Spring Trip 2010 – Day 34 – Writing on Stone – part 1

When you spend the entire day, doing what you like doing best, wandering and taking pictures, that results in a  lot of pictures to go through….which is why it has taken me a few days to get back to this and why I’ve had to break it into parts….  So let’s get busy!

Tuesday, May 25th got up to cloudy, but dry skies…. 

 

Started the day with a walk out on the river bank behind the campsite….there is the visitor center up there on the hill…

walked along the shoreline….there was a Spotted Sandpiper in this area, but never managed a decent picture…

up on the rocks, we had some more of those ‘sentinel geese’ (remember the ones at Dinosaur Provincial Park?)

here is another pair, coming in for a landing on the river…  My perceptions of what constitutes ‘goose habitat’ certainly changed on this trip!

Back in the campground, that female Downy Woodpecker continued to work on all the trees in the vicinity ~ maybe there was more than one, but I never saw more than one at one time.

Chipping and Clay coloured sparrows were back and busy in all areas where dandelions had gone to seed…although this isn’t a very clear picture, I put it in just so you could get an idea of the quantity of them….at times it looked like the ground was hopping.

Black billed Magpie were around…..and as we set out for our big walk of the day, along the approx. 2 km trail that winds up and over and through the rock formations….

caught sight of one of those American Redstarts again….this one a male, and no more co-operative for picture taking then they’d been the evening before!

as we start out….look at what is up on that ledge….another Canada Goose!

here is a closer look…..

This view, taken from one of the high points on the trail….the Milk River down there and another ‘sentinel goose’.

there are several spots along the trail where you drop down right beside the Milk River.  A popular canoe trip is from the town of Milk River, approximately 40 km away, and then paddle back to the campground.  A group had actually set off from the campground that morning, to do just that.  It is a trip I’d love to do but requires being part of a group as someone has to bring the vehicle(s) back to the campground after launching the canoes (and babysit dogs)….being part of a group isn’t something we seem to be able to do!

back up in the rocks, here is a higher view of the Milk River…you can see the skies are breaking up and the sun is starting to shine….

and there, upon top of one of the rock formations…is another Canada Goose….this one on a nest!

There she is….and believe me the top of that rock, although lower than the surrounding ones, was still a long long way down to the ground….it would be something to see how the goslings get down to earth…being ‘light as a feather’ I guess they just sort of float!

here is one of the many interesting rock formations you encounter along this trail….this one a bit of a ‘bridge’

of course there are also wildflowers growing along the trail….this little yellow flower has the rather ungainly name of ‘Spatulate Bladderpod’ and is only found in this extreme southern section of the province (at least according to my ‘Plants of Alberta’ book.

and this, which looks sort of like a white for-get-me-not, is Macoun’s Cryptanthe.  Surely these plants have common names but my reference book doesn’t list them..

a bird I’d been watching for on this walk….was a Rock Wren….and here is a little guy singing his heart out.  These birds nest in holes in the sandstone formations….we watched a pair carrying nesting material.  When we had been here previously, it was about a month later and we had watched them carrying food into their nests…

back to the wildflowers….here is Hooker’s Townsendia….remember we saw this wildflower at Dinosaur Provincial Park as well, although this plant is much pinker than the ones I saw there.

here is one of the really high sections of the trail…..this is looking westwards….

and here we are, pretty much looking eastwards now, the campground is situated in the area that the river is about to bend around.

there is one of those Rock Wren with a mouthful of nesting material…

and before we take a break….wanted to throw in this picture of a Spotted Towhee.  There were a lot of Spotted Towhee, both in the campground itself and in a bushy area down close to the river.  I’ve seen them here before, but I’m always surprised to see them, as to me, they belong back home in our west coast forests ~ I guess that is because they winter with us, although many remain with us all year.

Spring Trip 2010 – Day 33 – Writing On Stone

With only about 100 km to go to get to Writing On Stone Provincial Park, and knowing that it was Monday of a long weekend and check out time in Alberta isn’t until 2:00 pm, we took our time getting on the road, however Grassy Lake wasn’t the most exciting place in the world so there wasn’t much sense hanging around there….so we headed back east on #3 until we reached #879 which would take us directly south…

On route we passed the ‘Spitz’ sunflower seed factory….took a picture to satisfy my husband!

 Next stop was the Duck’s Unlimited and Nature Watch site…

This large wetland project spans both sides of #887.  The above ‘sign’ and a viewing blind is located to the left of the picture…

From the ‘blind’ looking back at the highway….

I walked up the road away (it is a very quiet secondary highway), to get this over view, looking westward

and from the same point, looking to the east.  There were cattle there on the hillside.  You can see it was a pretty overcast day….but dry.

As for what we saw there ~ well lot’s of Yellow Headed Blackbirds…one of my favorite!

Eared Grebe….you can really see the red eye and the yellow feathers that create the ‘ear’….

One of the reasons I’d walked up the road to start with, was to try and get pictures of the masses of Cliff Swallows that kept swooping out from under the bridge….I never did get any other than this one pitiful shot!

But getting pictures of these two male ducks made up for it.  Both males, the top one is a Cinnamon Teal and the bottom one a Blue Wing Teal….both are rather shy, retiring species, not easy to photograph, but for some reason they were happily spending time in the open water just below where I was standing on the road…

Speaking of ducks, here are some Northern Pintails flying by….

and of course, where you have wetlands and open areas, you have raptors – this a Northern Harrier cruising the area….

