Pinks and blues of the flowers so vibrant and the yellowing greens of the grass and leaves were practically glowing against the muted backdrop

Published Aug 14, 2026  •  Last updated 20 hours ago  •  6 minute read

Smoke, mist and rain southwest of Diamond Valley, Alberta, on August 11, 2026. Mike Drew/Postmedia

It was smoky, misty and rainy.

But the light was oh, so nice.

OK, could have done without the smoke but all that soft light bathing the warm late-summer colours of the foothills was pretty much perfect. It made the pinks and blues of the flowers so vibrant and the yellowing greens of the grass and leaves practically glow.

But I did feel a little bit bad for the bluebirds.

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They were everywhere, dozens of them in loose flocks among the willows and along pasture fencelines. Many of them were this year’s babies, adult-sized but with that youthful look that’s hard to describe. The adults, though, weren’t looking all that fresh.

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The females, with their less showy plumage, were as drab as ever but it was the males that were really showing the wear and tear of the summer. Back in late-March and April when they’d first shown up, they were bright blue, like pieces of the southern Alberta sky with wings. And they stayed that way through the mating season as the ladies made their nests and laid their eggs.

But that bright blue has faded considerably now. Months of chasing bugs to help feed their children and battling the tree swallows that always try to take over their nest boxes has taken a toll on them. Yes, they’re still blue but now their backs are mottled with bits of grey and their chests faded and bland.

Their neighbours, though, not so much.

I saw chipping sparrows that were as bright as ever and tiny wrens still in their summer browns. Savannah sparrows and their young were bouncing around on the ground looking for bugs while song sparrows still called out their tunes. It was only the bluebirds that were showing any wear.

Not that the rest of the foothills weren’t showing signs that summer is at its peak.

The beaver ponds on the top end of Pine Creek hosted lots of young coots. They paddled around snacking on water plants, their mostly grey feathers well on their way toward the blacks of the adults. These guys really go through changes in that first summer, hatching out as bizarre blobs of bright red and black before turning grey as they grow and finally gaining adult plumage on their way south.

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Cool birds.

There were baby ducks on the ponds, too, ring-necks and tiny, elusive teal. The geese were all gone, though, their babies pretty much adults now and off to explore new places with their parents. Same with the mallards and the other pond-nesters. I heard soras making their funny noises and found a single pie-billed grebe among the cattails.

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Up on the open, grassy flats there were elk grazing. They were all females, some with calves at their sides. They were a bit hard to see through the mist and smoke but they all looked fat and healthy.

And the aspen forest is still lush and green, no sign of any changing leaves yet. The lower, shadier parts, though, things were moving along down there.

To be fair, some of that could be from injuries, like the big buckskin leaves on a cow parsnip I found. Turns out they were on a partially broken stalk. The geraniums, though, they were definitely changing.

They always seem to be the first to add a bit of orange and red to their palette and I found several that had done just that. It starts from the leaf tips and works toward the centre, the anthocyanins showing through as the chlorophyll fades. Pretty to see but a bit early for my tastes.

The fireweed is still going, though. I found lots of it in various places with full flowers near the tops of their stalks. Sure, there were a couple of leaves looking like they were tipped with flame but they still have a long ways to go yet.

There were plenty of berries, too, most of them red.

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The bunchberries on the forest floor are still kind of yellow green but there were stalks of baneberry with bright, shiny scarlet fruit. Don’t mix them up, though. Bunchberries wouldn’t taste very good, at least not to us, but baneberries could mess you up badly. Terminally, in some cases. Don’t eat or even handle them.

Bumblebees — it was too chilly for mosquitos — bounced among the pretty pink thistle blossoms along the road and stopped by the bright yellow hawkweed as well. I found a patch of raspberries the birds hadn’t got to yet and they looked yummy. They were right next to a road that had been treated with dust suppressant, though, so I gave them a pass. Maybe that’s why the birds ignored them, too.

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I had just been wandering around, seeing what I could see, but I found myself near Diamond Valley, so I decided to check out my favourite little dead-end road.

This stretch, maybe 10 kilometres long, goes through aspen and poplar forest next to grassy pastures, bends through a shadowy stand of spruce carpeted with moss and horsetails before opening up again among grasslands bisected by willow-choked, boggy wetlands. As a result, you can see pretty much anything the foothills has to offer.

On a clear day, at least.

Today, the mist and smoke were particularly thick and the air smelled like a doused campfire. Soft rain drizzled down for a few minutes as I drove before turning into a downpour. All of that combined to make the mid-afternoon as dark as dusk and limited my photographic possibilities a bit.

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But at least the air was calm. Without a breeze to shake things I could still get most of the pictures I wanted and that soft light, scant though it was, make the colours sing. The blues of the tall larkspur, the pinkish tints of the asters, the yellowing greens of the cow parsnip leaves. And as I drove slowly along looking for these colours, I saw a spray of raindrops coming from behind an aspen trunk. Strange. So I stopped for a look.

The spray had come from a great grey owl shaking raindrops from its feathers and if I hadn’t passed at that exact time, I never would have known it was there.

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The camouflage on these birds is absolutely amazing and they are nearly impossible to spot unless they’re hunting along a fence line or perched on an open branch. This one, I think, was just trying to stay out of the rain, not hide from prey and it was a fluke that I’d seen it.

It had seen me right away, though. It turned its head and aimed its yellow eyes at me as soon as I stopped. But it didn’t stare for long. After a few seconds it turned back again so I pulled ahead to see if I could get a clearer look. Now it had its eyes and ears aimed at the grass. I’m very glad I’m not a mouse or a vole.

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This is a well-maintained road but with the rain coming down, it was starting to get slick. Maybe time to head back to more open country so I headed to a spot where the aspens begin to diminish and grassland takes over.

Grassland more brown that green, now, with all the ripening seed heads and the green beginning to fade. I found young kingbirds nearly fully grown waiting for their parents to bring them a bite and flocks of both siskins and chickadees flitting around. Lots of bluebirds, too, and robins gathered with their spot-chested young.

And on a fence wire, perched in front of a patch of bright yellow blossoms and wet from the rain, a young song sparrow. Gotta say, it looked kinda miserable.

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But chin up, little guy! Summer ain’t done yet. It might be winding down but fall is still a ways away. No need to mope.

So enjoy it while we still have it. I know I will.

Even on a smoky, misty, rainy day like this.

♦  ♦  ♦

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