Spring Trip 2010 – Day 39 – Kettle River Provincial Park

Sunday, May 30th we woke up to sunshine.  Spent the day just wandering and looking for birds and anything else of interest.  Birds were obviously in the middle of nesting, so quiet and secretive, but even so, by the end of the day we’d complied a pretty good list….so in no greatly organize order, here we go…

Here is a section of the trail that runs along the river….this section would be directly behind the spot we were camped in…

there is a Spotted Sandpiper on that log….there were a number of Spotted Sandpiper all along the river…

here is another section of the trail….this is closer to the bridge…you can see that a section of it has collapsed into the river…

Some more of those ‘Canada Violets’…

and in more forested areas….Early Blue Violets….

also in the more forested areas, this white wild flower is Baneberry ~ this plant will sport bright red berries later in the summer ~ not to be eaten though as they are extremely poisonous!

Growing in the same damp, forested area is this green flower, known as Black Sanicle – don’t ask me why!

Apart from a couple of junco, this area had been very ‘bird less’, hence the flower pictures….and this little guy….a one eared Chipmunk.  If you’ve ever watched these cute little critters interact at times, it isn’t surprising that occasionally someone looses an ear!

another walk took us down to the south side of the bridge…

this picture is looking down the river from the day use picnic site….

found some Red Columbine in flower in the picnic area….

Sometimes this is a very ‘birdy’ area, but not on this particular day.  Did spot this little guy that I think is a ‘Hammond’s Flycatcher’ ~ came to that conclusion after pouring over ‘flycatchers’ in my ‘Sibleys’

some Red-breasted Nuthatch too, this one was looking for creepy crawlies on the undersides of the leaves….no doubt taking them back to a nest of youngsters….

Most of the bird activity was concentrated right around the campground side of the bridge….here a pair of Violet Green Swallows (male on left, female on right) were perched on part of the bridge itself….these swallows nest on the bridge…

this robin obviously had a hungry brood somewhere close by as well….

and here we go, another Swainson’s Thrush….the ones here were acting a bit more like I expect Swainson’s Thrush to behave….sneaking about in the denser parts of the forest….

hard to see, both here and then, is this hummingbird.  I have no idea what kind…I suspect it is a young one….

a flash of red and yellow….again, right by the bridge….led us to spotting this male Western Tanager….

he was heading down to this sheltered back eddy in the river, to have a bath.

a Warbling Vireo in the choke cherry bushes….

and remember that pair of Red breasted Nuthatch we saw nest excavating, when we were here a month or so ago?  well they were now busy feeding fledglings….here is one of them at the nest hole (not the one on the right, the occupied hole is behind the bird…

there was it’s mate, coming home with a mouthful of food…..

Out on the river, if you look really closely at a branch coming up from that log pile….

You’ll see a pair of Belted Kingfisher.  I wish I could have got a better picture because I have never seen a pair of Kingfisher together before.  The male is on the left, while it is the female with the rust coloured ‘belt’ that gives these birds their name, on the right.

another species, busy at it’s nest, was this Mountain Chickadee…in this case, doing a bit of house cleaning….kids' are messy you know! and not house broken.

One final evening walk….

with the shadows lengthening but the sun still shining on the hill across the river….

and one final bird glimpsed….in this case, a Pileated Woodpecker, working away up in one of the massive Poplar trees.

So would this be the last day of our trip?  Would we be home tomorrow?  stay tuned!

Tunkwa P.P. – Easter 2010 – April 3

Woke up Easter morning to high thin cloud, sunshine and no wind!  While we were having breakfast we watched a small flock of Swans land out on the ice in the middle of the lake…

I quickly took a picture from the window of the camper although needn’t have rushed as they settled down and stayed there the entire day, only taking off about 6 in the evening.

When breakfast was finished we set off for a walk around the side of the lake…as we approached the lake we saw a dark object on the shore, head off across the ice to the little island off shore…

Unfortunately by the time I got a camera out and ready it was already across the ice, but it was an Otter!  the first one we had ever seen there.  It actually crossed the little island and continued on across the ice to the far shore.  We had to go around…

down through the little dip where these geese were standing on ice that had reformed during the night…

past the slough…that I think is actually called something like ‘bluff lake’ – looking much better with blue skies behind it, but also freshly frozen over….

and over and up the little mountain where I stopped to take this picture looking back over to the campground…there was also an interesting crack in the ice here…in fact the ice was really creaking and groaning this day where it hadn’t the days before…

the whole south facing hillside was covered in Sagebrush Buttercups…

closer look at some of the buttercups…

and down the other side and then we spotted – yes! a Mountain Bluebird!

and then a pair (male on left, female on right).  Mountain Bluebirds were still here when we were last here at Thanksgiving (go back in archives) and here they were again. 

Off we went again, along the back of the little mountain, and the back of the slough, over to the aspen grove….on the way we had to transverse what will hopefully be a future aspen grove but from the looks of these poor aspens….

where every tip was chewed off – they were having a hard time of it.  The amount of deer droppings in the area explained who was doing the pruning!

and here we found another pair of Mountain Bluebirds…this is the male…

soon this aspen bird nursery will be alive because Mountain Bluebirds are one of the species that will be making their nests in cavities in these trees.

From here we circled back to the campground and lunch.  After lunch I took April out for a little private meander (about all she is capable of these days) and while I had her out I could hear all sorts of bird activity up in the back corner of the park, so later set out on my own…

That big mass of Robins was up there…..

they’re probably hard to see in this picture, but the ground was hopping!

this guy seemed rather curious as to what I was doing!

this was just one of the many Northern Flickers in the area as well – this one is a female.

and if you wonder what they were all doing – well look at the size of the worm this guy is pulling out of the now soft, un-frozen ground!

I learned a long time ago that one of the best ways to see birds is to just pick a likely spot and then sit and wait and see what shows up….this little ‘pond’ back in the forest was a definite ‘likely spot’…

this male Downy Woodpecker was one of the first to appear….another one almost landed in my lap before he realized I wasn’t another stump!

a steady stream of Robins came for baths…

another female Flicker joined the crowd…

and then a female Hairy Woodpecker arrived as well…

It was getting on by then so figured I should (reluctantly) head back to the camper….

on the way I got stopped by some Mountain Chickadees.  There were also some Golden Crowned Kinglets in the same spot, but didn’t manage any pictures, nor could I get a picture of the Marmot that dove into his culvert when he saw me approaching – not to worry – I’d get pictures the next day!