Tuesday 21 February 2012

Wild Horses and Rough Leggeds

I went out with Dan and Lauren today to show them some wild horses. We met @ 8:00 a.m. and gassed up his Jeep.  We were on Snowy watch on the drive up to Olds, but no luck with the white owls.  Into the woods, we got started with 3 Roughies, one posing on a post.  Lauren spotted our first group of 8 or nine horses, then came a group of 10, both herds that I hadn’t seen before. The latter group had a beautiful dapple grey and a pair of white horses, which I find unusual.
Dan stayed behind after the herd with the white horses left and managed to pick up a shot of a Northern Shrike, a bird I am currently on the look out for. 
After picking the first pussy willows of the year, Lauren wanted them for her mother I think, we managed to call in a male Pileated woodpecker.  Down the road to the next set of horses, a group of three. One of my favourite roads produced nothing of note, we came back out and snuck in on the last three horses we had seen to about 40 yards.

We managed to find one more group of 5 very dark horses, but they wouldn’t let us get anywhere close to them.  With the horse part of the mission completed we focused on finding owls. We were unsuccessful with the owl hunt, but we kept finding Roughies and one bald eagle. 
Here is one Roughie tht did not want to leave its perch:
We shall find the owls another day, I am certain!  Another long post, but when you spend all day in the truck you are going to find lots of great things to photo:)  I want to thank Lauren for being a terrific trooper, she was relegated to the backseat for the day, and didn't complain once!

Turbo

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