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 27 – Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park – Part 2

Our next destination this day was the Conglomerate Cliffs….

The road to the cliffs went off to the right, just after the information sign….it wasn’t much of road and I was beginning to wonder as it seemed to go on for quite a while….

But it did eventually lead us to this point….

Here is the sign we found there…..

and here is the view…note the snow still down in there in some areas….

This view shows a bit more of the cliffs themselves….I think we are looking northward or possibly north west here…

 

looking more eastward now….

eastward again..

a ground level shot….we’ll get to the wildflowers in a minute….

Ernie and Shantz taking in the view….

Ernie took this close up of the conglomerate rock that forms these cliffs….it doesn’t look all that stable to me!

It wasn’t just the view that made this place so interesting….it was the array of wildflowers as well, especially on the east facing hillsides where I guess the sun warmed things up the quickest….

this hillside was actually quite steep and covered in pine needles as well as dried grass so we were risky life and limb in getting these wildflower close ups…

 

This is apparently ‘Blackish Locoweed’….

and these are Cut-leaf Daisies….we saw these in the Yukon and they grow in hot dry areas in B.C. as well….the white petals are very short lived so you usually just see the yellow ‘buttons’

Here is some of that Musineon which we first saw back at Chin Lake in Alberta…

This is Smooth Blue Beardtongue….just in bud….we’ll see it in flower later on in this trip….

Here is some Field Chickweed along with the Beardtongue…

Some more of that Owl Clover, seen back at Chin Lake and Dinosaur Provincial park….

and yup!  Prairie Crocus!

Here is some Early Cinquefoil…..there was lots of ‘yellow’ with the Cinquefoil, Musineom and Dandelions…

Early Locoweed as well…

there is another Beardtongue on the hillside…this might give a bit of an idea of the angle of the hill…

and there is a cluster of Prairie Crocus….there were lots of these clusters spread throughout the entire grassy plateau….

I have to throw this picture that Ernie took in as well….his camera (Panasonic) actually seems to take better wildflower pictures than any of them!

There weren’t a lot of birds in the area of the cliffs….but I did spot this Townsend’s Solitaire…

there were also Chipping Sparrows (picture) and Savannah Sparrows (not pictured) and Junco (also not pictured)

and robins….where aren’t there robins????  So after a break for lunch….we’ll continue on with this days explorations.

Kentucky Allyene Provincial Park

In the last few posts I’ve made reference to Kentucky Allyene Provincial Park, so thought I’d go back into my pictures and post those I have of this lovely little provincial park.

The most straightforward way to get to the park is off of the Coquilla Connector (Highway 97C), turn south onto the old Princeton highway (5A), the turn off to the park is 11 km south of Aspen Grove.

The following pictures won’t be in any particular order although I may try to make them make a bit of sense…

This picture, taken on Feb. 27, 2005 remains as one of my all time favourite pictures…that is Ernie and our nosy little Brussels Griffon, ‘Willie’ checking out this bit of raft on a frozen Allyene Lake.

This picture, taken the same day shows the frozen lake, although there is no snow in the surrounding countryside.  It is too bad that on our ‘Spur of the moment’ drive last Sunday we didn’t pop over this way to see what it looks like currently. 

This is the earliest digital image I have of Allyene Lake.  This photo was taken on September 1st, 2003.  Although the west shore is quite forested, the remainder of the shoreline is open grasslands.

This picture was taken on October 2, 2004.  It and the one above are both taken from the main camping area on Allyene Lake.

and to give to proof to what I’ve said, that we often take drives up into this part of the country in the middle of winter…this was taken on February 9, 2006 and shows one of the campsites in the intermediary area between Allyene and Kentucky Lakes.  There are a couple of ‘pot hole’ lakes here, 1 of them is the snow covered area on the right of the photo.

on that same visit I had taken this pictures of the aspen trees that line the access road to the park.  In spring this area is always alive with birds, however, I noticed on our last visit that there are now signs up saying this is private property and to stay on the road……

One of the best visits we ever had was in Easter of 2006.  We took a week and initially went to Juniper Beach Provincial Park, then Tunkwa, and eventually to Kentucky Allyene where we, being virtually the only people there, had one of the spots right on the shore of Kentucky Lake that was still partially frozen.  The date was April 20th…unfortunately you can’t do that anymore, either, as the gate to Kentucky Lake’s campground doesn’t open until May 15th – one of my pet peeves – why???  They should be open all the time! We ‘retired’ and ‘semi-retired’ people with our RV’s can get by without water and pit toilets being available….just let us park!  We’ve been paying taxes long enough.

This was our campsite that visit and one morning we got up to sheer magic…..  There had been a light dusting of snow over night…

as the sun rose everything sparkled ….

with the rising of the sun the snow quickly evaporated….

but not before I managed to get out and shoot a few pictures like this one of a Townsend’s Solitaire…

and this, which is, to date, my best picture of a Mountain Chickadee, although the snow had disappeared in this sunny spot.

There were also a number of Barrow’s Goldeneye on the lake that trip.

This was also the first time we’d witness the ice coming off of a lake as we took this picture from about half way down the lake one day….and the next day, the lake was ice free.

This shot, taken on April 18, 2003 shows the extreme south end of Kentucky Lake.  The shores of this lake are forested but there is a walking trail the whole way around the lake.  There is often snow at this end of the trail well into May….depending on the type of winter of course.

This is probably enough for this posting….I’ll do some more next time.