I moved out to the country last Fall. Not too far from the big city of 1.1 Million, Calgary, Alberta Canada.
But far enough away that nobody just stops by unannounced lol
I moved about an hour SW into the Canadian Rockies territory.
Living in a small town has had it's advantages. One of my favourites is that I am 10-15 minutes away from Kananaskis, A provincial park filled with animals from moose, big horn sheep, bears and even lynx just to name a few. Not to mention the reptile and fish life.
But my favourites have always been the birds of prey.
I spotted a few Firsts on my life list this year. Each and every encounter has been forever etched in my mind with these wonderful animals.
Started in about July when I spotted a family of Great Grey Owls, The tallest owl's in North America tho most of the size comes from it's heavy coat of feathers. These animals are actually very tolerable to human contact compared to all the others. I even got close enogh to them that I was within feet of petting the great big adult when it heard something and pounced right in front of me.
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There were 3 baby's and 2 different adults.
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I went back several times over the course of 2 weeks. Blown away by their sheer size, agility and most of all their deadly silence. One even allowed me to see him hunt and kill and even eat right in front of us,
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Here's a shot taken by my Bird Hunting buddy Logan Gibson where you cn see just how carefree they where when it came to us with our fancy cameras and ridiculously huge cameras
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The one time with my buddy Logan Gibson the Adult let me get so close to him it was unreal. I actually shot some video that day. Once he realized how close I actually was his head did a 360 and he gave me THE dirtiest look. For a second my heart skipped a beat then he just continued hunting...
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Here's a link to the video as well if anyone's interested
http://www.youtube.com …wi_w&index=9&feature=plcp
I will add more to this thread including the golden eagle, bald eagle and rough legged hawk all but the bald eagle were firsts for me and the only times I've spotted let alone photographed these awe-inspiring species STAY TUNED
