Heat and dry weather has made perfect conditions for forest fires in our area of the Boreal forest.
At first you could mostly smell it and there was a bit of a haze in the sky which was a good thing to cut down the intensity of the sun.
It made for some beautiful effects as the sun was getting low in the sky. The orange haze caused by the smoke seemed to set the sun among the trees ablaze.
Fiery Sun Among the Pine Trees
Fireweed, which got it's name from being an opportunist plant, propagating itself on the bare grounds left from fire. It's seed disperses with the wind and seed had been scattered in the young poplar forest by our place. They are such a beautiful flower.
Fireweed in Bloom Through Out the Young Poplar Grove
Close Up of the Beautiful Fireweed Blossom
Another bright flower was the brown eyed susan which seemed to be a fairly hardy plant blooming in these dry conditions. Accompanying it was a sow thistle with their yellow blooms.
Delightful Brown-eyed Susan Flowers With a Sow Thistle Bloom
The cows seemed content relaxing in the field along with their calves, the one below was chewing her cud.
Cow and Her Calf Relaxing Among the Wildflowers in the Field
Up above a pair of geese flew on by on their way to the pond.
Pair of Canada Geese in Flight
At the pond down the road from our place I found the family of geese out grazing in the grass. There was a raven that was hunting for it's meal too.
Male Goose Watching Over Family of Older Goslings Grazing in the Grass
The goslings had really grown and had their mature feathers making it harder to distinguish them from the adults. They were just not quite as big and some of the feathers were a little lighter in color.
It was good to see such a large number of the goslings had made it to this stage. I counted a dozen goslings.
Family of Canada Geese With 12 Rather Mature Goslings
On the pond a family of bufflehead ducks were out swimming and diving in the water for their food. Where as the goslings seemed rather mature, the ducklings seemed fairly young for this time of year. They sure are cute at this stage!
Female Bufflehead Duck With Her 6 Ducklings Swimming
Close Up Bufflehead Duck with Her Cute Ducklings
As I was looking over the pond I saw what I thought was a pair of ducks but by watching their behavior I realized it was a mother and her mature chick. Grebes are not ducks but belong to the Podicipedidae family in the order of foot-propelled diving birds, that's why I said chick not duckling. It was a momma grebe with, what I found out later, grebette (name given to grebe babies). The mature breeding grebes have such bright red eyes.
Close Up Grebe and Her Grebette Swimming
Momma Grebe Feeding Youngster
The next days the smoke became thicker and was quite visible along the tree lines and in the sky making an interesting display.
Smoke Haze Makes for an Interesting Sky
Bird images are for the #FeatheredFriends community hosted by
This is my Amazing Nature Contest July 2021 - #01 entry. See details here
Big shout out to 
The photos were taken with my Canon PowerShot SX60 HS.
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