Back to the Dempster, 2011 – Part 2

In real time it is a pretty wet, miserable day, so might as well continue on with the telling of this trip…although as I recall the weather at this point wasn’t a whole lot better!  We left Beaumont P.P. in the morning and headed west, our destination being Terrace B.C. where we planned to visit friends…rain or drizzle most of the way. 

Stopped at Seely Lake P.P. to give the dogs, and us, a chance to stretch our legs….this is such a nice little campground, although tiny, squeezed between the highway and I guess, Seely Lake.  It had been extremely ‘birdy’ when we had stayed here in late May, 2 years before, and was just as ‘birdy’ on this day, the 11th of August…also there wasn’t a soul camped here…

This is one of a family of Northern Flicker that were in the campground…you can see from the mark on the nape of the neck that this family was mixed – Red-shafted and Yellow-shafted.

Continued on to Terrace where we spent the night, leaving in the morning, in the rain….headed back to the Stewart Cassiar Highway…

This is the Skeena River as it runs along the highway…Terrace would be back there as we are looking west in this picture…

Rained the whole day and was still raining when we reached Meziadan Provincial Park in afternoon…after a drive around the fairly large campground, we headed back up into the same campsite we had stayed in 2 years before (yes, we are creatures of habit)

By the time we were set up the rain had slowed enough for me to get out for a wander….there were lots of Robins here….including lots of young ones like the guy above…

This Downy Woodpecker was really working on this tree trunk…

I had wandered down to the lake side and found this spot that was just full of Warblers…

Looked down at my feet and there was a Wilson’s Snipe standing there! 

by this point the rain had stopped and I decided to go back to the camper to get the DSLR camera in hopes of getting photos of what I was pretty sure was a Magnolia Warbler….on the way…saw this Downy Woodpecker and Red-breasted Sapsucker sharing the same tree….I was actually surprised to see the Sapsucker but after checking the field guide, they are expected to be here.

another thing that surprised me were the berries.  I had expected, in fact hoped to find lots of different berries…but the lushness of these Thimbleberries really surprised me.  Back at home Thimbleberries never look like this come berry time.

Red Elderberries were in good supply too – all these berries were at least one of the reasons for all the birds…

Back at the campsite we found these fungi interesting….in fact this was just the start of something we hadn’t expected….we’d hoped for Fall Colours, Berries, and Wildlife (except for squirrels, non existent to this point)…we’d never thought about Fungi but as it turned out that would prove to be one of the most interesting aspects of this trip!  Since returning from this trip we’ve bought ourselves a book on Mushrooms…but I still don’t know what kind this one was….

another matter of interest were the numbers of Rufous Hummingbirds in the Fireweed….before this trip I never would have associated the two together….this was now the 12th of August…I’m giving dates just so you get a sense of when  birds can be expected, even this far north.

This was a young Warbler of some sort…I never did get photos of the Magnolia Warbler…by the time I returned, an RV had pulled into the spot that backed onto this area (the campground was over half full) and since I resent people invading my space when camped…I certainly wasn’t about to do the same…even for a bird I’d never seen before!

That evening Ernie decided to make use of his fishing license since it was the first time he’d bought one in several years….it didn’t do any good…he didn’t catch anything.  Shantz found the whole thing rather amusing anyway…

Should include this…one of a number of young Northwestern Crows in the park…. and just for interest sake, when we had been here in I think late May…there had been lots of Flycatchers of a number of varieties….they obviously arrive early and leave early as there were no flycatchers to be seen this trip…but certainly lots of other species!

Might as well throw this picture in…Ernie testing out his new combination stove and grill and Shantz helping…or something…

Back to the Dempster, 2011 – Part 1

It has taken me a while to post this trip.  I had initially decided to do a book on the trip for Christmas presents and I had started one, but wasn’t pleased with it…so decided to just blog it…and I guess you could say, ‘better late than never’!

We started the trip in a convoluted manner…going first to Vancouver Island to visit the children and grandchildren, then headed back over to the mainland, traveling up the sea to sky highway, spending our first night at Nairn Falls Provincial Park just outside of Pemberton.

A nice enough campground I guess, but really we should have pushed on and stayed somewhere along the Duffy Lake Road…

Scene from a viewpoint on the very twisty winding Duffy Lake Road.  It was a long haul from Nairn Falls to our next stop, equally uninspiring…the campground at Lac la Hache

This squirrel was about the most exciting thing there…but then it was just somewhere to spend the night…and next day we made it through Prince George and turned west…

arriving at Beaumont Provincial Park on Fraser Lake, in the late afternoon…

now we were starting to feel like we were actually on a holiday…

and finally now there were some birds to see…..like this young Cedar Waxwing ….

