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                              Sask. 2011

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Sunday, July 10, 2011

Carol was kind enough to let me stay at her lovely home on a leafy street near the University of Regina.

The garden was lovely. A family tradition.

As happy chance would have it, the new furnace and air conditioner had been installed the day before, just in time for the summer heat wave.

In the meantime, every corner of the house had some kind of fascinating display that made you stop and stare in wonder for at least 15 minutes.

It was like living in an art gallery and a museum, all rolled into one.

I had a quiet little room downstairs with my own bathroom and living room. It was a perfect little hideaway, although it meant that I had to kick out Sam and Simon on a regular basis.

They were a bit miffed, but they soon learned to like it upstairs again.

After a few interesting nights.

A pillow over my head muffled all sorts of yowling, I found. A handy little trick.

The city of Regina was wrapped around Wascana Lake, a man-made feature that brought everyone together and introduced you to Regina's charms.

The place was so darn clean. And a cool breeze blew even on the hottest of days.

Regina, named after Queen Victoria Regina, paid homage to its royal roots and maintained its stately dignity in a number of ways.

The Albert Street bridge was a gorgeous piece of work fitted with ceramic decorations from the Victorian era.

At a weir under the bridge, someone was busy filtering out all the fish that couldn't make it through.

Where I came from, a Pelican living under a bridge in the city was cause for wonder and amazement.

Regular fare for Reginans.

And much better a bird than a human.

Everywhere there were museums and hip restaurants, wide boulevards and tidy government buildings, some small, some not so small.

The legislative building was spectacular.

Carol went to work for the department of energy and resources, doing her part helping along Canada's booming resource sector. Saskatchewan was the mining hub of the nation and Carol was at the heart of it.

Sure was an interesting job. Especially if you liked rocks. Which she did. And I did. And realized how important they were.

Wascana Lake's resident geese — Canada Geese with a smattering of Snow Geese — were a bit of a worry for the city.

For one thing, Snow Geese nested above the Arctic Circle.

Secondly, geese can't survive a Saskatchewan winter. In fact, humans barely can.

Every year, goslings and their parents all needed to be collected and shipped up north where they could populate to their heart's content. And, more importantly, migrate back to next year so they didn't add to the dead geese clogging up Wascana Lake in Regina's winter.

Oh the tricky things we humans get ourselves caught up in where nature was concerned.

But still no reason to kick the geese.

Around southern Ontario, urban areas seemed bereft of birds in July and August.

There were times during summer when I wondered where the heck did all the birds go? Where did they go to hatch and bring up their young'uns?

Well … found 'em.

All those warblers and songbirds that liked to zoom through Ontario during migration on their way to choicer ground? They headed straight to Saskatchewan.

In Regina, you couldn't turn around without seeing something that would make you jump out of your skin with excitement anywhere in southern Ontario.

Prothonatary warblers. Feeding young.

A Least Flycatcher. In the branches above our heads.

There were Kingbirds flycatching from every clump of trees, it seemed. Not Ontario's common Eastern Kingbird, but its Saskatchewan counterpart.

The Western Kingbird.

Yellow breasted.

Speaking of western variations, the local Robins had an unusual look.

Young with breasts that were very heavily spotted.

There were goslings, ducklings and chicks around every corner. And almost within arm's reach.

Like this cute little Downey woodpecker, buzzing around the branches after Mom.

And a Canada Goose, lazily sunning itself beside the lake.

I'd never seen one from quite that close. About two feet away from the camera, actually.

I could practically count the fleas.

Birds sure seemed friendlier and more relaxed in Saskatchewan.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Some said the countryside of Saskatchewan was flat and boring. Covered with grass.

Only the last part was true. Sort of.

There was grass, but then there was prairie grass.

This was prairie grass.

And so was this.

And this.

With a patch of canola. And dust. Lots and lots of dust.

On closer look, the prairies were actually made up of potholes, lakes, hills, valleys, escarpments, wetlands, grasslands and hummocks covered with an almost unimaginable variety of wildflowers.

Each species had its own beauty.

Even thistles.

This was a Wavy-Leaved Thistle flower bud. Psychedelic.

Saskatchewan was a maze of prairie dog burrows and tunnels. The rodents popped out everywhere, including the in middle of the city, and made mad dashes across roads at inopportune times.

A whole community of Black-tailed Prairie Dogs installed themselves at the University of Regina and spied on passers-by at the wildflower gardens, making Swiss cheese out of lawns and gardens.

Cute but pesky.

They were food for a raft of important predators like hawks, eagles, foxes and coyotes. But cattle farmers hate them.

Speaking of dogs, my favourite Saskatchewan flower was the Prairie Coneflower.

A kind of limp pathetic half-mangled Black-eyed Susan.

