This morning, I wanted to finish off the last few photos taken on a drive south to Turner Valley and Frank Lake. Too many Pine Siskin photos, you say? Ha, I know, but I don't get that many chances to photograph birds, especially fairly close, and there were more Pine Siskins than anything else.

Four days ago, on 16 August 2018, I was invited to go with a friend to visit a mutual friend down in Turner Valley and see the birds that come to her beautiful back garden. Only small, this area has been so thoughtfully and beautifully laid out, encouraging all sorts of birds and other wildlife to visit. She is so fortunate that a wildlife corridor is just beyond her deck and garden. Totally unexpectedly, Jackie made us a delicious cheese bun sandwich for lunch that included tomatoes she has grown herself on her deck, along with cold, refreshing lemonade. Thank you so much, Jackie, for your kindness, as always!

"Flocks of tiny Pine Siskins may monopolize your thistle feeder one winter and be absent the next. This nomadic finch ranges widely and erratically across the continent each winter in response to seed crops. Better suited to clinging to branch tips than to hopping along the ground, these brown-streaked acrobats flash yellow wing markings as they flutter while feeding or as they explode into flight. Flocks are gregarious, and you may hear their insistent wheezy twitters before you see them." From AllAboutBirds.

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pine_Siskin/overview

Pam, I really appreciate your invite to go with you, and thanks so much for driving a few new back roads and a stop at Frank Lake. I don't know where all the birds were, but there were so few at the Lake and most of those were far, far out. It was a real treat, though, to start off our morning with a beautiful Swainson's Hawk that was perched on a metal fence railing, and to end our day with several (was it three?) American White Pelicans in flight and then landing on a pond in the city. We were lucky that one of them was still on the water by the time we had parked and walked to the pond.

Despite the thick blanket of smoke everywhere and the dreadful air quality, the faint landscape that surrounded us was eerily beautiful. It will feel almost strange to see our beautiful foothills and mountains once again, when the wildfire smoke finally comes to an end.