Spring Trip 2012 – Manning Park part 2

We spent 3 days at Manning Park, the weather cooperated, a little on the cool side, but pleasant enough to sit outside during the day as long as you were dressed for it.

Here is the whole family enjoying the great outdoors – including the 16 year old Shih Tzu!

it wasn’t long though, until we had company….

This pair of Common Raven moved in and appeared to adopt us as their own!!!

even attempting to come right inside…

and trying to share our dogs dinner – as you can tell she is used to birds!

Not to be out done…the Gray Jay’s joined us too…

Shy they aren’t!!!

a Gold-crowned Kinglet even joined in the fun…running around right at my feet gathering up our dogs fur as fast as she was loosing it!  I was so shocked didn’t have time to focus the camera properly – hence the fuzzy shot!

Of course one of the things we look for when we are traveling are the wild flowers…this early in the season with the snow barely having melted in spots, one really had to look – but they were there…

The Utah Honeysuckle was just coming into bloom in the sunniest areas – but there were enough of them that the Rufous Hummingbirds had arrived – this being a favorite early food source.  (wasn’t able to get a hummingbird picture here)

Spring Gold was just starting to flower, again in the sunniest locations.  The creeping phlox wasn’t quite in bloom yet..

I found these Pussy Willows most attractive though….

as did the Chipmunks!  By the time our 3 day visit was over, chipmunks had pretty much eaten every pussy willow off of the bushes!  and I think that is probably enough for this posting….we’ll cover the rest of the ‘critters’ and birds in part 3

Kane Valley – February 21, 2010

With this being one of the mildest winters on record and with this past Sunday being another sunny, warm  day, we decided to pack a lunch and head out for a drive.  Our destination was to be the Kane Valley.  The Kane Valley, which is one of our favourite haunts, lies between the Coquilla (#5) and Highway 5A which is the old highway from Merritt to Princeton. This area, in spring through fall is a birders paradise and the wildflowers in late May, June to early July are spectacular.

We pulled out of our drive at 8:30 am, the temperature was 0 degrees and the sun was shining.  This time we remembered winter boots, jackets etc. (although there was no need for any of them).  We even took along ‘Tizzy Lizzy’ our Garmin Nuvi GPS, so dubbed because she gets into such a ‘Tizzy’ every time we insist on going on roads she doesn’t think exist.

First stop was for fuel and coffee in Hope, then up the Coquilla where there was no more snow than there had been when we drove this way a month or so ago…in fact, if anything, there was less.

Here is the parking lot at the rest area just past where the toll booths used to be.  Doesn’t look much like the middle of February does it!

a number of Gray Jays greeted us…..

also some Steller’s Jay…..

and even this Raven.  That would be pretty much it for birds this trip.

There are a number of ways to access the Kane Valley, we would take the most direct from this route, which is to take exit #256 off of the Coquilla, driving to and through Kingvale, turning right onto the Kane Valley Road.  The very first part of the Kane Valley road is actually paved as there are a number of residences

however it doesn’t take long to get to gravel…this whole area between the Coquilla and Highway 5A is criss crossed with roads, all good, but all gravel, so if you are the sort that doesn’t like to get your tires dirty – this area isn’t for you.  There are ranches scattered through out, so these roads are kept open in winter, but can be muddy in spring and dusty in the summer.

here we are looking southwards towards the Voight Valley, another area we like to explore.  With the road looking a bit muddy and knowing that it would climb and is shaded so would most likely be icy, we decided to leave that area for another day.

taken from the same spot, this is looking back in the direction we had just come.

We are now pretty much in Nicola Ranch territory. 

having now passed the turn off to the Voight Valley, and going over cattle guards that announce a ranch house complex, we are now looking south again.  The bright but low sun made for challenging photography.

Like so much of the interior of our province, this area has also be decimated by the Pine Beetle.  We were a bit appalled to reach an area that on first look appeared to have been completely clear cut, but when we looked closer we could see that all the young trees had been left, so even though it looks awful right now, it will fill in with native grassland and wildflowers.

A bit further along we stopped at this favourite spot. There is a shallow lake here that is a favourite nesting spot for all sorts of birds including Black Terns, Yellow headed Blackbirds, Killdeer, etc.

 

This is a closer look at the stump you can see in the above shot. 

and there is Ernie back there with his video camera taking pictures of me taking pictures. I should mention that as of this point we hadn’t seen another vehicle since leaving the Coquilla Highway.

Just past this shallow lake there is a junction.  The Kane Valley Road continues on straight ahead, while another road goes off to the right that will take you to Aspen Grove on Highway 5A.  This is a very twisty and in some places, steep road, although there are a number of ranches along it, we thought it best to leave it for another day and continued on in the main direction.

