Here in Big Sky Country, you can often see storms building up over several hours as they move in. When I lived in Ontario, storms were usually part of giant weather front that would be hundreds of kilometres long, stretching down into central United States, and sky would often just get darker and darker until the storm was there. But here, close to the mountains, we don’t see those kinds of systems develop. Instead, it can be lots of big, individual clouds, and with fewer trees and open land, you can see them a long way off!

This storm I was able to watch for over an hour until I was in the right place and at the right time, just before the sun dipped behind the mountains. It had the classic anvil shape until just before I took the pictures when the strong updraft punched over the top.

Lately our area in Alberta has been experiencing almost nightly thunder storms.  We noticed this rainbow from the house and took the kids out for a look. When we had a better view outside we saw that it was actually a double rainbow. But, on further inspection we noticed that there was something even more special about this rainbow.

(click any image for a larger view)

We observed that the main bow seemed to have multiple levels of refraction where you could see the rainbow colours repeating over and over.

A supernumerary rainbow – also known as a stacker rainbow – is an infrequent phenomenon, consisting of several faint rainbows on the inner side of the primary rainbow, and very rarely also outside the secondary rainbow. Supernumerary rainbows are slightly detached and have pastel colour bands that do not fit the usual pattern. More info:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow#Supernumerary_rainbow

I decided to get in the car and see if I could get a better view of the whole rainbow as there are quite a few trees around the house, but once I got out in the fields, the storm was moving off the rainbow was fading. So the chase began!

Racing southeast following the storm I was able to catch up and get some more pictures of the rainbow before it completely faded.

A friend of mine told me about a curious sight he saw on his way to work and suggested that I go and check it out. With his directions I was able to find this silly goose, up a tree.

Having commandeered a hawk’s nest from last year, this little lady has made herself quite at home. And quite high.

I had seen geese nesting on top of a stack of hay bales, but I had never seen them nest in a tree before. Having thought I had found the one bird-brained bird that all the other geese must laugh at, I made my way home… only to discover another such nest just down the road. This time there were two up the tree, and very annoyed with me!

After some research I discovered that it isn’t that unusual for Canada Geese to nest high up. Apparently the goslings are light enough to drop down from a height without injury. Who knew?