The sun continues to shine as it has since our return from England and temperatures continue to climb. The heavy snow is finally starting to shift and the sound of water trickling, splashing and roaring along melt channels is now commonplace.
I decided to take a short afternoon hike in the Elbow Valley today because I've not been for some time and I wanted to check out the conditions. As it turns out the area is going to need another week of sunshine to make significant in roads into the snow cover. That said, it was lovely to be out and have the beaver ponds area all to myself. I thought I might see a little dipper and a squirrel or two given the conditions, the squirrels didn't let me down but the dipper that frequents the area was nowhere to be seen. Fortunately a huge flock of Bohemian Waxwings were scattered throughout the area and after chasing them around for a while I managed to make a few shots. To fill the gallery I added two images from the garden this week, two different Northern Flickers that keep battling each other for the rights to the feeder. All in all spring continues to push forward and we are enjoying the sunshine, always with one eye on the long range forecast.
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Common Redpolls are a beautiful winter finch, they are incredibly restless little birds and flutter to and fro acrobatically almost non stop. I find it remarkable that they spend their winters here in Canada, they nest further north in the arctic so I guess we are somewhat 'south' for them. For such a tiny bird it's strange that they don't come south for heat, they come for food when the arctic has few seeds (or snow covers what few there are)
Their love of seeds means our feeder stuffed with sunflower seeds will always draw that huge fluttering flock. They arrive en masse and scurry around the ground, in the shrubs and on the feeders for a while and then disappear again all at once as if called away. I thought I'd shoot a few images of them today as some were sitting here and there for a moment and the low winter sun was lighting them perfectly. I also shot a little chickadee with a sunflower seed and Titch enjoying a pecan or two even though his nose was so cold it didn't melt the snow upon it. I also saw a bald eagle and a stunning golden eagle over the river today so I can pretend spring is coming even if it is -23 outside. The current arctic blast sweeping across north america sees our high temperature today at -27c so I decided to try shooting the beautiful ice crystal formations created in freezing soap bubbles. If it's cold enough it's actually a fairly simple thing to do, though there are some frustrations along the way.
For a start, it's bloody freezing. The result of that is everything you are working with freezes and you have to stop and defrost everything before starting again. I confess I think this might be better done with a friend to assist but I made a good number of nice shots today all alone on the deck at home. I made my own formula for the bubble mix using 3 parts water to one part washing up liquid (dish soap) and a tablespoon of glycerin for extra elasticity. I have to say the results are pretty sweet. Little Blackfoot has been hanging around the garden for quite a few months now but has proven elusive whenever the camera came out. Fortunately the cold days of winter have forced him to take more time over his feeding so I can capture him on camera at last.
He has watched one of our other squirrels (peg leg) come in through the house window and get peanuts, so now if we sit quietly little blackfoot will sneak in cautiously and grab a peanut before 'escaping' at speed. He is quite timid compared to the others and titch has already bitten a lump off the end of his tail in an effort to drive him out, and it has made him even more cautious. Blackfoot is the second tail tweaking victim of Titch who recently bit a kink into another squirrels tail (echo). Titch has 'little squirrel syndrome'. Anyway, here's to another year of entertainment from our squirrel army and the rest of the garden critters. We wish you all a happy and prosperous new year. Last week Cecil and I drove out to Spray Lakes Reservoir on highway 742 just a few miles south of Canmore. Along the way we stopped at Whitemans Pond to shoot some of the ice that caught our eye as we drove past.
At Spray Lakes we struggled initially as the surface was well covered with snow but we continued south looking for opportunity and somewhere adjacent to west wind pass we saw a few clear patches where the wind had swept the snow from the icy surface. We were surprised to find the snow almost knee deep as we made our way down to the lakeside but once out on the ice there was much less volume to worry about. As we walked toward a large ice dome we saw thousands of methane bubbles trapped in the ice. For the second time in a few days I found myself laid flat out on the ice shooting this wonderful phenomenon, this time with clearer skies. After returning to the truck we had a moment of 'consideration' when the truck slid down the embankment into deep snow as we started away from the roadside. I had parked with the passenger side off the highway in the snow and as soon as we tried to set off we slid away. I confess I've driven my tundra out of some dodgy places in my time but thought we were stuck here. I grabbed the shovel and ice tracks out of the back and cleared a bit of snow away before booting it hard in reverse up the steep snow covered bank. To my surprise it bounced out of the snow and back onto the highway without issue and we were back in business in no time. All in all another exciting adventure in kananaskis. It's christmas eve now in Canada and christmas day at home in England, so seasons greetings to everyone. Sarah and I wish you all a wonderful holiday. We hope to get out between now and new year so we'll save those wishes for later. The main image below shows the cold north face of 'the windtower' on the east side of highway 742. All of the methane bubbles shots in the gallery were taken on Spray Lakes Reservoir and the first few images have captions for clarity. It's hard to believe that the winter closure programme will begin on saturday this week. That means that christmas is almost here and I've done no shopping at all.