This whole area is full of little lakes, and before long we had reached another one.  There is actually a spot here where you can camp…it is Nicola Ranch property and there is a sign stating a fee for camping although if anyone ever actually collects it I don’t know. 

on this day Shantz took advantage of the spot to do a bit of digging in the snow!

While I attempted to get some interesting shots of the bull rushes that were growing along the edge of the lake.  This area too is very ‘birdy’ in season and is also popular for fishing as are most of the lakes in the area.

A woodpecker could be heard in the distance but not spotted.

 

 

at this point I think I will post this much and continue on tomorrow.  We have the rest of the Kane Valley to visit, Kentucky Allyene Provincial Park to stop in at, then drive down to Princeton and back home via Manning Park….so a long ways still to go!

N.W.T. Trip 2005 – back to the 60th parallel

The morning we were to leave Fort Smith and start the homeward stretch of our trip – the sun finally shone!

this scene was taken just a little way out of town…

another Buffalo or Bison…..just because…

another look at one of those Raven nests…this one with at least a couple of youngsters in it…

That’s either mom or dad on the ground….

and back to the Mackenzie Highway, this time headed south.

a stop to take a look at Louise Falls….

and an even closer look…

and back to the 60th parallel….a little different than where we had crossed from B.C.!

This picture shows just part of the visitors center…

Reluctant to leave the Territories just yet, we decided to spent the night at the campground that adjoins the visitor center….

so here is our final ‘territories’ campfire (in fact I think our ‘only’ territories campfire!

This Hermit Thrush had been running around at the edge of the campsite…

I was interested to find this ‘white’ Wild Rose, growing along side a number of normal….

pink Wild Rose….after all Alberta was just a few feet away and Alberta is ‘Wild Rose Country’.

N.W.T. Trip – 2005 – Wood Buffalo Nat. Park

Leaving Hay River, we turned onto Highway 5, traveled past the junction of highway 6 which goes to Fort Resolution (left for another time), towards the entrance of Wood Buffalo National Park, approximately 90 km from Hay River.  This is a huge national park…totalling 44,800 Sq. kilometres, about 1/4 of which are in the N.W.T., with the remainder in Northern Alberta.

Just after entering the park, we found a large rest area and signage regarding sinkholes, of which, there are apparently quite a few in this type of topography…

and here is the sinkhole….

back on the road…and you’ll notice it is now gravel, or actually ‘mud’ as it had been raining again…what else do you expect to see in ‘Wood Buffalo’ National Park…but ‘Wood Buffalo’ and boy did we ever see them…not sure how many times we had to slow to a crawl or even stop as they meandered all over the road.  Notice something else in this picture?  Electrical Pylons!  Yep! You would almost think we were back in civilization.

there was a good crop of young calves here as well.  When we were in Fort Smith and went to the visitors center….the attendant said that “if we were lucky” we might see a Buffalo on the road….we informed her that we had been dodging them the whole way!

and those hydro pylons….well every second or third one of them contained a Raven’s nest…..

there was even a sign about them…

Wood Buffalo National Park contains the nesting site of the world’s only migratory population of Whooping Cranes.  The public isn’t allowed any where near where this actually happens….the following signage best explains…

Hopefully, if you click on this closer shot you will be able to read it (although I’ve noticed that the click on to enlarge doesn’t work as well when you use ‘live writer’

I know I took photos of the general wetlands habitat that was at this location….but they weren’t on the two CD’s and I can’t find them in my computer….I guess if I dug back far enough I could find them…suffice it to say that it was a wetland area, typical of the same sort of habitat used by the Whooping Cranes.

As it was raining at the time, we didn’t take the turn off to the Salt Plains but headed directly to the town of Fort Smith….as it turned out, a good choice as I definitely would not recommend towing anything on the access road to the Salt Plains!

The big attraction, at least for birders, at Fort Smith are the American White Pelicans that nest, by the hundreds, on the Slave River. 

Before searching for Pelicans we headed to Queen Elizabeth Park Campground….a  campground, close to what proved to be a very nice little town and that over looked the Slave River.

Here is the view of the Slave River from the campground….they are hard to see but those are the ‘Rapid’s of the Drowned’ out there…a charming name!

here is a look at the campground…

and there are Pelicans…all those white things are Pelicans…

Pelicans close by…

Pelican’s swimming upstream…

and Pelican’s feeding.  We’ve seen Pelican’s on lakes all over Alberta, we’ve seen them in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and there are even breeding colonies on lakes in the Chilcotin area of British Columbia….Fort Smith is the only location where they are known to breed on a river…and it is a very large, very turbulent river.

I might add that the whole time we were hiking through, not very well marked trails, finding the Pelicans, it continued to rain….so we’ll leave off for now as we’ll be spending another day at Fort Smith….