Blizzard

This morning we woke up to a full on blizzard! It's hardly surprising considering Shane's having a barbecue this afternoon. I haven't seen snow this heavy since..... I was down at Fernie.
The snow flakes are big fat ones and they're coming down almost horizontal. The winds are up around 30km/hr apparently.
The odd thing about all this is that the weather bureau still says it's cloudy and zero. Vastly different to blizzard and I'm guessing around -5.
The snow has stopped now but there's now about 5cm of snow on the ground (and on the cars). Not bad considering the storm lasted for less than an hour.

Elbow Falls

The Easter weekend is no better in Calgary than the same weekend back home. Everyone in town heads away for the 4 days making the roads a hazard and the holiday spots over run. Needless to say, snowboarding didn't even enter the fray and I had to find something to do, particularly with Kerri working Saturday and Sunday.
So what did I do? Dropped Kerri off at work and headed south to try to find some animals to take photos of. I ended up at Elbow Falls to the south west of the city and just at the foothills of the Rockies. They're not the most spectacular falls I've seen here, but at least they were running (and not iced over) and there weren't too many people around.

 

 

 

I saw this ice structure & it reminded me of some stalactites I'd seen in a cave down near Margaret River.

The wildlife was very uncooperative at Elbow falls. The mammals were all hiding and the birds hadn't returned except for this dipper. It was warming up be winter still had the upper hand in the foothills.

The more time I spend out in the countryside around here, the more I see Mule Deer. They're everywhere! They make for good practice for taking photos of wildlife. These were the only mammals I saw and they were out on the farmland near the main road.
I've learned in the last couple of days that you can have a long lens as big as you want, but if the lighting conditions aren't that good, taking photos of animals that don't sit still isn't going to work no matter how much you mess around with the settings. I have learned a few tricks though, including opening the aperture of the shutter wide open to let in as much light as possible and upping the ISO setting to allow the photo cells to be more sensitive to light. All this makes for a quicker shutter speed and less chance of the animal moving and blurring the shot.

First it was the noisy geese and the ducks arriving back from their winter holidays down south, but now the other birds are returning. I'm told this one is a Northern Flickr and is one of the woodpecker family. It was making such a loud noise that it was asking to have its photo taken.

 

This is my first sighting of a Bald Eagle. It was riding the thermals up into the clear sky and was climbing in a real hurry.
It's funny that it's an American icon & there are more of them in Canada than the US by a very big margin. In fact, Canada has started to export captive birds to repopulate the US populations.
They're impressive animals but I'm yet to see one up close.

Highway 22 wildlife

After a day of Snowboarding at Fernie, we stayed overnight in a motel in Fernie then headed back to Calgary early the next day.

The 1st 100kms of the return trip (being at dawn) was a constant Mule Deer spotting competition. They were at least as common as Kangaroos back home on dawn and dusk. They're as much of a danger to traffic as roos as well. Fortunately there weren't any elk, unlike the previous morning when I nearly hit a mob of 30. Elk are at least twice as big and if you hit one, it's like hitting a domestic cow.

After 100kms of mule deer spotting, a change. A female moose! She had a yearling calf with her and they were very skittish. Unfortunately this photo's a bit out of focus, but the light was bad and the animals were on the move.

 

These photos are bit more in focus. Unfortunately the Swamp Donkeys (as they like to call moose around here) had gone for the cover

 

  

Not far along the road after the moose, Shane spotted this coyote in a field.
We pulled over and I put the long lens to good use. The next photo is a better example. The overcast sky didn't help things again, but at least the subject was a bit more helpful.

The farmers hate these little scavengers and like to shoot them. I reckon they're pretty cool myself. This one was very well fed probably due to an abundance of rabbits, mice and ground squirrels on the prairies.

Coyotes are always looking for an opportunist's meal. Even though this one was watching me and looking for an escape route, he was still head down searching for a snack.

Fernie

Shane and I decided to wag work for the day (work isn't either of our favourite places at the moment) and head 300kms south of Calgary to Fernie. Fernie's actually just inside B.C. and less than 100km from the Montana border.

Fernie gets incredible amounts of snow each year and is somewhat immune to crowds unlike Banff and Lake Louise. If you want to ski/board in soft stuff, Fernie's the place (within easy driving range).

For the last few snowboarding trips I've been getting a bit dejected with the crowds and conditions. I also tended to get bored pretty quickly. Not the case this time. The lack of crowds, huge amount of fresh snow and some really interesting terrain meant that I have the taste for it again!

It was so different to any other trip because the soft, smooth, untracked snow made it more like surfing than any other time. I won't say more than that because I won't be able to describe it, but those who've done it will understand. Suffice to say that having fresh powder burst onto your legs is a fantastic feeling.
I can't wait to go down there again!

Life returns to Cowtown

 

Calgary has had a fairly brutal, but short winter this year. Last year apparently had record snowfalls, but this year has been crap for the ski resorts. In contrast, the east coast has been belted by snow and it's still going.

 

We've had some nice weather the last month and the birds have started to come back, starting with the Canada Geese (unfortunately they're the most annoying noisy bloody things!).

 

 

After months of being frozen, the rivers have started to defrost and flow again. Big chunks of ice break off and float downstream. These sometimes get stuck along to way (above).

 

Close behind the Canada Geese were the ducks. The Yellow Eyed Ducks (above) are the smaller variety of the ones I've seen.

I don't think I've been anywhere in the world that doesn't have mallard ducks. The North Americans seem to have an obsession with shooting at them (along with everything else that moves including each other.)

The plants are waking up as well. There are little signs all over the place that winter's strangle hold is releasing.

The Chinook

 

Our Savior!
The weather phenomenon that makes Calgary so livable is called the Chinook.
It's not unique around the world, but when it's -30 around most of Alberta, the Chinook is certainly the most welcome. It gives us a reprieve from the icebox bringing the temperatures back up close to zero and even +10 at times.
Needless to say, while the rest of Canada is living in an icebox from anywhere from -20 to -40, Calgary are "Basking" in sunny skies & above freezing temperatures. The margin for getting the benefit of the effect is quite small. Typically there band of warm weather runs from about 5kms from the foothills of the Rockies, to about 80kms out. This usually means Calgary is right on the edge. The narrow band of warm air is accompanied by clear skies & the boundary is distinctly marked by a cloud front (above).