The road closure program shuts off the southern end of the elbow valley, so that bears and other critters can enjoy an undisturbed hibernation. The closure works together with the closure of a section of highway 40 south and the entirety of the powderface trail, together it seals off a huge area of forest wilderness. Though it is quite restrictive in terms of limiting access to some great hiking locations, I think it's a good thing. Not only do the animals remain undisturbed but we get to experience the opening in may, when all of a sudden there are thousands more hectares of wilderness to explore again. There are only a few shots today, the main image is a bend in the elbow river where the spring spate deposits the casualties of winter. Behind the melee of forced timber from left to right stand Banded Peak, Mt Cornwall and Mt Glasgow. In the middle set way back on the horizon is Romulus and Remus two very distinctive mountains, and to the right is the eastern end of Nihahi Ridge towering above the forest (click the image for a larger view) The gallery has captions including for the highlight of the day, several of the wild horses that live in the area. We've had a couple of really nice warm days this week so Cecil and I went out to kananaskis to make our usual 'round' in search of images. We started out at 'The Widowmaker' then on to Barrier Lake before moving south on highway 40 down to kananaskis lakes.
Our first call there was to the dam at the north east corner of the lower lake, which was well shaded and still frozen solid. The main image today is from there, you can see the dam cutting a straight line across the middle of the frame above the shadow fingers. We had hoped to visit the upper lake before shooting another sunset from the south east of the lower lake (our usual spot). But thick cloud moved in just 45 minutes before sunset and ended that plan. The upper lake was incredibly windy with huge waves and spray killing any chance of shoreline shots there today, so the day was cut a little short toward the end. We did have a great day nonetheless and left happy with our haul of shots. The gallery below has captions as usual, to guide you along the way. When making the final shot in the gallery of my previous post, I commented to Cecil that I thought Mt Nestor might make a good sunset location. After waiting a week for conditions to be right, I tired of waiting and decided that tonight was the night to give it a go.
All of the sunset predictors pointed to a 'moderate' event with low colour and almost no high cloud to help provide bounce light, but I was keen to test the theory. I left home late in the day and made the 90 minute drive with ease in the traffic free conditions, arriving in good time to get set up. I didn't shoot anything at all except for Mt Nestor today, I had a cursory look around along the way, but didn't see anything that grabbed my attention enough to warrant stopping and making an image. The perfect vantage point for the mountain is the kananaskis helipad car park, which was surprisingly cold this evening. I set my tripod in the back of the truck to give me a better view over the forest but kept some trees in the frame to provide a foreground. I'm not sure how I feel about the output from the evening, the light along the ridgeline in the image below did help in producing something interesting but there's a lot of dull light below it. Before this shot, the light was very yellow and didn't carry any colour until it drew close to the summit, which is a real shame because it's a beautiful mountain. I think I'll give it another go one evening when the sunset forecast is better, until then here is the best of tonight, a sunset tentacle reaching along the south western ridge of Mt Nestor with Goat Mountain illuminated directly behind. The gallery shows the transition from daylight, through sunset and into to the blue hour beyond (which today was more pink than blue) With the weather holding out Cecil and I decided to make the most of it and set out on another photo tour today, this time taking highway 742 (Smith Dorrien Trail). We began at the north end of the highway overlooking Canmore where we were soon stopping to shoot some of the fringe ice on Whitemans Pond.
We actually found quite a few shots at the small hydro power pond before continuing on to Spray Lakes where my main shot today comes from. I love the abstract nature of this shot which captures the spindrift blowing across the thin lake ice. From Spray Lakes we continued south stopping to shoot Mt Nestor at three different locations along the way. It's such a wonderful pointed lump that you can easily shoot it a number of times without tiring of it. The gallery below has captions to guide you along the way. With a new moon due on wednesday, dark skies were guaranteed over kananaskis lakes on tuesday night. I checked my resources and found predictions for almost cloud free, low humidity air so decided to make the trip out there in the hope of making a sunset and then hanging around for a milky way shot.
There's no galactic centre visible in the northern hemisphere at this time of year, but on a moonless night with dry clear air you can still make a nice shot of the northern arm of this beautiful array of stars. Having this vast wilderness to myself is common on a winter weeknight and tonight was no different. I had the full winter gear on for the first time this year, and a flask of tea for the stargazing later. I had the whole of the lower lake to myself for sunset shots. When I first arrived the lake was incredibly calm and I quickly set up and made a nice multi shot panorama of the Opal and Elk mountain ranges reflected in the mirror like surface. I followed this with a number of sunset shots from various locations along the shore. Once sunset was over I packed away the gear and made my way to the upper lake, again I had the whole area to myself. I had taken along some sparklers to mess around with during the blue hour and my 24mm f1.4 lens to grab as much starlight as I could. Kananaskis Lakes is an official 'dark sky' site so on a moonless night it is an incredible spectacle to be a part of, but that lack of light makes it challenging to shoot with any foreground. Fortunately the mountains now have a dusting of snow to reflect what light is available and the 24mm f1.4 has no trouble finding it. It was another wonderful evening in the company of those enormous star filled skies. The bitter cold was kept at bay by my winter gear leaving me the simple pleasure of sitting on a rock stargazing, and drinking hot tea, for quite some time.. There are no captions today, the sunset shots are at the lower lake and the rest at the upper. You can click the main shot for a larger version as it squeezes approximately 20 km of mountain range into one shot. |
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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