Spring Trip 2010 – Day 19 – Sir Winston Churchill Provincial Park

Monday, May 10th we got up at Elk Island National Park, to gorgeous sunny skies…..

The weather was so nice we almost didn’t want to leave, but with the third week of our six week trip disappearing fast and having still not got to anywhere we’d planned to go…it was time to move on, so while Ernie took the camper to the dump station, I took one last walk along the lake shore…

A perfectly calm Astotin Lake…

There were still some Lesser Yellowlegs…

poking about along the shore…

the view along the shoreline….that sandy area is the beach, you can see the water level is well below what is considered ‘beach’

There was a pair of Gadwall Ducks just off shore, that is the male in the rear, female in front…

The beach….or more correctly, ‘beyond the beach’

a pair of Red neck Grebes….

and a final look back….before heading towards the north gate of the park…..and then we were on the road

Pointed directly north…

Just before we reached the town of Lamont, spotted this Red Fox beside the road….stopped for fuel in Lamont…

 

this just shows the general flat country in this area (and I see I forgot to click ‘save’ when I cropped it – so you get hydro wires and window stickers as well)….  We now continued directly north on secondary highway #831, to the town of Boyle, where we headed northeast on #663, headed to Lac la Biche…this was a new route for us, passing through pretty, mixed agriculture country. 

At Lac la Biche we stocked up again on some groceries and propane, and then headed to Sir Winston Churchill Provincial Park which is situated on an island in Lac la Biche (connected to the mainland via a causeway).  We had planned to visit this park on this trip…..but on our way home….

So here we are, set up in the campground.  I had been extremely impressed with this park when we were here before, but this time, not so much….probably because only the central section of the campground was open and the sites weren’t nearly as nice as those in the other sections….I think power had only been installed to these sites recently (certainly to ours) and they were very ‘raw and new’ feeling…also there were only two sites that actually had a view of the lake, and we had been beaten to them….ALSO we discovered that we were still ‘water less’…..I really don’t know how you justify charging full fees when you aren’t offering full service….there was electricity…but no water…and since there hadn’t been any at Elk Island National Park either, we were still on severe water rationing.

After getting set up we headed out for a walk….this is looking west along the park….the water being, of course, Lac la Biche

same spot but looking eastwards…the campground is situated in those trees….

this is looking sort of south west from a higher vantage point….

What we did spot here was a species of Ground Squirrel I’d never seen before…..

Grey head and tail and brown body ~ after researching them on the internet when we got home I think they must be ‘Franklin’ Ground Squirrels.  Certainly I hadn’t seen them when we were here before….

but finding them this time made the stop worthwhile….

It was a pretty slow day in the birding department….

In our previous visit the area around this boardwalk had been alive with birds…but I guess it was just a bit too early this time…

I did find some Black capped Chickadees…

and caught sight of a Lincoln Sparrow in the leaf rubble….

back at the camper, I was doing dishes after supper and looked out to find this Ground Squirrel about to climb the stairs….

I know you aren’t supposed to feed the wildlife…blah, blah, blah, but when they are going to help themselves you have to at least give them a crust of bread!

after doing the dishes I went for a walk in the unopened part of the campground….spotted this Snow Shoe Hare…

obviously used to people, he very obligingly posed for pictures….

if you look closely at his nose….he has a number of ticks on it…I’ve noticed this with Snow shoe Hare other places as well….ticks seem to like them…we’ll be talking more about ticks in days to come!

also, out and about that evening was this obviously nursing female Red Squirrel….she was up in this tree picking and eating the catkins….

Down at the beach, the sun was low in the sky….

as I headed back towards the campground….I spotted several Savannah Sparrows picking bugs out of the vegetation along the shoreline…

There is a bit closer look at one of the Savannah Sparrows…

This Hairy Woodpecker flew down into the bush along the shoreline….

and we’ll take one last look at the beach before heading home for the night.

Bird List: Yellow Rump Warbler – 8; Double Crested Cormorant – 30; Common Merganser – 2; Osprey – 2; Mallard – 4; Blue Wing Teal – 2; Red Neck Grebe – 2; American Crow – 4; Black Cap Chickadee – 3; Magpie – 1; Lincoln Sparrow – 1; White Throated Sparrow – 1; Robin – 3; Ring bill Gull – 6; Scaup – 4; Song Sparrow – 3;  Swainson’s Thrush – 7; Ruffed Grouse – 1; Red breasted Nuthatch – 1; Junco (slate) – 1; American White Pelican – 1; Northern Flicker – 2; Hairy Woodpecker – 2; Downy Woodpecker – 1; Bonaparte Gull – 3; Savannah Sparrow – 14.

Spring Trip 2010 – Day 18 – Elk Island National Park

Well in real time I’m back from our weekend trip to Tunkwa and since I have a lot of pictures to edit and organize before I can post them….I’ll continue on with the spring trip.

