Spring Trip 2010 – Day 33 – Writing On Stone

With only about 100 km to go to get to Writing On Stone Provincial Park, and knowing that it was Monday of a long weekend and check out time in Alberta isn’t until 2:00 pm, we took our time getting on the road, however Grassy Lake wasn’t the most exciting place in the world so there wasn’t much sense hanging around there….so we headed back east on #3 until we reached #879 which would take us directly south…

On route we passed the ‘Spitz’ sunflower seed factory….took a picture to satisfy my husband!

 Next stop was the Duck’s Unlimited and Nature Watch site…

This large wetland project spans both sides of #887.  The above ‘sign’ and a viewing blind is located to the left of the picture…

From the ‘blind’ looking back at the highway….

I walked up the road away (it is a very quiet secondary highway), to get this over view, looking westward

and from the same point, looking to the east.  There were cattle there on the hillside.  You can see it was a pretty overcast day….but dry.

As for what we saw there ~ well lot’s of Yellow Headed Blackbirds…one of my favorite!

Eared Grebe….you can really see the red eye and the yellow feathers that create the ‘ear’….

One of the reasons I’d walked up the road to start with, was to try and get pictures of the masses of Cliff Swallows that kept swooping out from under the bridge….I never did get any other than this one pitiful shot!

But getting pictures of these two male ducks made up for it.  Both males, the top one is a Cinnamon Teal and the bottom one a Blue Wing Teal….both are rather shy, retiring species, not easy to photograph, but for some reason they were happily spending time in the open water just below where I was standing on the road…

Speaking of ducks, here are some Northern Pintails flying by….

and of course, where you have wetlands and open areas, you have raptors – this a Northern Harrier cruising the area….

One more male Yellow Headed Blackbird, before we continue on…..

there were lots of flooded fields along this stretch of road, these American Avocet were taking full advantage of one of the big puddles…..

So we arrived at Writing on Stone just after noon and verified our decision to have not attempted to come there the day before – what a zoo!  Writing on Stone is definitely one of my favorite places, but I’d never come on a long weekend or during the summer.  There isn’t a terribly large campground, maybe 50 or 60 places….there is a large ‘day use’ area that is obviously well ‘used’.

We managed to find a lovely big campsite on the perimeter and set up and then waited for the remaining hoards to depart…..

this is looking along the campground road, back towards the visitor’s center that is perched up there on the hill….with only a few stragglers left (those that ignore the 2 pm check out time), we decided to go for a walk up to the visitor center…

this walk goes up through the hoo doos…

One of the reason’s I’d wanted to come was to see what wildflowers were in bloom….we’d been here in late June (when the Cactus are in flower) and we’d been here in early September, this was just a bit earlier …..here is Smooth Blue Beardtongue (we saw this plant in bud back at the west block of Cypress Hills – here is was in full bloom)

We’ve seen these before too….those Yellow Prairie Violets…this one growing right beside a little barrel cactus…if that don’t say ‘hot and dry’ I don’t know what does!

We’re now up on top, looking down onto the campground.  That white spot is the top of our camper…the river is the ‘Milk River’ and those mountains are the Sweet Grass Hills in Montana.

There’s them ‘Sweet Grass Hills’ seen through what I have decided isn’t ‘Owl Clover’ after all…despite what a sign said…to me the leaf shape is all wrong….I think it must be ‘Golden Bean’ or ‘Buffalo Bean’ – if anyone knows for sure, please let me know!

another Yellow Prairie Violet….tenacious or what!  growing right in the sandstone.

and here is another toughie….Low Growing Larkspur…..as opposed to the ‘Tall’ growing that you find in more hospitable habitats.

back down in the campground, I headed over to the river….this low fence is to keep the Beavers from attacking the lovely big old Poplar trees that shade the campground…

and there is the Milk River….looking sort of north eastwards…

and just up and around the corner, we’re looking westwards now….we’ll go for a walk along those rocks tomorrow ~ weather permitting!

 

Back in the campsite, we were being visited constantly by Swainson’s Thrush!

If we thought we’d been lucky seeing them before ~ here they were practically running over our feet!

