Wildlife sightings

Ive always been under the opinion that viewing wildlife is best from 730-830am.  Much earlier and animals are still sleepy, much later and theyre skittish and hard to see.  Dont believe me? Fine.  But as support, this morning between 730 and 830 I saw Gray Jays and lots of other good birds, plus an adult moose with calf, a young black bear, and this larger one...

Papa bear

Off to SW Manitoba and Saskatchewan.  Til next time...

EH?

I hate to say it, but the stereotypes seem to be true.  So far, I feel like everyone in Canada uses the term, "eh?" at least once in conversation. 

camp and ditch

Camping has actually been quite expensive in Canada, with one site in Ontario running me $40.  Most sites are cheaper, and Manitoba has been around $20.  I spent 8 hours in Rivers Provincial Park: 7 sleeping, and 1 setting up and taking down my tent. The site was nothing special, and it creeped me out.  I figured if I left before 8, I could get out before the staff arrived.  So I did.  And honestly, I don't feel bad at all.

Drove today to Riding Mountain National Park, in central Manitoba.  This park is all forest, similar to Algonquin PP, a mix of hardwoods and spruce/tamaracks.  The park is like an island in a sea of prairie.  It represent a shoreline that used to exist when a glacier melted thousands of years ago, leaving behind Lake Agassiz, which covered most of Manitoba and northern Minnesota.  Today, all thats left of that lake is a few lakes in Manitoba and the waters at Agassiz NWR which I visited a few days ago....Im actually spending some time in the park looking for a few specific birds that I have not yet seen on this trip or in my life:  Spruce Grouse, Three-toed Woodpeckers, and Connecticut Warbler.  So far, no dice.

Clear Lake shoreline, Riding Mountain NP

photogenic frog

BUT!  I did treat myself to a delicious meal in a quaint little town within the park called Wasagaming.  Big old buffalo burger with fries and 3 glasses of Orange crush soda.  Oh how unbelievably delicious.  Oh I savoured it for sure.  A littel bit of heaven, surrounded by freeze-dried camping food, power bars, and McDonalds.

Bam!

  One night in Riding Mountain than off to SW Manitoba for the day and night tomorrow!  Hoping the wind I've had the past 3 days dies down.

I should have stayed in Winnipeg

So after I finished up my errands in Winnipeg, I went back to Oak Hammock to try to bird a little bit.  The wind was making things very difficult.  There were some storm clouds coming in fast too.  Out on the marsh, there isnt much cover for a person to take shelter in.  Fortunately, the people at Oak Hammock put up a gazebo that came in quite handy.  Within 5 minutes of my arrival at the marsh, I was hiding under the gazebo as it stormed, and then hailed quarter inch balls of ice!  Freaky weather, but for some reason, I feel like Ive heard it through the grapevine that the midwest is somewhat prone to freaky weather like this.

Hail

It was almost 5, so I decided to move a bit further west, to St. Ambroise PP on the shores of Lake Manitoba.  This park boasts a sandy beach that has nesting Piping Plovers, a federally endangered shorebird, amongst other cool birds.  The drive out was productive bird-wise, as a found a Ross's Goose in a flock of common Canada Geese.  This was a new bird for me!  This was my last good fortune for the day. 

The road to St. Ambroise PP

Approaching St. Ambroise and the lakeshore, the road turned to dirt.  No big deal.  Then debris all over the road.....OK....then huge rock boulders blocking any further travel to the park.  Ends up high water levels had much of the park flooded.  But where to camp!  Go back an hour and a half to Winnipeg?  No sir.  "Push west!", I said.  Back, on highway 1, the trans-canadian highway, there was an enormous thunderhead forming directly over the road.  I could see it from nearly 30 miles away.  When I was only 5 miles away, I was scared.  I turned off a side road heading to a campground maybe 20 miles down the road.  But the storm seemed to follow me, and it was dark, and I had little clue where I was going.  I decided to just stick to the highway and plow through the storm.  It ended up not being too bad.  Made it through, and found a campground, Rivers Provincial Park in western Manitoba, rolling in around midnight.

Trans-canada Highway....pre storm

The campground was out on the prairie and for some reason it reminded me of a slasher movie like  The Hitcher.  Needless to say, falling asleep wasnt so easy.  After all was said and done, staying in Winnipeg would have been better.

Rain

Woke up this morning around 8.  I had slept in, figuring today would be a day to catch up on things besides birding, like running, bank issues, blogging, phone calls, and thank you cards.  I went for a nice run in a local park in Winnipeg.  A really pretty park with huge oaks.  There was some sort of Art festival going on with hundreds of little kids running around.  There were walkers, joggers, rollerbladers, everyone was out enjoying the morning weather.  I did a little 35 minute run, finishing the last mile really hard, just for kicks.  While stretching, a lady walked past asking if I was the person who went past her.  I said yes, just finishing up a run.  She said that was no run, that was a sprint!  I told them I run cross country and track, so it's ok (ICXC represent!)  Anyway, a few nice birds in the park, including a surprise Olive-sided flycatcher.  This area of Winnipeg definitely gets two thumbs up by me as being a very pretty city.  The park was great, and so were the people.  My only suggestion to them is not to try and install a man made ski slope on the only hill above 100 feet in the whole area.... This is the prairie for crying out loud!

