White-tailed Deer: Hunting Season (Is it safe to come out???)

I don't know when hunting season opens — nor do I want to know, as I'm far from convinced that shooting animals with anything other than cameras is a good thing — but this White-tailed Deer seems deeply, and probably justifiably, concerned!

This doe was photographed with two fawns in Cypress Hills Inter-provincial Park (Alberta and Saskatchewan), as she and her young — one tan, one grey — wandered through a deserted and closed-for-the-season campground.

A White-tailed Deer, a doe, hiding
(less than successfully( behind a tree...  © SB

What is this? A White-tailed Deer — a doe, mother of two fawns. 

Location: Near the edge of the West Block, Cypress Hills Inter-Provincial Park (Alberta and Saskatchewan) .
Photo date: October 10, 2013.

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Red Crossbills in Cypress Hills: Male, female and juvenile

Red Crossbill at Cypress Hills   © SB  

The first Red Crossbills I saw were far down the road north of Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park (Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada), caught by the camera while I took photographs of Cedar Waxwings.

That pair of birds — a brick-red male, and the more subdued yellow female — picked through the hot gravel, perhaps searching for grit or salt in the stones.

Later that day, I saw another pair, this time a reddish male and a mottled brown juvenile, high on bare branches in the park, near Elkwater Lake, Alberta.

All About Birds explains that Crossbills feed on conifer seeds, and their weird (crossed) bills help them open tightly closed cones (spruce, pine, Douglas fir, and hemlock).

The Encyclopaedia of Saskatchewan says Red Crossbills are one of 12 species of finches in Saskatchewan, and in Cypress Hills, they breed and feed in large stands of lodgepole pine.

Juvenile and adult Red Crossbills,
at Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park.  © SB

Road birds: Red Crossbill pair forages in gravel    © SB  

What are these birds? Red Crossbills 

Location: Eagle Butte Road, SW Alberta, and in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park (Alberta and Saskatchewan), Canada.  

Photo dates:  July 30, 2012.  

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Cedar Waxwing on Barbed Wire Fence

A Cedar Waxwing landed on the barbed wire fence and watched us, when we stopped at the side of the gravel road to watch ducks on a pond and several tiny distant Red Crossbills feeding in hot road stones. 

This Waxwing is missing the red wing tips some Cedar Waxwings sport. A juvenile? Or simply a bird with no red tips? 

Roadside Cedar Waxwing  © SB

What is this bird? Cedar Waxwing

Location: Eagle Butte Road, SW Alberta, just north of Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park (Alberta and Saskatchewan).

Photo dates:  July 30, 2012.  

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