One more male Yellow Headed Blackbird, before we continue on…..

there were lots of flooded fields along this stretch of road, these American Avocet were taking full advantage of one of the big puddles…..

So we arrived at Writing on Stone just after noon and verified our decision to have not attempted to come there the day before – what a zoo!  Writing on Stone is definitely one of my favorite places, but I’d never come on a long weekend or during the summer.  There isn’t a terribly large campground, maybe 50 or 60 places….there is a large ‘day use’ area that is obviously well ‘used’.

We managed to find a lovely big campsite on the perimeter and set up and then waited for the remaining hoards to depart…..

this is looking along the campground road, back towards the visitor’s center that is perched up there on the hill….with only a few stragglers left (those that ignore the 2 pm check out time), we decided to go for a walk up to the visitor center…

this walk goes up through the hoo doos…

One of the reason’s I’d wanted to come was to see what wildflowers were in bloom….we’d been here in late June (when the Cactus are in flower) and we’d been here in early September, this was just a bit earlier …..here is Smooth Blue Beardtongue (we saw this plant in bud back at the west block of Cypress Hills – here is was in full bloom)

We’ve seen these before too….those Yellow Prairie Violets…this one growing right beside a little barrel cactus…if that don’t say ‘hot and dry’ I don’t know what does!

We’re now up on top, looking down onto the campground.  That white spot is the top of our camper…the river is the ‘Milk River’ and those mountains are the Sweet Grass Hills in Montana.

There’s them ‘Sweet Grass Hills’ seen through what I have decided isn’t ‘Owl Clover’ after all…despite what a sign said…to me the leaf shape is all wrong….I think it must be ‘Golden Bean’ or ‘Buffalo Bean’ – if anyone knows for sure, please let me know!

another Yellow Prairie Violet….tenacious or what!  growing right in the sandstone.

and here is another toughie….Low Growing Larkspur…..as opposed to the ‘Tall’ growing that you find in more hospitable habitats.

back down in the campground, I headed over to the river….this low fence is to keep the Beavers from attacking the lovely big old Poplar trees that shade the campground…

and there is the Milk River….looking sort of north eastwards…

and just up and around the corner, we’re looking westwards now….we’ll go for a walk along those rocks tomorrow ~ weather permitting!

 

Back in the campsite, we were being visited constantly by Swainson’s Thrush!

If we thought we’d been lucky seeing them before ~ here they were practically running over our feet!

This female Downy Woodpecker kept flying onto this large Poplar, located in our campsite

and like other places we’d been, there were masses of Chipping Sparrows eating the dandelion seeds…

this male Yellow Warbler spent a lot of time flying between our campsite and the empty one across from us, in fact it actually spent a lot of time fighting with it’s reflection in our trucks mirrors….something I know robins and chickadees do….and apparently Yellow Warblers.

an evening walk, and I spotted what turned out to be a pair of House Wren at the entrance to another empty campsite…in fact, by evening there were only about a dozen sites that were occupied….and most of them by ‘birders’!

that same walk led me to find, first, a female American Redstart…

and then a male….these Warblers, often described as ‘Butterfly like’ are extremely difficult to photograph….these are the best pictures of them I’ve got!

and finally, the evening drew to a close.  Shantz settled down in ‘her’ chair…by 8 pm, it was raining.  As I already mentioned, this was our 3rd time here, and despite the fact that this is supposed to be one of the hottest and driest areas of the province….it’s rained every time!  The first time, there had been a heavy shower just prior to our arriving, creating puddles everywhere, the second time it poured the entire first day of our visit….and now this.  With time running short we’d only be able to spend one more day here….we’ll see the morning brings!

Spring Trip 2010 – Some ‘catch up’ Photos

Well folks, I’m back in business!  My desktop computer is once more working and all my pictures have been recovered…..seems I did save them to my external hard drive after all….just couldn’t figure out how to retrieve them…now thanks to Ben (son of a friend) I have it all back and all working fine.  Back to Windows XP – NO MORE VISTA! as that seemed to be the root of the problems

So…before I continue on with the story, I’m just going to go back and post a few pictures from the DSLR camera, that weren’t available when I did the actual postings….

This is one of the Least Flycatchers that were seen constantly (at least until it snowed), in the vicinity of the campsite in the Center block of Cypress Hills….

and here is one of the Swainson’s Thrush seen there ~ yes Bill, we saw Swainson’s Thrush everywhere!  there are more to come….

and there is one of, what I am sure, are Pink Sided Junco…….they were the only kind of Junco we saw there….

And there is Ernie and Shantz going for a walk on the beautiful sunny day….the day before the snow struck!

 

 

 

This Prairie Crocus picture was taken along the above walk….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and these little Spring Beauty’s grew alongside the paved path that I featured before….

 

 and now we’re back to snow……just a reminder….this was the what we woke up to on the morning of May 23 rd….

The amount on the picnic table sort of says it all!!!!

 

So we’ll say good bye to the snow – again – and this poor bewildered Robin….

and now we’re in the little community campground at Grassy Lake, Alberta….this is a Common Grackle…

and that is a bunch more of them on the fence that divided the campground from the adjacent field…

this was looking south from the campground….that ‘white’ isn’t snow, it was a flock of Gulls – don’t know what kind….

 

and I’m going to toss in this Townsend’s Solitaire….also at the same place…..

So that is it for now.  It might take me a day or two to get the next batch of pictures ready….I’ve had to start from scratch – again – on this computer….and that is very time consuming!!!  But we’ll be heading to Writing On Stone….real soon!