Currently on the road in Saskatchewan after touring from home for a few days. We've visited Lundbreck Falls, Beauvais Lake, Waterton Lakes National Park, Writing on Stone Provincial Park and Grasslands National Park so far.
We missed the storms around Waterton but considered ourselves lucky to be in a restaurant having dinner when the worst of it hit. We had overnight storms in Saskatchewan but we were tucked up in bed so dodged them too. At grasslands we had spectacular sunshine and a lovely cooling breeze making for perfect conditions. I'm so glad about that too as I had talked up the park and wanted Sarah to enjoy it, the weather was the icing on the cake as the Prairie Dogs all had pups and we saw a Prairie Badger too. At Writing on Stone Provincial Park Sarah went to use the toilet and let out a squeak when a Bullsnake wriggled across in front of her at the entrance. A ranger came along and collected the snake and took him to the safe grassland area and released him within a few minutes. It's been a great trip so far, I thought I'd post a few images tonight to share the journey. The main shot is of the shoreline and mountains at Waterton Lakes.
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I recently built a bird bath in the garden and we added 6 new trees too. Together they have generated more interest from some new birds and some new squirrels.
We've had a pair of starlings that are now regulars (main pic shows the male), and three new pine squirrels who are very small but also very noisy. There's an adult pine squirrel with only one good eye and another seemingly without defect. They are now 'one eye' and 'two eyes'. Having five pine squirrels is a recipe for squirrel fights and we're seeing plenty of them. The larger squirrels tend to stay out of the way and let them go at it. It's great to see them jumping from the trees and bouncing off each other between the plants. It's storm season so we've had some pretty spectacular lightning and a lot of rain which is perfect following the planting of the new trees. We've had a few cedar waxwings in the garden too, a first for us, so the new trees are really making a difference. With my birthday and Canada day fast approaching we'll be heading out to the prairies for a few days this weekend so the next post will be back on the road. Cecil is heading off to Europe for three weeks from tomorrow so we had our final kananaskis wander for a while today. After a conversation last night I suggested we take the macro lens and look for something different to our usual fare.
As it transpires we were a little early for the spring flowers, we did find a few but most were still just sprouting. It was nice to be out viewing the area through a different lens both figuratively and literally. We found some shots, walked a few kilometers in the spring sunshine and put the world to rights as usual. The main shot today shows lichen on a rock, the gallery below has captions. Home from my trip to Saskatchewan and the smoke from the wildfires has blown away to the north. The snow has melted from all but the most stubborn peaks and the sun is heating up the ground around Kananaskis.
I needed no further incentive to make the drive to highway 40 and the Kananaskis Valley, but meeting up with Cecil for the day added a further boost. What a beautiful day it was too, sunshine and a nice cooling breeze followed us as we hopped in and out of the vehicle making images of this stunning area. There's nothing special today just some nice images of a beautiful place in wonderful 'walkabout' weather. A couple of different squirrels, a new take on the old topic of driftwood by the lake, some parched earth and standard landscapes. The gallery has captions to identify locations. The main image is overlooking the lower lake, another new take on an old topic. The smoke from Alberta wildfires drove me out of the province last week into the wide open spaces of Saskatchewan, our neighboring province. I had my eye on Grasslands National Park so drove over there for a couple of days and explored. I stayed in the park until 1 am to make a milky way image and messed around with some light painting of a foreground tree.
As you can see in the main shot it worked out quite well considering the smoke/haze. It was a great help to be in an official 'dark sky' site and I'm sure during late autumn or early winter with clear skies this would be a great place to return to. The park itself is wonderful and more than I was expecting, I've made a full write up with more images and text about the place which you can find by clicking here. As usual there will be a permanent link on the Canada page. The small gallery below has no captions but the galleries in the full write up are all captioned. |
AuthorWe arrived in Calgary, Canada on 29th December 2011 to continue our journey. This blog is intended to keep our family and friends informed whilst we explore Canada.You can use the RSS feed below to stay updated. Categories
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