I'm posting this photo for the colour and the patterns in the water rather than for the female Mallard (which isn't as sharp as it should be). It's amazing how the swirls and colours aren't always seen when you are actually taking the photo, but reveal themselves once the image has been downloaded to the computer. Taken in SW Calgary on 1 May 2014. The only birds I could see were several Canada Geese, a pair of Red-necked Grebes, a Yellow-headed Blackbird, a Red-winged Blackbird, a few Mallards and a number of Coots. This was just a very quick visit, to relieve the stress of discovering that I could no longer access McAfee anti-virus on my computer and having to dash out and buy Norton, and get it installed before any viruses, etc. reached my computer. I had to reinstall a driver for my printer, too, which stopped working after I had installed Norton - apparently, a common problem. Then I had to finish doing my Taxes, lol!! Couldn't get an appointment locally, so have to do the walk-in on Monday (the deadline).

You could say we are back to winter yet again. There must be around 8" of snow on my fence this morning - and it's still snowing! I decided not to go on a birding day out, east of the city, today, as I wasn't sure what any of the roads would be like. I had half expected the trip to be cancelled. Not sure I can even go out very locally, as I don't think I'll be able to lift my arms high enough to clear all the snow off my car, with my painful arms and shoulder. It's quite the winter wonderland, though. We are now into the eighth month of snow!!!!