A few more weeks before we start hearing reports of bears coming out of their dens. It’s always the time of the year when we are both nervous and excited as we wonder how well our favourite bears fared through another harsh Rocky Mountain winter.
A few more weeks before we start hearing reports of bears coming out of their dens. It’s always the time of the year when we are both nervous and excited as we wonder how well our favourite bears fared through another harsh Rocky Mountain winter.
But despite scouring the foothills, we kept missing encounters by days and sometimes by minutes, hearing reports shortly after we left a location or finding fresh tracks while out hiking. Yet every near-miss provided a piece to the puzzle and quickly we felt we were zeroing in on a sighting.
There’s more to wildlife in Alberta than the Rocky Mountains and we’d like to show you a unique landscape in and around Calgary. Canada’s foothills are home to some of Canada’s most iconic and unique animals, such as the bobcat, otter, 9 owl species, coyotes, red fox, moose, elk and 3 weasel species.
From dawn to dusk, we’ll extensively cover the back roads of central Alberta in search of owls – and with time and interest, we’ll also be on the lookout for other species that call this region home. With our local knowledge, we’ll work to provide you with the best odds of having quality, respectful encounters with snowies, prioritizing the documentation of owls in the context of their ecosystem.
It was early December and our cameras were packed up for the season. The few weeks remaining in the month were booked with meetings and time with Simon’s family in Vancouver, and our last couple of days at home in Alberta were focused on hosting Jill’s family, in from Ontario. Going into the field to document wildlife was nowhere on our agenda.
After the wolverine, a fisher might rank as the second most elusive creature to find and photograph in the Canadian wild. So when we found one this past winter, we were caught off guard. Like literally caught off guard. We had just returned from a prolonged backcountry snowshoe
Easily the best encounter we had in 2017, as far as documenting cool behaviour goes, was the chance to observe a fox family move its den. The circumstances were a little troubling: The family had taken up residence in an abandoned building and the kits used the entire structure as their playground.
Cross foxes are a unique part-melanistic colour phase of the red fox that produces a silvery-black cross colouring of the normally red fur. The cross fox isn’t that rare – the further north you go, the more common it becomes and it’s certainly even more common that the relatively rare full-melanistic colour phase, commonly referred to as a silver fox.
Jill has long pined to see a caribou in the wild, but the dwindling numbers of the mountain caribou subspecies makes them, quite literally, the rarest animal to find in the Canadian Rockies. Yet in 2017, we found two males. Twice. In the spring, we felt extremely lucky to snap a few images of the seriously endangered ungulates and when we found (we believe) the same two males again in November, one still sporting its antlers, we’re were over the moon.
Like many of you, we’re sure that you’ve spotted many porcupines after dark. But in daylight? That’s a much tougher task. Up until 2017, we’ve continuously failed to document this nocturnal creature, but the year began with the chance to snag a couple of pour quality images of the animal sleeping in a tree. But when we visited Grasslands National Park in April, we couldn’t believe our luck to stumble upon (literally) a porcupine walking around the area near where we were camping. We only got one quick shot in the fading light, but to us, it’s a dream come true: A porcupine on the ground in (relative) light. Definitely a check on the bucket list.
Gift Certificate
$100.00 – $500.00
Hiding | Fine Art Print
$100.00 – $600.00
Cub of the Year | Fine Art Print
$100.00 – $600.00
Angel | Fine Art Print
$100.00 – $600.00
Great Horned Owl | Fine Art Print
$100.00 – $600.00
Dancing with Myself | Fine Art Print
$100.00 – $600.00
Baffin Island | Fine Art Print
$100.00 – $600.00
Tasty | Fine Art Print
$100.00 – $600.00
Paws Up | Fine Art Print
$100.00 – $600.00
Fall Elk | Fine Art Print
$100.00 – $600.00
