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On 17 September 2017, after noticing snowflake icons in the weather forecast for Calgary for the next week, I decided I would do a drive east and north-east of Calgary. In 2016, I had done a similar drive with my daughter, but this time I did not go as far as Drumheller. Actually, I still drove quite a bit further than I had intended - 346 km, 215 miles. If I had had enough self-discipline, I would have left home much earlier, as it was 11:20 am when I finally got into my car.
My intention was to drive a few back roads, searching for old barns. Most of my drive was on highways, simply for the purpose of saving time, so it wasn't till I was more or less at the furthest point that I actually saw a barn.
I couldn't see a sign pointing to the old grain elevator that I wanted to revisit, so it took me a while to find the hilly, gravel road leading to it. By this time, unfortunately, there was a haze over the landscape and the light was far from good. Having driven so far, I was determined to take photos. As with any beautiful old elevator, barn or homestead, it will be a sad day when the old house in my photo finally collapses. It certainly does not look in good condition.
While I was standing taking photos of the old grain elevator, a farmer came down to the gravel road on his tractor and stopped to have a pleasant chat. I told this pleasant man that I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere, and he said that we WERE in the middle of nowhere, ha. I was planning to go back the same way I had come, but he told me that there was an old house (seen in this photo) the other way, that people photograph. That changed my mind, though I knew I would continue to feel in the middle of nowhere. Definitely worth it, as I also came across a site of old, abandoned miners' cabins before reaching the old house. When coal was no longer mined, the area was left and the railway lines were torn up at a later date.
One other abandoned house I passed was one that my daughter and I had found last year. It was built among the rolling hills, far, far away from any road, and is a very impressive sight. This year, they were doing road work repair by a bridge just a matter of feet away from the only possible place to pull over and stop. Thankfully, I was still able to stop and take photos.
Altogether, a good few hours out. Though I didn't see a lot, the things I did see were most welcome and appreciated. I was glad to get in another long drive before 'the white stuff' arrives and stays on the ground, keeping me close to home.
No further ahead with sorting out all my Windows 10 problems. I suspect I am going to have to accept the loss of so many years' worth of records and emails (from 2002) and hundreds of important map locations on Google Earth. Not happy, to say the least : (
27 November 2019 - it has been snowing AGAIN! It has been two months of "winter" for us here. How I long for days where there is no snow to be seen anywhere. A few months to wait for that to happen, though. We are still under a Snowfall Warning, with more of the white stuff to come. Temperature today is -13C (windchill -21C). Sunset is at 4:35 pm.
Four of the five photos I have posted today were all taken on a drive east and north-east of the city, on 22 November 2019, when my daughter and I had a great day out together. It felt so good to get away from my computer problems and spend the day with my daughter out in the countryside. Needless to say, we had hoped to find a Snowy Owl, which we did, though it was distant. My daughter is excellent at spotting things, so if there had been Snowies anywhere, I am confident she would have seen them. We were so glad to see this one, rather than none at all.
I must say the day was a great day for finding old barns, though! A favourite thing with both my daughter and myself. At one spot, I heard voices in the farmyard and I asked if we could take a photo of their old barn, from the road. The guy very kindly told us to drive right in and go and take any photos we wanted. Unfortunately, we were looking into the sun, but we still managed to do OK. Captured a couple of old sheds in the yard, too. Generous farm owners are always immensely appreciated!
An unexpected side trip, at my daughter's suggestion, was to visit again the old grain elevator and barn at Sharples. I think I have been there either two or three times before, but never when snow is on the ground. Visits have always ended up later in the day, when the sun is in the wrong place. One of these days .....
The photos taken on this drive resulted in my hard drive reaching the point at which it no longer would work properly. So, today, I had to do a bit more checking and deleting old images.
FINALLY, I was able to take my daughter out for the day on 17 June 2021, after a year and a half of keeping separate because of COVID-19. Only once during that time, have we met up for an afternoon of being out in the country. Both of us have done all we could to avoid the risk of catching COVID and, worst of all, passing it on to others. My daughter has been fully vaccinated for a few months (Health Care worker) and I had my second shot two months ago. My opinion is simply that if one really cares about people, one doesn't take risks.
Anyway, we had such an amazing day! Heading south of the city and eventually turning eastwards, we covered quite a large area, some of which I had driven before, but other places were new to both of us. Twelve hours of driving and 490 km were hot and tiring, made more challenging by the fairly strong wind. Two or three minutes before I arrived home after dropping my daughter back home, the orange Low Gas light came on, on the dashboard of my car. I hadn't expected the drive to consume almost the whole of a full tank of gas, but I am just so thankful that I didn't run out when we were in the middle of nowhere.
My daughter deserves credit for most of the bird finds! She has 'eagle eyes' and I appreciate that so much. One of the highlights for us was a pair of Long-billed Curlews that were mainly hidden in tall grass. They were wandering about, keeping an eye on a tiny, adventurous chick.