This mother was still feeding these youngsters…this was in early August.

another look…..

there were also American Redstarts here….

and here…I think a young male….these birds never hold still…making it very difficult to get decent photographs..it was also very windy that day as the weather was about to change and not for the best!

found a White-throated Sparrow – if it looks a bit weird it is because it has a Saskatoon berry in its beak…there are a lot of Saskatoon bushes in this park and the birds were making full use of the ripe berries!

A young Sapsucker – a Red-napped I think…

and a Red-eyed Vireo…

The aim of this trip was to be a search for fall colours…unfortunately it wasn’t ‘fall’ here, yet, but the plan was that it would be fall by the time we got up on the Dempster highway…here it was at best ‘late summer’…

so we documented the colour we could find…like these Asters at the entrance to our campsite…

and this Northern Goldenrod.

July 1st long weekend at Tunkwa

As promised, we returned to Tunkwa Lake Provincial Park for the Canada Day long weekend, as I wanted to see if I could find any baby Great Gray Owls….since I’ve done an extensive report on Tunkwa recently, I’m just going to post random pictures and bits and pieces of information, rather than doing a full, day by day, blow by blow, report….and speaking of ‘blow’ the wind was certainly blowing so there was, once again, no chance of getting the inflatable kayak out onto the water!

This was a real surprise!  I thought I was aiming the camera at a young Killdeer – not a Least Sandpiper.  We are used to seeing all sorts of different shorebirds at Tunkwa in August, when they are migrating through…but this one was seen during breeding season…was it nesting there?  I don’t know.

Of the Blackbird species, Red-wings are the least common at Tunkwa….this male obviously had a hungry mouth to feed.

We did pay a visit to the Aspen Grove or ‘bird nursery’ and as usual, it didn’t disappoint…

this male Mountain Bluebird was doing some breeding chores…

as was this Red-naped Sapsucker.  Lots of Tree Swallows nesting here and a family of Northern Flickers, fresh from the nest.

of course there were Canada Geese with lots of youngsters…, this batch down on the shores of Leighton Lake by the spillway.

Because it was a long weekend, the campsite was about 85% full, so most of our usual spot selections were occupied…the spot we chose was beside a little pond and it proved to be a good choice – this pair of Lesser Scaups spend a fair bit of time at the pond…

Wildflowers were out in force…this Stonecrop growing right beside our campsite…

I went searching for the Great Gray owl…and found him…

this picture was taken about 8 or 8:30 at night….with the campground being busier now, they (there is a breeding pair with 3 young)…have moved further back…

This year, a new walking trail has been completed…you have always been able to walk a circle walk, from the campground at Tunkwa lake, down to the one at Leighton, and back to Tunkwa…but it used to involve walking along the road on one side of the lake…now there is a path cut between the road and the private cottages, the entire circle trail has now been marked as well…this is where the path comes out at Leighton Lake…that is my dog, not some exotic animal down there in the corner…

We’ll skip back to the owls for a moment…this is the best I managed of one of the babies…they area they were in was a steep hillside, thick with brush and fallen trees – and mosquitoes!!!

There has always been a trio of ‘odd ball’ geese at Tunkwa, although the light coloured one isn’t the one that used to be there…perhaps this is an offspring…this one does have very pale coloration…

Here is the spillway from Tunkwa lake to Leighton….I told you these pictures would jump around…the problem is there are 4 different cameras being downloaded and they are grouped by ‘camera’ not necessarily in the order they were taken…

I had gone down to the spillway area to try and get pictures of all the Cliff Swallows that were gathering mud for nest building…it was then that I spotted these two Wilson’s Phalaropes…

back to wildflowers…there were large patches of this Field Arnica in flower…

the Wild Roses were just coming into bloom…

this was a pretty typical scene…Small flowered Penstemon; Field Chickweed; Mauve Locoweed and clover.

back to that pond beside our campsite…

a Song Sparrow was there constantly – I think there was a nest in one of the bushes…

When the Scaups weren’t there, Mallard were…this one being a female…the male that showed up occasionally tended to be rather camera shy…

There was always a Flycatcher around…I thought it was a Least Flycatcher…but it may be a Willow..

There were untold numbers of Savannah Sparrows…some fledglings like this guy, but I think most were still in the nest as you couldn’t walk more than a few feet without being scolded by a parent…

I was actually surprised to come across several pairs of Lincoln Sparrows – this was one of a pair nesting behind our campsite – unfortunately the off spring they were protecting so vigorously was a cowbird.

and speaking of Cowbirds…here is a baby one that was on the road –

Cowbirds and Brewer’s Blackbirds are certainly two of the most prevalent species there….this being a baby Brewer’s    

and just a couple more pictures …Common Loon…this guy was hanging around the base of the spillway…

and an Osprey….you can always expect to see these guys…this one was down at Leighton.