Tail slapping at Wild Rose
A couple of weeks ago I spent the morning at the Wild Rose ponds in West Bragg. I watched this beaver swimming on the far side of the pond for several minutes before turning away to watch the sunrise. I realized she had kept coming my way when I heard the first tail slap on the water. She was about 15 metres away and had set a course parallel to me and the shoreline. I took this photograph of her as she raised her tail for another slap. She wasn’t too happy with my presence so I moved along after one more slap.
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Autumn animals… before the season is too long gone
In between the absurdly early snowstorm in September and the first winter cold snap that started last week, we had a great autumn here in the Foothills between Calgary and Banff. I spent a fair bit of time on the prairies and enjoyed some good encounters with their wild residents. The Great Horned Owl above was from a stand of trees west of High River during a great day where I had two separate encounters (one and two) with these beautiful owls. The one below is closer to home being a few miles south of Cochrane.
A beaver in the lake at Wild Rose, west of Bragg Creek, let me watch him swim on an overcast day where the ripples were soft and provided some nice opportunities. On another visit a pair of muskrat preened on the lake’s shoreline before returning to the water.
White-tailed deer are regularly seen in the fields as they stock up for winter. It was cool to see the young stag in the second image that was stag traversing the blackened earth in a much less recovered section of the Sawback prescribed burn that was done in 1993.
Another White-tail on the prairies stood on alert in a field south of Cochrane where I watched two stags rutting.
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Wildrose Beaver
The beavers that maintain the ponds in Wild Rose, west of Bragg Creek, are busy eating and storing saplings and branches they have harvested. This one was enjoying a meal while floating in the water on a crisp morning this weekend.
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Wild Rose Beaver
Canon 5DIII and 500mm lens + 1.4X extender: 1/160 second at f/8 on ISO 1600
The beavers that live beside the lake at Wild Rose are back to their busy ways now that the water is ice-free. The other night I watched one swimming along the shoreline and around its lodge. It was a beautiful evening with warm sunshine and clear skies.
Christopher Martin Photography 