Another totally unexpected thing happened when we were looking at a cluster of small trees. My daughter had noticed that there were two deer walking around the base of the trees, so we pulled over. Everything suddenly 'exploded', and a pair of Great Horned Owls and one owlet burst out of the leaves and perched on different branches. We took a few quick shots and then left them, not wanting to cause them any extra stress. I can't remember what the birds were that were harassing the owls, too.
We had quite a few sightings of Hawks throughout the day. Some stayed, others flew. Both species of Kingbird were seen, Eastern and Western. A Mourning Dove standing on a picnic table was good to see, plus an American Robin, a Great Blue Heron, and various 'usual' species were seen along the back roads. Two Swainson's Hawks were nesting, with one nest having three little ones that we could see from a huge distance.
Another special sighting was a Shrike that was originally perched high up in a distant tree. My daughter pointed out the small bird, but didn't know what it was. When I zoomed in, I was happy to see that it was a Shrike, sometimes known as the Butcher bird. A bit later, when I pulled over to wait for my daughter, the Shrike suddenly flew down and was eating some prey that it had skewered on the barbed-wire fence. Such a treat to see for the first time, and I was able to take a bit of video.
"The Loggerhead Shrike is a songbird with a raptor’s habits. A denizen of grasslands and other open habitats throughout much of North America, this masked black, white, and gray predator hunts from utility poles, fence posts and other conspicuous perches, preying on insects, birds, lizards, and small mammals. Lacking a raptor’s talons, Loggerhead Shrikes skewer their kills on thorns or barbed wire or wedge them into tight places for easy eating. Their numbers have dropped sharply in the last half-century.
A Loggerhead Shrike can kill and carry an animal as massive as itself. It transports large prey in its feet and smaller victims in its beak." From AllAboutBirds.
The final treat of the day was when my daughter found a Common Nighthawk. We had checked a spot where I had seen them before, but we were out of luck. So happy to see one lone bird, after thinking that we were not going to see any.
A ghost town and various old barns that I had seen before, but wanted to show my daughter, added to a great day. Even yellow and pink Cacti flowers, that came as a surprise. So lucky to have such a great day.
The stream that travels beneath the lane near Truthan Barton.
Drain on the right is feeding run off from the fields that has used the lane to come down a rather long hill. There's always a healthy stream running down the hill there, and riding down it at speed owes more to white water rafting than cycling at times.
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The Thar Desert (Hindi: थार मरुधर) , also known as the Great Indian Desert, is a large, arid region in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. With an area of more than 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq. mi.), it is the world's 9th largest subtropical desert. It lies mostly in the Indian state of Rajasthan, and extends into the southern portion of Haryana and Punjab states and into northern Gujarat state. In Pakistan, the desert covers eastern Sindh province and the southeastern portion of Pakistan's Punjab province. The Cholistan Desert adjoins the Thar desert spreading into Pakistani Punjab province.
I nearly missed taking this photo as I had slightly tight agenda and was planing to go to Kashmir as well. However weather forecast was not good and the constant political instability made me change my plans and stay bit longer in Rajastan - which is not a bad solution. I therefore had more time to go for sunset to Thar desert to capture one of these iconic shots. Capturing this however was not as easy as I hoped for as the amount of people, camels, sellers etc was huge (and it is nearly end of the season!!) I managed however to capture man and a camel against the sun as I was hoping for.
Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II; Lens: EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM; Focal length: 127.00 mm; Aperture: 8.0, Exposure time: 1/400 s, ISO: 250
All rights reserved - Copyright © Lucie Debelkova - www.luciedebelkova.com
All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without expressed, written permission of the photographer.
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Scar House Reservoir seen in the last of the afternoon sunshine.
Back to where I started after a pleasant 8k walk
Thank you to everybody that views, comments and for favouring my images. Always greatly appreciated.
Thank you to everybody that views, comments and for favouring my images. Always greatly appreciated.
Dutch Light
Oh how I love living in Holland! That awesome light, those vast skies and the flat horizons. No wonder all the painters of the haagse school painting style came to the Netherlands for inspirationâ¦
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River Washburn on it's journey to Thruscross Reservoir.
Taken while walking round Thruscross Reservoir. North Yorkshire
Zoom in for better view
(all square colour remix) on the Landsborough Highway outside Morvan on the road to Augathella, Queensland, Australia.
There was a severe drought in outback Queensland up to about the end of 2010 (depending where you were). This pic was taken in late 2006 on a day it was cloudy again, but no rain. This area was particularly hard hit by the drought, as you can see hardly a blade of grass. Of course in the land of extremes, the drought was broken with severe, widespread flooding, culminating in the disastrous floods across about 90% of Queensland in December 2010-January 2011, which also flooded Brisbane.
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Lots of photographic opportunities now I'm living in the New Forest, couldn't resist the Highlands in the heather this Autumn