I went out early, despite the dull sky and unpromising outlook. Five minutes beyond "city limits" (go ahead, laugh), there was a Golden Eagle atop a power pole.

I stopped. It flew. Sometimes they fly toward me but usually they don't, and so I shot two frames of its butt end receding, and figured I had missed it. But... no.

It circled over the nearby field, and only then did I spot the second eagle. And they rose up together in what was probably a courtship display, although it looks like a confrontation. I've witnessed this before. I've seen them lock talons in mid-air, just like Bald Eagles do on the west coast.

I think the female is the larger bird on the right. She wasn't having any of it, maybe because they were too low to lock talons and do their aerial dance, or maybe she had a headache. At any rate, her response was a definitive "No!" But they flew away in tandem, so I believe there is hope; after all, it is eagle mating season.

A great start to the day, for me if not for the male eagle. Later there were pronghorn, bison, prairie dogs, other eagles, and two species of hawk, but nothing as exciting as this. There will be more from this sequence when I find time to get to the processing - but I'm kinda jammed up this week with some maintenance work on my house and pulling together photos for a magazine article scheduled for the summer, deadline mid-April. When spring arrives following a long winter, everything happens at once...

Re. the square formatting, it is my least favourite crop for wildlife shots, but the only one that worked for this shot.

Photographed near Val Marie, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2025 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

Tags:   Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos wildlife bird raptor eagles two male female courtship spring white sky morning mating season wild prairie action square Val Marie Saskatchewan Canada copyrighted James R. Page 2025

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When I first saw them, the cow was standing alone on a flat grassy bench above the river, while the calf was down at the water's edge, probably drinking. When I stopped my car, she scrambled up the embankment to join mom. The Frenchman River is a winding, snaky, muddy stream that cuts through the valley bottom and provides unexpected habitat for this species.

Those twiggy shrubs surrounding them were killed by a wildfire that swept over those hills and down through the valley in April 2013. The grasses regenerated almost instantly - within three weeks the prairie was greener than I've ever seen it - but a lot of nesting habitat was lost when the thickets burned. It will take decades for those to regrow. A few wet summers would help. We are in a dry cycle, though, and no one can predict with certainty what these grasslands will look like 50 or 100 years from now. Maybe quite different.

Photographed in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2021 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

Tags:   Moose Alces alces wildlife animal mammal ungulate female cow young calf two wild prairie Frenchman River Valley Grasslands National Park Saskatchewan Canada copyrighted James R. Page

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The mama fox hung back toward the far end of this stack of hay bales, but two of the four kits were playing in front, and showed occasional interest in the clicking sounds coming from my car. There's no secret or trick here. I just parked on the dusty road and watched them play and investigate their world. I'm still not sure precisely where the den is located; I would guess it's in the gaps between bales.

Photographed near Val Marie, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2020 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

Tags:   Red Fox Vulpes vulpes wildlife animal mammal predator canid kits young two siblings 2 hay bales ranch den site spring curiousity cute wild prairie Val Marie Saskatchewan Canada copyrighted James R. Page

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