Thursday, June 14, 2012

Spring trip 2012 – Manning Park part 1

Long before the May long weekend, we made reservations at Coldspring Campground in Manning Provincial Park, but with the long cool spring and the snow pack, we didn’t know until just the night before whether we would actually be able to stay there.  We must say that Manning Park was excellent about sharing information with us and had actually telephoned the evening before to say that they had checked and our site was free of snow and we were ‘good to go’…So, it being 7 long months since our last trip we were out of here bright and early in the morning.

Finally - on our way

So eager were we that we arrived in the park at 10 in the morning – with the campground not opening until noon, we headed to Lightning Lakes…

Lightning Lakes

where the lakes were still frozen, although thawing out around the edges.

Courting Goldeneyes

There were several pairs of Barrow’s Goldeneyes going through their preliminary mating rituals.  The female of this particular pair was unique in that she had a white ring around each eye – it didn’t appear to be a disease or an injury.

Ground squirrel in the snow

The Columbian Ground Squirrels were out in force…

What you lookin' at?

Here is another one…

Gray Jay

Gray Jay’s of course – happy to see some people – I guess there had been a lull between the time when the place was full of cross country skiers and now…

Robins, robins everywhere

the bare areas were alive with American Robins, and surprisingly, Yellow-rump Warblers…running around on the ground with the robins..

Dark-eyed Junco in the snow

Dark-eyed Junco are to be expected…

American Pipit on the snow

What wasn’t expected was an American Pipit!!  Seemed to only be the one and it was sticking to the lake shore.  As noon approached we headed back to the campground….

Campsite and yes that is snow

and settled into our spot which turned out to be absolutely perfect – yes, that is a little bit of snow there in the corner.

The dog leg at Coldspring

but nothing like what was still down in the ‘dog leg’ (which of course wasn’t open) and the first corner in the campground where snow was still as deep as the picnic tables were high.  After settling in I went exploring….and you’ll see the results in Part 2

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