A wintry landscape in West Bragg
The cold which the east has been laboring under reached us this weekend. Yesterday I was out photographing and this scene illustrated the frigid turn winter has now taken once more.
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An old bull’s stare down
I found this Highland bull on a fold west of the Springbank airport. He was scratching an itch along the broken planks in the corral when I stopped. He raised the horns, huffed and stared at me from under his dishevelled mop. Seemed like he was the master of his domain and he wasn’t particularly interested in my intrusion into it. A good character to photograph and then part ways with.
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A frosty cow
The hoar frost a few days ago was met by ice fog in the morning. I was along a gravel road when I first saw a soft outline in a field. A little further along I found several cows around a swampy pond. The cow above was close to the fence line and I was able to make a nice portrait with ice clinging to the hide.
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A prairie dawn
A cluster of grain silos sits on the horizon under the brightening dawn sky on the prairies east of High River, Alberta, Canada. I love big skies and I think the scale provided by these farm buildings helps convey that here.
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Morning in Shangri-La’s countryside
The smoke from early fires, mist from the warming earth and sunlight filtering through the clouds created an interesting atmosphere around this small village in the countryside a few miles north of Shangri-La. I ended up spending a couple of days in the rural areas outside of the city and enjoyed seeing this side of life and its juxtaposition with the urban pace in the city.
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First owl flights in May
Owls don’t care about what day it is, but, on some level I guess I do. I went out this morning when the sun was shining and the day was quickly warming up. I was happy that the first day of May picked up where April left off as I was able to continue spending time with owls. This owl was hunting around a farm field and a horse meadow in Bragg Creek.
This Great gray owl was landing on some strategically placed posts in the middle of the field and successfully grabbed a couple of mice over a short span. I haven’t watched owls hunt on this field before but I will be back as it appears to be a very productive spot for this owl.
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An owl and a weathered tractor
I have loved photographing one old, weathered tractor for years. It sits in a field that is home to horses now and I think it has been enjoying its retirement there for many years before I ever found it.
For the first time, I met the gentleman who owns this tractor, the horses and the land this past weekend. We had a pleasant conversation while we enjoyed watching this Great gray owl hunting along his fence line. Peter was very familiar with this owl and it was great to learn some new things about it.
Shortly after he left, the owl flew off the fence line and into a stand of trees near the tractor. I set up for a dive I hoped would come but was very happy when the next flight was not into the grass but over to the steering wheel on this much admired, at least to me, tractor.
From this perch, the owl’s glowing eyes scanned the surrounding grass.
After a few minutes it hunched down, signalling that it may fly. It paused for a couple of seconds and then launched.
This bird is an excellent hunter so it was no surprise that the strike was successful. As they like to do, after the pounce the owl looked around to check his surroundings as they are vulnerable when down on the ground. It stared at me to check that I hadn’t made any moves or movements that signalled a change in my intent.
It swallowed the mouse on the ground and then flew back to the same perch on the tractor.
It idled on the wheel for a couple of minutes, preoccupied for a moment with something it noticed in the sky above, before heading into the trees. These were the trees where I had gone into when I was photographing him on the tractor so I had a front row seat to the forest hunt and three different perches before he flew uphill and out of sight.
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Irricana Dawn
I returned to Irricana recently to look for Snowy owls. I left early and arrived well before night had given much ground to day. Having criss-crossed the backroads west of the town, I have a decent feel for the farmland in the area and took the opportunity to photograph a couple of locations while the clouds were glowing pink ahead of the sunrise.
A lost wallet and a flat tire, both noticed about an hour after the last of these photographs was taken, made me feel like I earned these images a bit more than usual. The wallet had fallen out of my pocket unnoticed when I was at the farmstead above. A fair bit of time spent retracing my stops before finding it undisturbed in the middle of the gravel road. When I picked up the wallet, I noticed the flat rear tire. Along the way to Irricana, I apparently drove over a hardware store as Phil’s Auto in Irricana (very friendly people – thank you for the coffee!) later showed me the 3 inch long screw that had lodged into the tire. The wallet was recovered before I found the first owl and by the time of my appointment at 3 pm, I was happy to have had several good encounters with 5 different Snowies. I will share those soon. These prairie landscape images from a beautiful morning heralded what became one of the more interesting days I have had out on the prairies.
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A bull at sunrise
Canon 5DIII and 24mm lens: 1/25th of a second on f/11 and ISO 800
The early morning sky was beautiful this morning. I stopped for a while to watch the clouds move from the pinks and purples to the reds and oranges and then into the yellow and golds. This bull was not impressed by any of that – he was calling from his solo field to the cows in the field across the road. He stared at me at one point and that worked for me.
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Morning mists in Bragg Creek
There is a small hill that overlooks a farm and its fields in West Bragg Creek which is a favourite place of mine to photograph from. Throughout the year, the landscape is always beautiful, presenting an ever-changing face as the seasons cycle through. Late summer brings mist which stretches over the tall grass around dawn. These are a few of the photographs I’ve taken over the last week or so.
(Please click on any image if you would like to view a higher resolution version)
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On one side of the fence
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#83 – a cow in a field
Canon 5DIII camera with a Canon 500mm lens: 1/000 of a second at f/4 on ISO 800
The evening light was soft and warm last night. I loved the colour in the coats of this small herd in Springbank. #83 was particularly interested and turned out to be particularly photogenic.
Christopher Martin Photography 