A Rainy Morning Walk to Work and a Beauty in the Woods on the way home

Even a rainy day in Banff is beautiful. I didn't mind getting rained on...as they say

"No bad weather only bad clothing".

In the grey and rain, I happened upon a wild yellow clematis whatever part of the plant it is after the petals have fallen - there is that whorl (of a seed head perhaps?) .

Then joy - a baby fawn with its parents in the grass along the path I take to walk home.

Everyone say " Ahhhhhh".

JOHNSON CANYON

First a drive through the forest Primeval, deep dark woods. An absolutely beautiful drive.

Then our destination - the waterfall at Johnson Canyon - then the journey - the opposite of life where the journey preedes the destination but ah well it is the order in which I loaded the pictures.

This is only the lower waterfall. We did not have time to get as far as the upper waterfall that evening. The pictures are not as clear as could be because it was coming on dusk.

Yes, I did walk the catwalk affixed to the canyon wall high above the gorge. I really did.

Banff is Green

You will be surprised there is not a single photo of a mountain.

After months of sere and arid Banff, we have had enough rain to turn the place luminous green.

These photos are from a walk in the Fenland loop, a 2km walk through forest along a few strands of Bow River tributaries. The blue t-shirt in the first photo is intrepid hiker (not) Charlie in the advance guard. There are so many tourists and residents walking the loop it is safe this time of year. But earlier there were bear sightings. Cougar and wolves have also on occasion been seen here. We saw an osprey with a fish in its talons the day we were walking through.

It is also home to great horned owls but we were not lucky enough to see them.

The Fenland Loop is about a ten minute walk from our house.

Vermillion Lakes Bird Watching

We saw more birds than are in these pictures - a kingfisher, the parents & the baby loon, female redwing blackbirds -which are beautiful in brown feathers with light edging and with yellow throats with vertical brown stripes - The Kingfisher and the Heron made me think I was on the East Coast.

The mountains in the light of dusk are pink, grey, blue all colours changing as the sun goes down. It is so beautiful at the Vermillion Lakes. You can rent canoes and go out to the lakes.

flora and fauna of banff

What

What do you call a group of ravens  at the garbage bins.....NOISY.

I hope this picture can give you a sense of the size of the ravens here if not of the noise they make. Some are as big as poodles.

The Columbian Ground Squirrels (not prairie dogs or gophers or groundhogs though they look similar) are everywhere on Tunnel Mountain. They live all over the Banff Centre.

The pansy are on our balcony.

Back to Vermillion Lakes to see the Loon Family

If you haven't read the previous blog about Vermillion Lakes you might want to read it before this. We went back to night to see the family of loons. My camera is not good at distance and these were the two photos that at least allow you to recognize the birds as loons. It is a thrill to see the little one swim behind its parents as they fish.

There were 5 or 6 ravens on a log and for about at least 30 minutes they made the most horrendous noise with their very raucous croaks and yells. They were very quite for the first half hour that we were there and they they started a yelling match about something.

Lots of UFBs - Unidentified Flying Birds. Could have been flycatchers, sparrows or warblers...just to fast, too small, and dusk made it hard to see them.