Birds and Snowshoeing in DMF

On the 28th, it took until almost noon to pry my kid's butt out of bed, University students are like that. In the meanwhile, I sat in the dining room looking out the window at the birds at our suet feeder and awaiting their turn at the 25 lbs of bird seed put out by my neighbour. The typical guests showed up, chickadees and pine grosbeaks...





...but we also had woodpeckers, both Hairy (which I didn't get any shots of) and Downy.





After Chesley got up, we went out snowshoeing. It was a perfect day for it, -6° when we set out. We hadn't gotten 100 yards from the condo when we spied two coyotes. Pardon the 2nd shot, as the cold was making it tough for me to focus.




We saw lots of tracks, including elk, deer, coyote, bobcat, hare, squirrel, mice/vole, and my fave, lynx.



I like lynx tracks because you can see their toe pads, but they're surrounded by their huge foot fur, looking like a snowshoe.

We were bush bashing and ran across a hunter's blind in the middle of what is supposed to be a wildlife corridor.



That makes at least 3 blinds that I have found back in the woods.

We ended our exploration with a wander along the rough path that leads along the Bow River.




It was indeed a nice way to spend a day with my daughter.