Above: four stages of snowy owl stink-eye, two gut-heavy prairie dogs and one Kerry, practicing her birch-bark biting on the Hunt Lake hiking trail.
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The weekend previous was salvation. Fall here is sometimes mercilessly brief, and following a most miserable Thanksgiving weekend it looked bleak for lovers of the season. But Big Weather tossed us in Manitoba a life preserver last weekend and we made good use of it, squeezing in a day of hiking on our favourite trail in the Whiteshell and a trip to the zoo to fulfill my need to see the owls at least once a year.
The Whiteshell was in fine form, even if almost all the leaves had fallen. The park was quiet, virtually empty of critters (the sole highlight was a scavenging red fox that circled our weenie-fire in the evening). And Owl Row did not disappoint either, though one snowy was so perplexing we ran out of time to see almost anything else, barring some extraordinarily obese prairie dogs. But this owl, hopefully she is OK; despite making comical expressions and interesting photos, her stretch-and-yawn act every 15-20 seconds made me believe something is not alright with this poor thing.
Closer looks at a few of these shots can currently be had, o'er on Flickr.
7 comments:
Hey! Where are all the "O RLY" captions??
For real, hey? I'm cultivating my own private stash of O RLY snaps. I imagine the yawning one to be shouting GUD GREEF.
I've been following your blog for a while now - found it through the magazine spreads on Flickr, but I thought I'd finally comment to say that I really love your photography!
I love the 3rd owl on the top! He's TOTALLY laughing at you ;) I love owls! They are on my top 10 list of favorite animals.
YA RLY!!!!!
ok, i'll bite, "no pun intended!"
what is birch bark biting?!
"Birch-bark biting is the art of dentally perforating designs on intricately folded sheets of paper-thin bark. Bark biting was a casual art among Aboriginal women, a means of experimenting with designs that might later be translated into porcupine quill or bead appliqué on bark containers or hide clothing. It was a form of recreation or friendly competition."
damn, that's pretty cool.
for some reason this song popped into my head after i read that:
"My grandma and your grandma sitting by the fire...my grandma told your grandma gonna set your flag on fire..."
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