Spring Trip 2010 – Day 17 – Elk Island National Park

In real time, I’m about to head out for a short 4 day trip to our ‘home away from home’ ~ Tunkwa Lake, but thought I’d try to get another posting done before we leave….I told you posting this trip was going to be a slow process!…..

Now, since we found ourselves at Elk Island, we decided we might as well stay for the weekend….

Waking up to weather like this only helped with the decision!  This was the view that greeted us that morning, May 8th, just a few feet from where we were parked.  We decided to ‘stay put’ for the day and just take the various walks in the immediate area….

This path leads from the boat launch parking walk where we were camped…along the lake front, past the beach and day use area (in the middle of the picture) and on to a floating boardwalk….

 This is one of the viewing points along the trail.  You’ll note that cloud did move in, but it never amounted to much and by afternoon the skies were clear once more.  The name of this lake is ‘Astotin’ Lake.

Water levels in the lake were actually very low….this is just past the beach area….you can see there were lots of birds in the area….

Lot’s of these Horned Grebe….

Lesser Yellowlegs along the shoreline…

Here a Solitary Sandpiper with a pair of Blue wing Teal ducks.

 

the path ends at the board walk….here Ernie and Shantz are out on a section that projects right out into the lake…

There were American White Pelicans feeding in the little bay beside the board walk….

Here is a closer look at one of those Pelican…

While I was taking the Pelican pictures, I looked down and there was a Beaver coming right at me!

He then veered to the side, but it was obvious he wanted to go under the portion of the floating walk that I was standing on.

There were also large numbers of these Red-neck Grebe….we’ll come back to them in a bit….this guy is just barely into his breeding colours.

A number of Song Sparrows in the reeds as well….

Walking back, I heard a familiar and unmistakable sound….the calls of Sandhill Cranes!  Looking up we spotted this flock of them flying over head…

and here another one…..another species of birds that must have been held up a bit by the weather…

Circling around and walking back past some picnic shelters….we first heard, and then saw…these Northern Phoebe ~ it is easy to tell how they got their name as their call is ‘Phee –bee’.  We have seen them before in the N.W.T. and Northern Alberta….they are always found hanging about man made structures where they build their nests…..

Which is exactly what these ones were doing.  There is the nest.

back at our end…there were now Pelicans in this bay as well…

never get tired of looking at (or taking pictures of…) these guys!

In the afternoon I went out wandering again, going back over some of the areas we’d done in the morning….

There were quite a few pairs of Common Goldeneye on the lake, and the males didn’t tolerate another one getting too close to ‘his’ female.

A few Ring bill Gull – you can see the black ‘ring’ on the bill…

Back at the floating boardwalk, the Red neck Grebes were busy doing nest construction….here with a mouthful of nesting material…

Add it to the nest….

and go back for more.

Some tapping sounds led me to this Yellow bellied Sapsucker that was busy working on a nesting hole…

and a Black capped Chickadee doing the same..

Here is just a peaceful picture of the lake….you can see the deciduous trees are just barely leafing out..

and I’ll toss in a few more Pelicans…

including this one coming in for a landing….

After supper we did yet another walk, this one the 3 1/2 km ‘Lakeview’ walk at the northern end of the lake…

It goes by this marsh area where there really wasn’t much activity…

here is a view of the lake….

and another, this taken from the area of a viewing platform situated at the furthest point of the trail

part of the trail back wound through this Aspen forest….

here is another viewing platform, this time at the marsh… where we happened to meet another couple, armed with binoculars, cameras AND a Siberian Husky!  Theirs was a gray, blue eyed male.

You’ll note, up to now I haven’t mentioned a flower ~ that is, because until this point I hadn’t seen a flower ~ this Coltsfoot, growing beside the marsh in the above picture…was the first flower seen.

So ended a long but delightful day….and it ended in spectacular fashion as I’ll share these sunset shots with you.

Nice – note the Pelicans…

Nicer…

Spectacular!  This one is now my desktop!

