In a misty field…
A humid afternoon slipped away into dusk with peels of fog rolling over the long grass inviting the darkness of night in earlier. This whitetail walked past Desirée and I a few minutes before I took this photograph. When the visibility dropped away, she raised her head to sniff the air. She wasn’t on edge, her tail stayed down, it seemed just a focus on one sense with another being curtailed. Her profile created a beautiful shape and the moment felt calm and intimate.
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A fawn through the trees
We had a pair of mule deer fawns hanging around our backyard for most of the summer. From wobbly little babies to bouncing youngsters, they entertained us as they learned how to be deer. This was a rare moment where one stood still.
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Happy Father’s Day!
I’m enjoying day with my kids. I hope all the fathers who love, support and try their best to understand theirs are enjoying the same today.
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In a sea of prairie green
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A morning at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary
A couple of weeks ago, I walked with a friend down to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. Canada geese were massed along the Bow River in and around the cold water. Flights of these birds came in and out all morning.
I dragged the shutter and panned with the birds as they flew past to create blur and lend motion to the images.
A very enjoyable couple of hours went by and then my friend had to leave. I elected to stay and walked down the iced over path that parallels the Bow along the eastern edge of the bird sanctuary.
A young stag trotted along the rocky beach right in front of me at one point. He stopped for a few seconds out of mild curiosity before skipping around the corner and quickly going out of sight.
An immature bald eagle alighted in a tree across the water a few hundred meters away. It was watching the geese that congregated near the water intently. After half an hour it launched into the air, crossed the river and flew directly overhead. I love eagles so this was a highlight of the morning for me despite the somewhat harsh lighting.
The day was close to noon by then and I headed towards the ponds. A couple of magpies were making a terrific racket which drew my attention. Looking in the dense stand of trees I spied a great horned owl calmly perched a couple of meters off the ground. She stayed mostly oblivious to the angry birds and they soon moved on. I returned to check on the owl a couple of times in the afternoon but she was napping for the most part so I didn’t photograph much. It was unseasonably warm so I enjoyed spending time with the owl with no expectation for more.
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Stags in the hazy morning sunshine
There were two mule deer bucks nibbling on roadside grass that I came across last weekend. They were between the two Kananaskis Lakes and they ran up the hillside to the forest edge when another car passed by. This brought them into the morning sunshine which illuminated them wonderfully.
One of the stags paused at the top of the hill before disappearing behind the trees. The other walked along the ridge above the road for a few minutes.
He was enjoying the buffalo berries which are ripe throughout the valleys in Kananaskis now. I always think of these berries as being food for the bears but this fellow reminded me that they are a delicious snack for many of the animals in the Rockies.
The smoke from the wildfires in British Columbia and Alberta continues to roll across the west. That morning the resulting haze was quite heavy which warmed and softened the sunlight. Beautiful light to work with – a very small and personal silver lining to a massive issue impacting millions of people. This photo of peaks in the Kananaskis valley gives some indication of the atmosphere on that morning.
The stag kept an eye on me but with little traffic and me staying in my car had little provocation to join his partner in the woods. I left him still grazing and continued my travels around K-Country.
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A White-tailed doe and her little fawn
I found this beautiful doe and her fawn in Kananaskis Country – they were kind enough to stay for a minute and let me take a family portrait in the forest.
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A spring in the step
White-tailed deer are a bit flighty so when I came across this doe munching on some flowers (another dandelion hunter as it turns out), it was no surprise that the tail came up and she took a few quick steps away. She quickly returned to grazing so I wasn’t too much of a threat – or the flowers were too good to walk away from.
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Happy New Year’s Eve Deer
This White-tailed stag was found during a short drive into Bragg Creek on Christmas day this year.
We are slowly warming up to New Year’s Eve and looking forward to the fireworks that our local community of Redwood Meadows puts on. Always a great show – and they go early so the children get to enjoy them too!
I hope everyone has enjoyed, or is enjoying the last day of 2016. It has been a winding year for our family, as it often goes, but still filled with a lot of laughs and the continued wonders of rearing my two children.
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Early rutting in the mist
I found this pair of White-tailed deer on a misty morning a couple of weeks ago. The stag on the right jabbed the other a couple of times. It took a bit of prodding, but they eventually jousted for a few short skirmishes before going back to grazing in the dew-soaked field. The rut will come in a few weeks, it seemed these two were getting in a little practice.
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A spring snowstorm in Bragg
The snow fell heavily last night after an initial hailstorm started things off. This morning there was two inches (~5 cm) of snow on the ground. I went out for a short drive into West Bragg. I missed the Great gray owl that a couple of photographer friends watched this morning. This mother White-tailed deer and her two fawns along the edge of the snowy forest made up for that though.
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A visitor on the deck
Bobbi and the kids watched a Lynx walk around our house and into the woods behind yesterday. I wasn’t home so that wasn’t a show meant for me but we do have less elusive wildlife that comes around. Particularly in the winter, some of the mule deer who live in the community clip clop onto the deck looking for seeds underneath the bird feeder. This doe was bold enough to visit during the daytime. She was rewarded with a pretty good snack being the first visitor in a couple of days.
Christopher Martin Photography 