May 9th, which happened to be Mother’s Day, we woke up to sunshine and decided, once breakfast was over, to pack up and go exploring a bit more of the park.  Elk Island National Park is approximately 10 km wide and 20 km. long, so there is lots to explore. 

We started out by driving back towards the south entrance, to the Buffalo Paddock….

and, surprise!  there were actually Buffalo there.  The Buffalo are free to wander the entire park so you can often come to the paddock and not see a single buffalo.

These guys are actually Wood Bison….the Plains Bison roam in another section of the park that is on the south side of the main highway.

Next destination was Tawayik Lake to see if there were any waterfowl or shorebirds…

Unfortunately the water level in this lake has dropped dramatically.  When you pull into the parking lot there is a viewing platform with spotting scope but the lake is now so far away from this area that even the scope is useless.  We were shocked at how much more the lake had dropped in just the two years since we had been here.  There is actually an 18 km.  trail that circles this lake, we walked for 3 km before we came to any where near water…..

We could make out a few birds way, way in the distance…

I suspect, from the way they flew, a flock of Dunlin….

but this area, which 2 years ago was alive with birds, including nesting American Avocet….was now high and dry.  You can see that the blue sky is changing….large dark clouds moving in, but we made it the 3 km back to the parking lot without getting wet.

That is some Buffalo or Bison fur hanging off a tree truck along the trail….

Part way along the trail, dark clouds over head and Shantz sitting in the sunshine….one of those crazy mixed up days in the weather department!

Heading back now, in the direction of the campground, we stopped at the trail head for the Hayburger Trail and made some lunch.  After lunch, we thought we’d wander along that trail for a while…

But we didn’t get very far because this guy was standing right in the path…….

at this point….Shantz could smell something, but hadn’t actually spotted it….but we decided we really didn’t need to walk that trail after all ~  there are all kinds of signs warning you that Buffalo are not tame and not to get too close….

So next we decided to take a road that said it went to the ‘west gate’ of the park….we didn’t know there was a ‘west gate’

This road traveled along the south end of Astotin Lake and seemed to end at some administration offices.  Perhaps there had been a West Gate at some time in the past…..certainly the road was not in any shape for much regular traffic….

There were Buffalo along that road as well…..including this guy up on a hillside.  By now we figured we might as well just head back to the boat launch parking lot and set up for another night…..

When we got there, this guy and these Canada Geese were wandering around on the grass at the edge of the parking lot….and the showers had also materialized….

Despite the showers, I decided to go for a bit of a ‘wander’, so tucked the little Olympus Camera under my jacket and off I went….

up the hill to the viewing area….

along the foot path….I just had to take a picture of these colors….even though it looks more like a fall or winter picture than spring….

and then I discovered there had been a shorebird ‘fall out’ because there were shorebirds all along the lake shore…

in the distance….this guy…

a Willet …

this is a species I don’t get to see very often….so you get to see a few pictures….

There had been a few of these Lesser Yellowlegs the day before, but a lot more had arrived during the day….notice the drops in the water….at this point we were having a hailstorm!

and then, there with another Yellowlegs….this little guy right at the edge of the water ~ a Least Sandpiper.

a bit further along…a Semi-palmated Plover.

and another Least…

Look close in this picture….there is a pair of Green-wing Teal ducks, a couple of Yellowlegs and a Willet…

a bit closer picture with the female Green wing Teal, the Willet and a Yellowlegs on the far left…

this picture just gives a bit of an idea of how busy it was, all along the shore….

a couple of Willet here…

and one more…

 After supper, when the sun had come back out….Ernie came running back to let me know that there was ‘something’ different …..a Marbled Godwit!

difficult to take pictures when you are taking them into the setting sun….Godwits are big shorebirds and another species I don’t get to see very often….

it seemed, with the evening, the clouds that had brought the showers and hail, were moving off so I took a final walk over to the floating boardwalk…

There were quite a few Canvasback Ducks over there…

And apparently the Grebe nest was now complete and being utilized…

No sunset this night….it just sort of got dark.

Bird List: Robin –3; Yellow bellied Sapsucker – 1; Red Necked Grebe – 6; Common Loon – 1; Common Goldeneye – 3; Ring bill Gull – 6; Crow – 3; Canada Goose – 5; Mallard – 10; Willet – 3; Merlin – 1; Green Wing Teal – 2; Semi palmated Plover – 2; Lesser Yellowlegs – 12; Least Sandpiper – 2; Marbled Godwit – 1; Gadwall – 4; Canvasback – 6; Snipe – 2; Red wing Blackbird – 6; Yellow Rump Warbler – 4; Northern Flicker – 1; American White Pelican – 1.