Bird List:  White Throated Sparrow – 1; American White Pelican – 11; Red neck Grebe – 12; Common Loon – 1; Northern Phoebe – 6; Horned Grebe – 7; Canada Geese – 12; Common Goldeneye – 6; Mallard – 16; Lesser Yellowlegs Sandpiper – 1; Blue Jay – 1; American Crow – 14; Robin – 2; Blue Wing Teal – 4; Ring bill Gull – 4; Solitary Sandpiper – 2; American Coot – 8; Sandhill Crane – 60; Song Sparrows – 3; Red wing Blackbird – 10; Bufflehead – 2; Yellow bellied Sapsucker – 3; Yellow rump Warbler – 6; Great Blue Heron – 3; Black Cap Chickadee – 3; Killdeer – 1; Merlin – 1; Barrows’ Goldeneye – 2; Hairy Woodpecker – 1; Ruffed Grouse – 1; Double crested Cormorant – 5; Tree swallow – 1.

N. W. T. Trip – 2005 - Yellowknife

As you approach Yellowknife….you start to find yourself on rock, with lots of rock on either side of the road…if my geology lessons from school are remembered correctly, this is pre-Cambrian rock…and is, I think, part of the Canadian Shield.  Much of that rock is pink in color…and since the rock has been used to create the pavement…the road itself tends to be pink…

on the right hand side of the highway is a large lake, called ‘Long Lake’, with a public park and beach that looks like any public lakeside beach anywhere on the continent….

on the left hand side, is the airport.  This vintage plan is mounted at the airports entrance….if you’ve ever watched the show ‘Ice Pilots’ on the History network…this is the airport featured in that show.  I took the above picture from the RV park which is situated right across the street…

Here is Ernie enjoying a drink and sitting where he would be looking directly at the plane…this was a large RV park, very spread out because, as you can see, it is build upon this rock, so the sites were in little nooks and crannies which were few and far between.  We were put right down beside the highway, I think because we’d asked for powered sites…I won’t do that next time…

there were far more scenic spots within the RV park….here you are looking back towards that public beach, and you can see the airport buildings in the background.

from the same spot, this is Long Lake, looking in the other direction…more like one would expect…I don’t know what I expected, but water skiers and personal watercraft certainly weren’t it!  You can see the color of the rock…

this was the shower facility in the park…with an information kiosk on the right….

this shot just shows the general landscape of very old, worn rock with plants growing where they can take root.

and there, in the distance is part of the skyline of the city of Yellowknife.  Anyone who has followed my blog knows we don’t like cities and spent as little time as possible in them….which is why I don’t seem to have any pictures of the city itself even though parts of it, especially the old part…was very interesting, reminding me of pictures I’ve seen from Newfoundland and the Maritimes as the houses were all built up on bare rock.

here is another view of another part of the city, but not the downtown core itself.  There were lots of little lakes, all with walking paths…in fact it was obvious that the people of Yellowknife make the most of their short summer…you’ve heard the old adage ‘make hay while the sunshine’, well, I think, up there, it is ‘play while the sunshine's’ because in the evenings the place came alive with people out and about pretty much all night long – another reason for not staying close to the highway in the RV Park!

There was a very nice Visitor’s center with a small lake adjacent to it where I was surprised to see these Eared Grebe…the closest I’ve ever been able to get to one.  I seem to remember we drove into down the first evening to take advantage of one of the big grocery stores…there was pretty much every store you could hope for…including Wal-Mart…

Next morning, Dave and Dianna headed back into the city to explore (they like cities), and we headed further east along what is called the ‘Ingraham Trail’, until it just ended.  Apparently, a number of years ago there were plans to extend the road down into Saskatchewan,  making a circle route…but those plans, or at least the money for them, fell through and so the road simply ends.

There are a number of Territorial Parks along the Ingraham Trail, including several campgrounds…something to keep in mind for those of us ‘non city’ people.  We decided to throw the canoe in at this particular lake…

this is just one small corner of this very large lake….we stuck to the shallows as this was a rather daunting lake, and besides, the shallows are where you see the birds…but in this case it also gave us heart failure on more than one occasion as those Northern Pike, which are huge fish, also like to lay in the shallows, and when they are disturbed they suddenly splash and it is like a crocodile coming out of the water…

We did see these Yellowlegs Sandpiper…Lesser’s I think..

and, of course, Spotted Sandpipers….I swear, is there any body of water where Spotted Sandpipers aren’t found!

and of course some ducks…including these Northern Shovelers….

and so brings to an end the pictures copied from the first saved CD of this trip.