Told friends that this week I was going to look for some colour.

Green would be the easiest but red, maybe blue, they should be findable, too. Much as I love the browns and whites of winter, I was getting a little tired of seeing the same shades over and over again. So with that in mind, I headed west.

And immediately got distracted.

I’d headed directly west up the Bow River valley thinking with the alternating warmth and cold we’ve had this year, the ice piled along the banks might have some colour to it. But as I rolled up the valley I remembered a nice, pretty patch of red willows that required just a simple right turn. So I headed there first.

And then I saw the elk.

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They were a fair ways off on a patch of pasture behind a herd of cattle but all that fresh white snow made them easy to see. There was well over a hundred of them, some lazing around, others pawing at the snow to get at the grass. Cattle wandered around in the pasture closer to me, pretty much oblivious to the presence of the elk.

And the elk were ignoring the cattle as well. Plenty of room and food for all of them.

From the elk I crossed the snowy Wildcat Hills over to Beaupre Creek Road. The willows I was thinking of were up by the head of the valley so I turned north toward them.

Lots of snow up that way, all fresh and crispy white. But since I was looking for colour, I passed most of it by and kept rolling toward the willows. They didn’t disappoint but they were also kinda bland. They were nice, shades of red and dark orange, but they just didn’t have much kick to them. The catkins, though, the fuzzy willow flowers, are really starting to get chubby.

But what was more interesting was the abundance of birds and all the noise they were making. I could hear chickadees and magpies, blue jays and ravens. Canada jays were everywhere, one of which posed for me on the top of a spruce. Could all that activity be a precursor to mating season? Yeah, definitely could.

So now I changed my mind a bit. I was still going to look for colour but between the elk and the birds, I’d keep my eyes open for other things as I rolled along.

The Bow River at Morley is always a good place to look for ice. The river meets the lake formed behind Ghost Dam here and as it slows down, ice floating from upstream gets piled up where the Bow begins to run under the ice on the reservoir. Around this time last year I’d found huge slabs of glacier-blue ice piled up around the banks and it was gorgeous.

There was plenty of ice piled up on the banks but the river itself was carrying pretty much none. And the ice on the banks was mostly shades of grey. The river was a nice blue but not really what I was looking for. The ice had potential, though, and with a bit of melting, it could be pretty. I’ll check again later.

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Up on the flats I found horses roaming around and stopped to shoot a pair with the mountains rising behind them. Nice, but more brown and white. Still, there might be blue ice at Seebe Dam. It sometimes piles up where the Kananaskis River joins the Bow so I kept on rolling that direction.

But just before Seebe, I took the turn into the Yamnuska parking lot. And my quest for colour ended.

I’d pulled in there with the idea I might take a few minutes to shoot a time-lapse video of the clouds flowing over the mountain peaks. The wind had picked up and the clouds were sailing so I thought it might look cool. With the camera clamped to my driver-side window, I parked and let the clouds roll by.

Siskins started to show up as I sat there. A little flock of them had been in the parking area when I’d pulled in but they had all flown off. Now, though, they were coming back, chittering away as they picked at grit and whatever else they could find in the snow.

Trying not to disturb the clamped camera, I aimed the long lens on my second camera as the siskins poked around. Such pretty, tiny birds. I could hear their little voices as I shot. But I heard other voices, too.

Chickadees and ravens, of course, Canada jays and even a magpie. But, just faintly over the sound of the wind in the trees, a kind of trill. Could have been a flicker but no, it was different.

Could that be a robin?

And looking around through my long lens, I saw a colour I definitely hadn’t expected to see. I was the bright, brick-red breast of, yes, a robin.

And not just one. Looking around there were at least 10 more, all of them foraging in the snow for whatever they could find. Some were grabbing juniper berries, others picked at the snow with the siskins. I saw one perch on a log and pry off a bit of bark. It came up with a grub of some sort.

But as I drove slowly around the parking lot trying to get close to the robins — save that time-lapse for another day — I heard another familiar voice. It was the soft purr of a Bohemian waxwing.

They were after the same things as the robins and I did see a quick territorial dispute as they crossed paths. But the waxwings outnumbered the robins and they kept sweeping across the lot and perching in the trees around it as the robins and siskins grabbed what they could.

Suddenly, the parking lot seemed alive with birds. I heard the screech of a blue jay and saw Canada jays fly by overhead. A raven dropped by and sat on a branch for a couple of seconds. Three very small birds flew in and landed right beside the truck. These were juncos, in shades of brown and black with pink beaks. One of them tried to stare me down but the camera won.

OK, my colour quest was done. Now I wanted more birds. So I left the parking lot and headed toward where I thought I might find some more.

Which was another parking lot.

This one was by Gap Lake, just the other side of Exshaw. It is surrounded by willows, pines and poplars and because it is out of the wind that often blows there, birds nestle in among the trees looking for shelter. Might be robins, maybe waxwings. Chickadees for sure.

But, strangely for a Tuesday afternoon, it was actually fairly busy with people. Birds tend to ignore vehicles, which was how I got close enough to them back at Yamnuska, but they shy from people walking around. So, no visible birds among the trees.

But over by the boat launch, there were swans.

Trumpeter swans live here year-round, taking advantage of the open water on the nearby Bow River, so I’m pretty sure that unlike the migrating trumpeters I’d seen a week ago, these were local birds. Not that that matters. They were magnificent anyway.

There was a dozen of them, adults and last year’s babies, and they were on the patch of open water where bubbling springs keep this part of Gap Lake ice-free. There was already another vehicle parked by the ramp with the folks inside watching the big birds as they preened and fed so I drove by them and turned around to get myself parked where I could see them, too.

The swans moved off a little ways as I did that but they soon settled back into their comfort zones and we watched as they went about their business.

Ten minutes later, another vehicle showed up and stopped but this time, the occupants got out and started walking toward the shore. They had binoculars so they could have easily watched the swans from their vehicle but they, for some reason, decided that being 50 steps closer would make a difference.

The swans didn’t like that one bit. As the people approached the shore the swans swam over to the edge of the ice and a couple of the adults started honking and bobbing their heads, a sure sign they were uncomfortable. I decided that maybe if I took off they might feel less stressed so I fired up the truck and drove away. But as I stopped at the turn onto the highway I looked back and the swans were in flight.

Time to head back to town but first up the road to see if there were any bighorn sheep — there were — and then back through Exshaw and over toward Seebe Dam again. No ice there to shoot so no more blue. There was a coyote hunting in the meadow by the Bow Valley Park entrance so that was nice. And such a handsome one, too.

No birds, though, and no colour so I headed for one more spot I wanted to check.

I found whitetails keeping out of the wind along the way, the young ones staring at me from between the trees while the adults took off, tails in the air. And then, over along Sibbald Creek, bright red willows again. Nice but it was the trees above them that caught my eye.

Wind gusts were pushing the clouds overhead and sending snow flying from the pines and spruce on the hillsides. Tendrils of it blew across the road and swirled around the trunks. All of it was lovely but after the birds and elk and coyote and sheep, it was just… fine.

And it did nothing to sate my hunger for colour.

But colour’s time is coming soon. There’s still going to be white and brown for a while but it is the middle of March, after all. Spring and the glory it brings are not far away.

And the brick-red breasts of those robins is just the first of the colour to come.

© Calgary Herald