annkelliott's photostream  

One of the photos I took in the ENMAX Conservatory at the Calgary Zoo, on 8th September 2011. I think I have the right identification.

Our amazingly mild weather continues and I've spent extra time outdoors on walks. This is so important to try and keep my joints mobile, but it's not helping me get urgent things seen to, ha! Despite the weather, though, I'm not ending up with more than a handful of half-decent photos, if that, each time I go out. I always seem to end up in places where the light is low. Thank goodness for archives!

A very distant Snowy Owl female (or juvenile?) turning its head around to watch us, seen January 13th, east of Calgary. Even though it is such a distant capture, it does show the kind of scenery. The image is fully zoomed, so the Rocky Mountains appear much closer than they really are.

I have so many old photos of lichens that I've never posted, so thought I'd upload this one today, taken on a botanizing day trip to Raymond Nadeau's beautiful land, west of Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump, way down south of Calgary. As usual, I don't know the names of these lichens, but loved the mix of bright orange, black and white. Taken on 11th June 2010.

Photographed at the Calgary Zoo on 11th September 2011. The enormous flower of the Sacred Lotus is so beautiful.

"The lotus was of great significance to many ancient cultures, and in particular to the Eastern religions. From ancestral times, the lotus regularly appears as a symbol of purity, peace, transcendence, enlightenment, rebirth, beauty, and fertility. In India, the lotus flower is considered to be of divine origin and is viewed as sacred by both Hindus and Buddhists. Buddha was said to sleep on a lotus six months of the year, and Shambala (Buddhist heaven) is sometimes represented as a field of flowering sacred lotuses." Taken from the first link below.

www.holisticaroma.co.uk/shp/TheSacredLotus.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelumbo_nucifera

Horribly blurry, but thought I'd post it anyway, as not everyone gets the chance to witness a tiny Northern Saw-whet Owl coughing up an enormous pellet! Not sure if the owl's movement caused the blurriness - or maybe it was because I was so excited that this was happening, that I didn't keep the camera steady : ) Photographed at Carburn Park on January 26th.

Size: Length 17 to 21.9cm (6.7-8.6") Wingspan 45.9 to 56.3cm (18.1-22.2").
Weight 75-110g (2.6-3.9oz) - Females are slightly larger than males.

"A pellet, in ornithology, is the mass of undigested parts of a bird's food that some bird species occasionally regurgitate. The contents of a bird's pellet depend on its diet, but can include the exoskeletons of insects, indigestible plant matter, bones, fur, feathers, bills, claws, and teeth. In falconry, the pellet is called a casting.

The passing of pellets allows a bird to remove indigestible material from its proventriculus, or glandular stomach. In birds of prey, the regurgitation of pellets serves the bird's health in another way, by "scouring" parts of the digestive tract, including the gullet. Pellets are formed within six to ten hours of a meal in the bird's gizzard (muscular stomach)."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellet_(ornithology)