B is for Alberta’s mammal the mighty Bighorn sheep surefooted agile hopping cliffs climbing rock face so steep
The magnificent and powerful curved horns on this animal give it its name the bighorn The male sheep are called rams and they have larger horns than the females which are called ewes The rams use their horns to battle other rams during the fall rutting mating season Imagine rams weighing 114 kilograms ramming heads at 32 kilometres kilometres an hour Fortunately they have two layers of bones around the brain which are padded with a spongy mass The bighorn sheep’s main predator is the cougar but young sheep called kids have actually been carried away by golden eagles Some other common mammals in Alberta are the moose which are the largest white-tailed and mule deer caribou black and grizzly bears mountain goats coyotes and elk
Chinook winds come from the Pacific Ocean They blow along the eastern slopes of the Rockies funneling through the mountain valleys in southern and central Alberta A beautiful cloud formation formation in the shape of an arch appears above the foothills telling of the coming Chinook In the midst of winter temperatures temperatures a blanket of snow can disappear within hours as gusty warm winds blow An extraordinary rise in temperature up to 30 degrees Celsius can actually occur within an hour causing lakes or rivers to melt and break up in just a day Chinook is a native word meaning snow eater Chinooks occur throughout the year but are most noticeable in the winter Many of our winter days are affected by Chinook winds