Why thank you, dont mind if i do.

No double black diamonds here

Anyway, the nice weather didn't last.  It quickly clouded up and began pouring and getting windy in the afternoon.  I am currently sitting in a Mcdonalds and its raining out.  No lie, every other day on this trip has been nice, with the days in between being windy and rainy.  It's kind of frustrating because it makes setting up and taking down a tent more of hassle, having to deal with everything getting wet.  It's also frustrating because it makes the birding more difficult, especially with the wind.  The weather for the area is much of the same on and off sunny, rainy for the next week.  I dont know, I feel like this whole spring has been unreasonably rainy and cold, and its still occurring up here.  I want it to end!  It's not as fun driving across country when it's raining.  Ok, computer's about to die.  Photos from last few posts to come soon.  Bye for now!

Small world?

I woke up Wednesday morning to partly sunny/partly cloudy skies.  But lots of wind.  I had camped at Hayes Lake state park for the night, and fell asleep to the wind howling.  I left camp around 715, driving another 40 miles south to Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge.  This huge complex is an island in a sea of agricultural land in northern Minnesota.  It consists mainly of marshes, created by man made impoundments that are regulated to control water levels at different times of the year.  Today I started to get a bit of western feel for the bird life, discovering in my 4 hours or so around the refuge 3 new birds that I had never seen before, plus a few others that I have only seen occasionally.  The new birds were Western Grebe, Clay-colored Sparrow, and Franklin's Gulls.  The Franklin's Gulls supposedly nest in a colony of over 40,000 birds, but this colony must be someplace inaccessible on the refuge, as I only saw a handful of the birds.  Still they are quite pretty.  The best part was that, like many of the places I've visited throughout this trip, I had the area to myself.  Except for park personnel, there was nobody around.  Except for one lady who met me on one of the viewing platforms.  She was older, maybe 65.  We got to talking, about birds of course.  When I ask her what she's doing here, she said she's on a trip across country too to see birds (see im not the only one).  I asked her where she's from originally.  She says, "Pennsylvania".  No way!  One person in the entire refuge in Northern Minnesota, and she's from my state.  Just north of Phili she said.   And what's even wierder, she went to SUNY Cortland, our biggest rival at Ithaca.  We had quite a nice chat, while birding at the same time.  She's seen over 650 bird species in North America, way more than me.  We eventually parted ways, and I finished off my birding of the refuge.

Mom and dad with kids (Canada Geese)

Clay-colored Sparrow.  The first time I have ever seen this species and they were everywhere

View of the marshland from platform at Agassiz NWR

After cleaning up back at the camp, I headed north to Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Border patrol again checked out my car, making me pop the trunk to inspect my bear spray to make sure that I wasnt covering up for some other type of spray weapon.  The man looked at it approvingly and sent me on my way.  Beautiful weather driving into Winnipeg.  I got in around 7:30, and decided to go directly to the Oak Hammock Wildlife Management area, north of the city.  What an awesome piece of land.  There's a huge visitor center, and miles of dikes to walk on and view all the marsh birds.  There had been a rare bird, a Red Phalarope (a kind of shorebird) seen at the park 5 minutes before I arrived.  Of course I missed seeing it, but still enjoyed the other wildlife.  Croaking Yellow-headed Blackbirds, families of Canada Geese, stunning Red-necked Grebes, and tons of frogs croaking everywhere.  All the people I saw were very friendly as well, telling me what I might see while at the refuge, and asking me how my trip was going so far.  I guess I myself can become somewhat chatty when I'm on the road by myself for long stretches of time.  I blame that attribute on my mom.  I stayed until the sun set, then made my way to Bird Hill Provincial Park, arrived around 1030, set up the tent, journaled, and passed out.  It was a clear night as I fell asleep, and I heard a welcoming Whippoorwill calling in the distance.  It was a great day to be outside.

Dike at Oak Hammock Wildlife Management Area

Million dollar real estate

Red-necked Grebe.  People always ask me what my favorite bird is.  I dont have a single favorite, but this one is up there!

Oak Hammock

illegal oranges

The border patrol has not been the easiest for me to pass lately.  They pulled me over when I first came into Canada through New York.  When I decided to go back into the states at International Falls, Mn, I had a different type of incident.  Everything was fine at first.  They believed me that I was traveling cross country.  But when asked if I had any food items from Canada that I was bringing back to the states, I told them I had bought some bananas and oranges.  Well that set them off.  Pulled off to the side, a dept. of agriculture officer told me that it's illegal to bring oranges across, or any citrus fruit for that matter.  I had 3 oranges left, and he took them from me!  That was my best source of vitamin C right there!  He also noticed an apple.  He asked where I purchased it, and I said Canada.  He lectured me for failing to declare the apple....a single red delicious apple.  He said had it not been an apple that was grown in Canada I could have been fined $300 for failure to declare.  I know they have laws at the border, but what a bunch of sticklers.