Alberta Trip!

Over the long weekend I visited my girlfriend in Edmonton and somehow managed to convince her to go birding for the 4 days I was there :)
In fact, she planned the whole trip out, all I had to do was show up and follow her around. Good times :p

Here's a quick briefing of our travels:
Day 1: Roam around Edmonton then drive to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains
Day 2: Explore Jasper National Park
Day 3: Explore Banff National Park and drive to the prairies
Day 4: Explore the prairies, return to Ontario!

Some stats:
Birds: 124 species, 23 lifers
Mammals: 6 bears (my first ones ever...), 2 Bighorn Sheep, 3 Mountain Goats, plenty of Deer, Hoary Marmot, Columbine Ground Squirrels, and Pikas (the cutest things ever)... and some more

Some preliminary pictures - actually, these are my 3 favourite pictures from the trip:

Horned Grebe - I entered this one into the Digiscoper of the Year Competition (more on that in a future post) - any comments on how I can improve it would be great (Q: do you like the tight crop, or should it be 'looser') :

Random macro shot that looked a lot better on my camera than it does here:

Ground-squirrel in habitat:

If you're eager, and want to see some more pictures, check out this album.

It was cold up there: