Tunkwa Lake PP July 1, 2010

The July 1st, or Canada Day long weekend we headed to our favorite ‘home away from home’ – Tunkwa Lake Provincial Park.

as you can see, even though it was a long weekend it wasn’t terribly busy and we actually managed to grab the same campsite we’d had back at Easter…

Looking the other direction from our campsite and it was even quieter!  The only long weekend we won’t consider going to Tunkwa for is the May long weekend….I’m afraid that weekend has turned into a zoo!

The spot we were in was very ‘birdy’…primarily lots of these Savannah Sparrows…

Down in the little bay between the bluff and the spit, there were duck families….these ones being Barrow’s Goldeneye…

and here a Mallard family.

Wild Roses were just coming into full flower.

We set out on a walk, headed over to the north end of the lake….there was a Killdeer family in the area, with young ones and boy did the parents set up a ruckus every time anyone walked past!

a lot of American Coot with young in this area as well…

Pairs of Lesser Scaup…the males already loosing their brilliant breeding plumage, even though they haven’t yet had their families.  These ducks are late nesters…..as you’ll see when we are back here in a month or so.

Wildflowers were everywhere!  Here, these Alumroot growing on the cliff above Leighton Lake.

Looking towards Leighton, the blue are Small flowered Penstemon..

Here is a close up of that particular wildflower.

Goats beard, Alum Root and Grasses….

Everything was very green! 

As we walked along the trail on the north side of the lake we spotted this Common Loon with a youngster…always a good sign!

Another shot that shows just how ‘green’ the whole place was.

Death Camas were one of he prominent wildflowers in this area.

and Savannah Sparrows the prominent species of bird.

As usual, it was a good year for young Canada Geese….

These youngsters long past the ‘cute’ stage and into the gangly ‘adolescent’ stage…

As we walked back the sky was full of Common Nighthawks….

Back at the campsite I managed to get some pictures of the Least Flycatchers that must have been nesting in the bushy area beside us.

The weather was improving as we went for an evening walk…

Canada Geese in the evening sunshine…

Spring Trip 2010 – Some ‘catch up’ Photos

Well folks, I’m back in business!  My desktop computer is once more working and all my pictures have been recovered…..seems I did save them to my external hard drive after all….just couldn’t figure out how to retrieve them…now thanks to Ben (son of a friend) I have it all back and all working fine.  Back to Windows XP – NO MORE VISTA! as that seemed to be the root of the problems

So…before I continue on with the story, I’m just going to go back and post a few pictures from the DSLR camera, that weren’t available when I did the actual postings….

This is one of the Least Flycatchers that were seen constantly (at least until it snowed), in the vicinity of the campsite in the Center block of Cypress Hills….

and here is one of the Swainson’s Thrush seen there ~ yes Bill, we saw Swainson’s Thrush everywhere!  there are more to come….

and there is one of, what I am sure, are Pink Sided Junco…….they were the only kind of Junco we saw there….

And there is Ernie and Shantz going for a walk on the beautiful sunny day….the day before the snow struck!

 

 

 

This Prairie Crocus picture was taken along the above walk….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and these little Spring Beauty’s grew alongside the paved path that I featured before….

 

 and now we’re back to snow……just a reminder….this was the what we woke up to on the morning of May 23 rd….

The amount on the picnic table sort of says it all!!!!

 

So we’ll say good bye to the snow – again – and this poor bewildered Robin….

and now we’re in the little community campground at Grassy Lake, Alberta….this is a Common Grackle…

and that is a bunch more of them on the fence that divided the campground from the adjacent field…

this was looking south from the campground….that ‘white’ isn’t snow, it was a flock of Gulls – don’t know what kind….

 

and I’m going to toss in this Townsend’s Solitaire….also at the same place…..

So that is it for now.  It might take me a day or two to get the next batch of pictures ready….I’ve had to start from scratch – again – on this computer….and that is very time consuming!!!  But we’ll be heading to Writing On Stone….real soon!

