There was a helicopter coming by.

I could hear the whomp-whomp of its blades as it approached, no doubt on its way to do some heavy lifting somewhere south of me. It’s not something I would normally notice. Helicopter work is pretty common in southern Alberta.

But the ruffed grouse I had my lens aimed at definitely noticed.

I was in a little patch of forest in the Chaffin Creek valley not too far south of Chain Lakes. The wind was blowing overhead but down here among the trees it was calm, calm enough I could hear the soft clucks of the grouse as it poked along the forest floor.

It was calm, too, when I’d left the city six hours before. And even though the sunrise was still more than an hour away, the sky was already bright. A solar storm had reached us the day before and for the two previous evenings the sky had been a riot of greens and reds as the aurora borealis put on a show.

I’d stayed out shooting pictures of it until the wee hours of Monday morning but when it erupted again Monday night, I decided to stay in so I could get up early Tuesday morning. Naturally, the light show was even better — or so I was told — but now, leaving town in the dark, I could still see remnants of it.

Stopping on a ridge in the Cross Conservancy, I could see the arc of green and purple in the sky above the city’s glow and it was bright enough to silhouette a stand of scraggly aspens a little further on. On the Millarville side of the hills, the colours were still visible even with the warm glow of the rising sun. Truly amazing skies this year!

As the sun approached the horizon I could see more things beginning to glow. First were the taillights of vehicles crossing the ford on Threepoint Creek. The ankle-deep water caught their shine as folks crossed on their way to work. Following shortly, still with the sun not yet emerged, were the leaves.

This was the reason I’d come this way, this was why I’d wanted to get up early. I knew without even seeing them that the leaves would be spectacular. And now, in the near-dawn glow, I could see they actually were.

A field lay swathed and ready for the combine just north of Diamond Valley, and the windrows aimed right at a hillside covered with golden aspens. Some still held hints of green but nearly all of them had turned yellow and amber, the leaves making the bone-white trunks seem even brighter than they were.

And then, just the other side of town, more aspens, these ones fronted by a green field that a little group of mule deer were munching on. Traffic whizzed and rumbled past and the dawn breeze was beginning to pick up but if you could ignore the sounds, it was as lovely and tranquil as you could ever want.

The rising sun was already lighting the mountain peaks off to the west but it took a few minutes more to clear the........

© Calgary Herald