The hiking I had planned took a backseat today when I checked out the conditions in the mountains. Rather than waste another day at home I packed the gear and took off to Castle Mountain about 30 minutes north of Banff in Banff National Park.
I have had my eye on this place for a sunset shoot for some time but I didn't know about parking, access and the true potential of the place, so it always seemed to be on the back burner. With a snow day hunt for something to do, it seemed like a good idea to test the waters (so to speak). I poked around on the internet and made plans in the morning, then made the 1 hour 45 minute drive out to the access point. Parking is by the roadside and a short plod through the snow brought me to a gate in the 10 feet tall wildlife fence beside the road. Mercifully the gate is not locked and I am soon down on the rocky shore looking for my sunset spot. It's not the easiest location today with slippery boulders underfoot and a ripple on the water preventing a reflection in the river. After hunting around I found a few puddles and selected one to work with. From then on I was just waiting for the light. Sunset arrived within an hour or so and ended abruptly about 30 minutes later. The sun had not yet set but it becomes blocked by mountains once it drops below a certain point. So I gained some info about the location, made a couple of decent shots and made plans to revisit in January or February when the ice on the river might really add something to the foreground. No captions for the gallery today as they are all the same place and time, there's just one showing my set up for one of the puddle shots.
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Tuesday saw a good 20 cm of snowfall in Cochrane and more in the mountains beyond. I opted to stay at home and let it fall, with an eye on a hike on Wednesday. I was working on the laptop close to the dining room window and had the constant distraction of the birds and squirrels looking for food under the blanket of white outside.
Obviously I had to make a few images, sure we've seen these guys before but I think they are worth capturing repeatedly. Watching them scavenge through deep snow really brings home just how difficult their existence can be. I've put captions on the gallery shots to identify the critters, the main image is one of our spectacular bluebirds with a good beak full of peanuts. During my usual midweek wander in Kananaskis with Cecil this week, we found some calm patches of open water in the frozen upper lake. These helped provide some stunning shots of Mt Indefatigable reflected in the mirror like surface, in the main image the mountain even has a bow on it.
We stopped in at The Widowmaker on the Kananaskis River, Barrier Lake, The Lower Lake and upper lake before returning to the lower lake for sunset. We found some nice shots today and as always enjoyed being out and about in K Country. Just before sunset we saw a coyote laid out on the ice of the lower lake, as we made shots of him he came right toward us to access the shoreline before skirting around to the north side of the inlet. Once comfortably away from us he howled his sunset song for a while before settling down again. It was really wonderful to be serenaded by coyote song as we made shots of the sunset in the calm empty surrounds of Kananaskis. As usual the gallery has captions to show the way, the coyote images have their own post below this one. Cecil and I made our usual midweek jaunt to Kananaskis today. We hung around waiting for sunset as it now dips below the horizon at 4:55 pm so we can make a few shots and still be home in good time.
As we approached our sunset spot on the lower lake we saw a coyote running past and both of us said how nice it would have been to grab a shot of him. As we parked up, another coyote ran past us and down the snowy bank to the lake. He trotted out a good way and then decided to indulge in some ice bathing. He laid out on the ice and watched the world go by, he particularly watched the other coyote that had run past us earlier. After lying there a while he sat up for a while longer. Then, for no apparent reason he trotted right back towards us, up the snowy bank and around us. He continued on around the lake before stopping off to howl at the world for a few minutes. This was another one of those 'gifts' that K country gives you for making the effort to go out there, and a great moment to share before sunset. I'll post the usual selection of shots soon but wanted to give this coyote his own post befitting such a casual raggedy eared fella. Another new traveller in the garden this week, the White Winged Crossbill. Quite an impressive bird they are 'year round' in our area though I have never seen them in the garden before.
Each individual bird can eat up to 3000 conifer seeds per day (yes three thousand). They moult their feathers each year in autumn and the pink hue slowly changes to vibrant red by springtime. It will be interesting to see them in spring if they stick around. They are also known to breed year round and will begin nesting at any point when sufficient food allows them to do so, maybe we'll see some winter chicks in a month or two. The transit of Mercury across the sun is the term used to describe the time at which the planet Mercury passes between the earth and the sun. In doing so Mercury is visible through telescopes and long camera lenses (with solar filters) as a small silhouette.
Today as Mercury passed between us and the sun Sarah and I stood in the garage with the door open and my camera at the ready. I used my 100-400 lens with a 2x extender giving me an 800mm reach, I then put that onto my 7D MKII. I used that camera because it has a crop sensor which gives me an additional multiplier of 0.6, so when all said and done I had a 1280 mm lens equivalent. I used my solar filter that I bought for the 2017 eclipse and, in a short time, had captured the event. We couldn't see the start of the transit as our sun is slow to rise at this time of year and the transit was well underway by the time our sun was high enough to observe. But as the transit takes almost 5.5 hours we did have time to see Mercury as it sped toward the edge of the sun There's little point in including a number of images as it's not the most visually interesting thing, once you've seen it, you've seen it. But I did want to record the moment for the blog as the next transit doesn't occur until November 2032 and I was really happy to catch this one with Sarah beside me and a few neighbours wondering what we were doing standing in the garage with a huge camera pointing up the street. There's not much diversity in the images of todays trip to kananaskis. Strong winds and icy cold temperatures did little to encourage Cecil and I to get out by the water at our first location, Barrier Lake. The main images today shows Mt Baldy behind the 'crocodile teeth' of natures construction on a lakeside log at Barrier.
We visited five locations but only made images at three, Barrier Lake, The Kananaskis River and the Lower Lake. We enjoyed ourselves and the first real ice of winter made for a change of topic if nothing else. Water levels were high and large waves left me soaked a couple of times early on, but the right gear meant I felt little of it. Winter really is upon us now. The resident Coyotes have become emboldened by the recent freeze and snowfall. The result of that is their presence very close to the house in pursuit of anything edible, sunflower seeds seem to hit the spot. They are beautiful creatures, always alert and able to scavenge a good living throughout the prairies in all conditions.
We also now have a Stellers Jay as a regular, I'm not sure if he's filling up as part of a migration or if he is local but only recently found us, either way he is a sight to see in the yard. There's a new squirrel now who is a daily visitor, it will come as no surprise to regular readers that he has a dodgy leg, it seems to be the way of it with our little furry friends. It must be a very hard existence out there. This week a huge flock of Bohemian Waxwings have been zooming in and around as they gather up feed for their migration, and finally a Pine Grosbeak arrived today and skated around on the frozen bird bath for a while. Our garden is a real joy to observe throughout the year, ever changing and ever engaging, it remains a fascination and source of wonder for us both. |
AuthorWe arrived in Calgary, Canada on 29th December 2011 to continue our journey. This blog is intended to keep our family and friends informed whilst we explore Canada.You can use the RSS feed below to stay updated. Categories
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January 2024
The Shaman, West Texas
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