlights were a female Pileated Woodpecker near the campsite at Blackstrap Lake , 3 adult Moose close to the same location and a pure white Snowy Owl near Sheilds sitting in the middle of a field.
There were also approx 24 American Robins at Blackstrap , 35 Bohemian Waxwings , 8 Sharp-tailed Grouse and 2 Blue Jay.
Throughout the day we also saw a total of 45 Horned Larks. It is great to see these birds gathering in numbers.
It won't be long before we see the first Mountain Bluebirds up here.

Other things of interest, were 10 White-tailed Deer , 1 Porcupine and 1 Skunk.

Horned Lark




Snowy Owl - This Owl was sitting quite a far distance away, and I zig-zagged my way towards him, then took the shot from about 60ft .

12 comments:

Shelley said...

Hmph! I'm not sure which one I'm more jealous of that you saw since I haven't seen neither - LOL! Both gorgeous photos!!!

Anonymous said...

Alright! My birds are on their way back. Not that I'm tired of Ravens (I don't think I could ever tire of Ravens) but I am so looking forward to new arrivals.

Rocky M said...

Beautiful captures...looks like you woke up a sleepy owl too.:-)

Kelly said...

Great Horned Lark shot. We had a flock at work last year and this year. Rick got some great photos. I love to listen to their twittering. The owl is beyond words.

Jayne said...

WOW... he looks truly like a snow owl... made of snow! What a great shot Nick!

Peggy said...

2 fantastic images, but have to pay respect to the Snowy! Wow! Glad your system of approach worked!

John Theberge said...

Great photos as usual, we don't have the horned lark in this area. The snowy owl has made apprearances before but I haven't been lucky enough to see one.

Ruth's Photo Blog said...

Great pictures.I find Horned Larks difficult to shoot as they seldom sit still very long.
Blessings,Ruth

holdingmoments said...

That snowy is a beaut!

Nick S said...

Many thanks guys. I wish I could have gotten closer to the snowy.
As it is, I was testing out a 1.4 teleconverter on my backup camera the Canon 20D, but it didn't perform that great to be honest.

Philip said...

Now this is something we dont get here :) beautiful photograph

Nick S said...

Thanks Phil :-)