Spring Trip 2012 – Kentucky Allyene P. P. – Part 2

One of the nicest features about the campground on Kentucky Lake is the 4 km trail that circles the entire lake.

this lake is surrounded by quite thick forest, un like Allyene that is in more open range land.

The trail can be quite high in some spots, but dips down to lake shore in others….I didn’t do the entire walk this visit, but Ernie and Shantz did…

We did walk about half of it together, and found a number of wildflowers in bloom including these Calypso Orchids

the very earliest of the Heart-leaf Arnica…

Hooker’s Fairybells….

and Star-flowered Solomon’s Seal.

at one spot on the trail there were a number of Red-breasted Nuthatch….all busy working on nesting sites…

there was another one of them.  In the same location there were lots of Yellow-rump Warblers, Chipping Sparrows and Dark Eyed Junco.

back at the campsite….one of the Yellow Warblers…

and almost continually seen on the shore just down from the campsite, were these Spotted Sandpipers…

they were running around everywhere!  Pileated Woodpeckers could be heard, and we caught glimpses of them but never did manage a picture.  Just spent the one whole day here before heading to our ‘home away from home’ – Tunkwa Lake, but I shouldn’t go without showing the carpet of Calypso Orchids that was growing right in the campground…

Unfortunately when I went to take this picture, they were in dense shade….but you get the idea – these were just a little way away from the bridge with the welcoming committee in part 1.

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!

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.