Spring Trip 2010 - Day 29 - Cypress Hills Provincial Park

OK for all of you who have been following my saga of not only this trip....but my infamous 'desktop computer'....yesterday, exactly 1 month to the day from getting it back from London Drugs, with a new mother board....the thing quit on me again. It would not turn off and now it will not re-boot. I absolutely refuse to go back to London Drugs. I am waiting to hear is the son of a friend of mine can help me, and if he can't, I'll have to take it somewhere...so in the meantime, I'm back on the old lap top, back to not using 'Live Writer' and I am thoroughly 'pissed off!' Now back to the trip. Thursday May 20th, which I have figured out was the 29th day of the trip (it was switching back and forth from different types of blog entry that confused me)....we made the decision to leave the 'west block' of Cypress hills and head to the 'Centre Block'....one of the reasons for this was the fact that we had been catching bits and pieces of weather reports from somewhere in Montana that were talking about 'flash flood warnings' and 'thunderstorms' and 'cold fronts' - so we thought it would be a good idea to get away from these 'impassable when wet roads and onto some pavement....and of course we still had the worry of the upcoming long weekend. We also slept in so got a later than start than planned....but finally got on the road, back to Maple Creek where we topped up the fuel tank and then south to the Center Block....after wending our way past stores, a gas station, swimming pool, lodges (this is a provincial park? not like the ones we're used to) we finally found the entrance to the campgrounds.....

and joined a number of other units (most from Alberta) in the parking lot at the campground office....which didn't open until noon....as it turned out...the Campground itself had only opened this day. Like all parks in Saskatchewan, they did have year round camping, but the campground that was used for that, as of this day became the 'tenting' campground, so the few units that had been there had had to move into one of the regular campgrounds...so those people were also waiting to register. While waiting, we learned that a number of campgrounds in southern Alberta weren't going to be open for this long weekend as they were all so far behind thanks to the snow. We also learned that the Alberta part of Cypress Hills was now privatized and the general opinion was that no one would go back there....so scratch that idea!

While we sat waiting, I was shocked to see a mouse run up the windshield and then sit on the roof of the truck! I don't know where it came from. Whether we had brought it with us or if it had just shown up. I do know I was very relieved when it finally scampered off and ran into the bush!

I'm afraid these two pictures got reversed (I miss my 'Live Writer')....this is part of the paved walking/cycling path that runs from the campground down to a lake in the 'civilized' part of the park ....we'll take this walk in a moment....

And this is our campsite. We had only paid for one night, but after seeing the nice size, the fact that it was quite isolated so even if the campground was full we would be OK, we'd already made up our minds that we would go back in the morning and pay for 3 more nights to get us through the long weekend.....so with that decision made, we set off exploring....

The entrance to the paved path was just across the street from our site, there was a lot of bird activity in the area.....this was one of several Yellow Rump Warblers....this one being an 'Audubon' the variety that is commonly seen in my neck of the woods back west of the Rockies, but not normally seen east of them...like here..

More of those Swainson's Thrush that we've been seeing everywhere.

A bit further along the trail, which was in denser forest....there was this amphitheater and a snow bank....left from that snowfall that was rec'd a couple of weeks before....

A rather 'demented' looking Shantz, in the snow....

This path branched off and led to another campground. Apparently this area was once burned and replanted which is the reason why all the pine trees are the same size and age...making for a rather eerie landscape, particularly since there wasn't much under growth....

The path crossed a road here....so took a picture of one of the banners....how many provincial parks do you know that have banners on the streets? not to mention hydro and telephone wires? Not here in B.C. they sure don't! Not like this anyway.

Continuing on we came across a few more snowy areas....

Just before the end of the path, we found this Three Toed Woodpecker....

The path ended at this little lake. There were cottages lining the road opposite the lake and appeared to be almost a subdivision of sorts on the opposite shore - we never did get there to check it out.

This Double Crested Cormorant was perched over the water....

Bird life was everywhere in this spot - here a male Mallard

a female Red wing Blackbird....there were a lot of Red wing Blackbirds in the bulrushes

looking the other way on the lake, back towards the main entrance, this was a swimming beach....

There was a Red necked Grebe on a nest at the edge of the beach.

Lots of Brown Headed Cowbirds....

headed back along the path now, this trail branched off...I think heading to the 'tent' campground...never did get a chance to follow it....

When I was almost back to the campground, this Red breasted Nuthatch flew down and proceeded to take a bath almost at my feet!

The bushes beside our campground were full of these Least Flycatchers....

After supper, I started out to go for an evening walk and these White tail Deer bounded out across the road right ahead of me....

This one stopped and stared, beside the paved path.....

I walked up into another loop of the campground where there were more of those Least Flycatchers....

More mixed up pictures....this showed our campsite from further down the campsite road...you can see that this section was quite forested.....

This Pink sided Junco was perched on one of the campsite markers.....

This is a more open section of the campground with lots of Aspen trees.... So we went to bed that night, relieved that we had a solution for the long weekend and glad to see the park wasn't quite the zoo we had feared it might be.