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.
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…
where the lakes were still frozen, although thawing out around the edges.
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.
The Columbian Ground Squirrels were out in force…
Here is another one…
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…
the bare areas were alive with American Robins, and surprisingly, Yellow-rump Warblers…running around on the ground with the robins..
Dark-eyed Junco are to be expected…
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….
and settled into our spot which turned out to be absolutely perfect – yes, that is a little bit of snow there in the corner.
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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