Round Bale in Spring Color

Round Bale in a Field

Spring on the prairies in the Calgary region is a world of monotones. Monotonous browns and yellows that is. The fields are dull and boring and as a photographer it can be very discouraging at times. By this time of the season every year I am absolutely dying for a little splash of color in my world! While new signs of spring are appearing every day (there are lots of Canada Geese and Mallard Ducks in the fields, so the spring migration must be almost here), the bright colors of fresh new spring growth are still a long way off…

Fortunately there are still many interesting subjects to capture and I still find the agricultural objects littering the fields to be fun to shoot. There always seems to be lots of texture in the farms and the fields and there are many images within the images. And there are still lots of bales out in the fields that never got piled in the spring, and on partially cloudy days they practically glow while sitting in the fields.

Red-tailed Hawk Perched on a Bale

Red-tailed Hawk perched on a Bale

I haven’t seen very many hawks lately (mostly my fault for not getting out to look) and so I was happy to find several shortly after I started looking.

It was an extremely windy day and I actually saw several of these beautiful birds perched on bales in the same area as this one. Because of the wind none of them were in any hurry to fly away. Rather they seemed to be very happy to stay perched in a comfortable location.

This one was no different and although it didn’t ignore me, it certainly showed no interest in leaving either.

When even the bales are cold…

When even the bales are cold...

We’ve had some really nasty cold weather on the prairies this winter. You can tell it’s cold out when even the hay bales look cold!

Normally the Chinook winds we see in the Calgary area bring warm air with them as they blow in from the West Coast. But this year it seems like the winds have been cold and harsh. We’ve seen lots of snow and the temperature has regularly been below -20 °C. Now that’s cold!

At least I generally get to go inside when I want to. Not like these poor bales…