This female Downy Woodpecker kept flying onto this large Poplar, located in our campsite

and like other places we’d been, there were masses of Chipping Sparrows eating the dandelion seeds…

this male Yellow Warbler spent a lot of time flying between our campsite and the empty one across from us, in fact it actually spent a lot of time fighting with it’s reflection in our trucks mirrors….something I know robins and chickadees do….and apparently Yellow Warblers.

an evening walk, and I spotted what turned out to be a pair of House Wren at the entrance to another empty campsite…in fact, by evening there were only about a dozen sites that were occupied….and most of them by ‘birders’!

that same walk led me to find, first, a female American Redstart…

and then a male….these Warblers, often described as ‘Butterfly like’ are extremely difficult to photograph….these are the best pictures of them I’ve got!

and finally, the evening drew to a close.  Shantz settled down in ‘her’ chair…by 8 pm, it was raining.  As I already mentioned, this was our 3rd time here, and despite the fact that this is supposed to be one of the hottest and driest areas of the province….it’s rained every time!  The first time, there had been a heavy shower just prior to our arriving, creating puddles everywhere, the second time it poured the entire first day of our visit….and now this.  With time running short we’d only be able to spend one more day here….we’ll see the morning brings!

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 31 - Cypress Hills

It has taken me a while to get on with posting this story of our spring trip. The desktop computer is still not working. The son of the friend who was going to call, hasn't..... the weather remains hot so I can't take the computer anywhere....even when I've got the car, like I will tomorrow, for a dentist appointment, I have to go straight there and back because I know it'll be close to 90 degrees in this little box we call home....life would be much simpler if we a) didn't have dogs b) had air conditioning c) had a husband who knew anything at all about computers so I could just send it off with him when he goes to work each day. OH WELL....I guess one of these days it will get looked at..... The story of the trip is going to come to a halt very rapidly anyway because we're almost to the stage where the only pictures are in that computer!

In the meantime....back to the trip....It is now Saturday, May 22nd and we woke to ....

SNOW! That is what it looked like when we opened the camper door.....

From the 'bedroom' window....the picnic table and camp chair where we sat in the sunshine and read the day before......

In the morning I decided to walk back down to that little lake we had visited the first day....thinking it would be neat to get some 'birds in the snow' pictures..... The road, at this stage, was still bare and wet.....

There is something just 'wrong' about seeing a Warbler in snow. This was a male Yellow rump Warbler, of the Audubon variety (yellow under chin, not white)....I think it was getting little bugs off the underside of the leaves.....

Kind of an eerie looking landscape.....

The path I was following was definitely turning white.....

By the time I reached the lake (which according to my notes is called 'Loch Leven'....the snow, which had been quite light, really started to come down and was driven by a strong wind....I'm pretty sure that is a Caspian Tern on the shore, one of several....along with the pair of Canada Geese (according to Ebird....IF these are Caspian Tern that would be really exciting....)

There were lots of Chipping Sparrows on the sandy area of the beach.....

The poor Red-Neck Grebe was still sitting on the nest...trying to keep eggs warm in the driving snow must have been a challenge....hope they made it.

You can barely make out this female Red Wing Blackbird through the snow....

Hard to see but there were lots of Tree Swallows and even Black Terns flying really low over the water....I guess that is where any bugs that might have ventured out in the weather, were.

a last look one way (the wind was at my back when I faced this direction)....

and blowing right into my face (and camera) when I faced this way....

back in the trees the wind was better but there was no let up in the snow.....

This squirrel had the right idea, it was sitting on the leeward side of the tree to eat it's lunch.

Here is what I'm sure is a Pink - sided Junco....even though Ebird doesn't have them on the species list for that area.....

Back at the camper, even Shantz looks thoroughly disgusted by the weather! We saw a couple of units pull out, but pretty much everyone else was just hunkered down, waiting it out.

We attempted another walk in the afternoon. By then, there were 6 to 8 inches on the ground....

The poor birds, like this Swainson's Thrush were in any clear area they could find...in this case it is only clear because there was water there......

another look at the Swainson's Thrush between the snowbanks.....

and here are some Robins and other assorted species....

the trail.....

The amphitheater....that was as far as we made it, it was just too deep to slog through....

The road now was definitely 'white'....

There is the camper..... thank goodness we'd had the foresight to deal with the tanks the day before.....

Even poor April seems in shock....we'd had to plonk her in a tire track on the road so that she could 'pee'.....everywhere else was too deep for her....and inside she had to wear a sweater....our concern now was, would the propane hold out because the furnace was running virtually non-stop.

Come evening and it continued to snow...Ernie and Shantz ventured out again.....

Not me! but I didn't have to. While I was doing the supper dishes these deer wandered past the campsite. Come bedtime, it was still snowing.