Couldn't help but side with an underdog.

In the Qu'Appelle valley, something caught my eye at the side of the road.

Unusual velvet leaves. Scarlett Mallow. Didn't look like any mallow I knew.

Indeed, the prairies were the experimental greenhouses of Canada.

Destructive prairie fires actually cleared the way for new species like Fireweed allowed incredible biodiversity.

Perhaps this was the origin of many foods that we take for granted today. Primitive forms of tomato, cucumber, onion, mustard, sunflower, beans, sarsparilla, strawberry, licorice, hops, parsnip, blueberry, cranberry, corn, wheat, rye, oats, and flax were all found on the prairies. They were probably hybridized in prehistoric or bygone times, then transformed into the modern varieties we now eat at the dinner table.

If you thought these fetching wheels of pale blue petals were asters, you would be wrong.

This was lettuce. Blue Lettuce to be exact.

Lots of today's cultivated flowers grew wild in profuse abandon on the prairies, popping up between the grasses like hidden gems.

Like these Gaillardia or Blanket flowers.

Buckbrush, a low-lying bush, could have been a precursor for today's domesticated Honeysuckle vines.

As were wild roses, found just about everywhere in the prairies, for today's bush roses.

A wild, stunted version of Artemisia covered a clearing in the Qu'Appelle Valley.

Prairie sagewort. Very aromatic. Winter food for deer.

It was on a lot created for a modest but much-loved church, St. Nicholas Anglican Church, built in 1903.

You couldn't help but imagine how lonely and brave the people of the Qu'Appelle Valley must have felt in January, sitting in that tiny church in the middle of a massive prairie blizzard.

Or how satisfied and free on a beautiful day in July.

The interior was divine in more ways than one.

With a view like that, it would have been hard to concentrate on the sermon.

Carol and I were in the Qu'Appelle Valley visiting the Fieldstone Inn, the historic home of her friends Pam Schwann and Russ Hodgins.

They had kindly given us free reign of their property. Typical Saskatchewan hospitality.

And even better, we could use their bathroom.

Thank goodness.

It was an hour drive back to Regina.

We sat with Russ on the porch of the Fieldstone Inn and this was the view.

Not bad.

Just to top things off, a hummingbird buzzed us and tried to connect with the feeder.

Oh those Saskatchewan winds.

Russ regaled us with stories of bears, cougars and eagles, and mud-wrestling with badgers.

Not sure how much of it was true, but it sure was entertaining.

The property was also the home for a delightful building imported from Findlater. The family used it as a handy shelter for parties and get-togethers.

A good use for an old train station.

It was like stepping into another century.

You could picture the station master selling tickets and announcing departures in his "booth." Passengers sat at simple tables on the left and waited.

It must have been hot in there, but at least it was indoors. Flies probably buzzed all day and night against those windows.

Posters must have covered the walls, just like this newspaper did in 1959.

"Canada advised to wait before building A-subs."

"Judge orders striking ironworkers arrested."

"Scientists propose satellite system to police A-blasts."

An article about Canada's new Queen Elizabeth arriving on a trip to the west with Prince Phillip. A visit to the Calgary stampede, a stopover in Banff, a sighting of a bear. Travel by way of special royal coach on the CPR train line. All sounding strangely reminiscent of a recent trip to Canada made by the newest generation of royals, Prince William and Katherine Middleton, the newly-married Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

And all fascinating stuff to a newspaper person.

To say the Qu'Appelle Valley was scenic was an understatement.

Glaciers had carved out a place of wonderful vistas and a corridor for all sorts of wildlife.

Coots walked the edges of marshes and Ruddy Ducks led slews of ducklings through the reeds.

All in a hurry to keep a distance. They knew hunting season was only a couple months away.

On the way home, I added a new species to my life list.

And it was a doozy.

A Mountain Bluebird.

A magnificent bird in a magnificent part of Canada.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Real birders cannot leave Saskatchewan without a visit to the Saskatchewan Burrowing Owls Information Centre in Moose Jaw just off the Trans Canada Highway.

I simply had to see the bird commemorated in Carol's Christmas gift of last year.

There are only about 40 known wild Burrowing Owls left in Canada. Moose Jaw is the centre of its territory.

These shy ground-dwelling birds, only a bit bigger than a robin, are vulnerable to farmers taking over their breeding territories in Canada. In Mexico, to where they migrate after an astonishing 3,000 kilometre journey, they are frequently the victims of road collisions and heavy pesticides.

They literally stand around on the prairies day and night and become a pest-killing machine, devouring beetles, grasshoppers, mice and voles under a silent but all-seeing watch.

Did I mention they were incredibly cute?

Oh for Pete's sake.

My cuteness metre just blew a gasket.

Last year, Carol sponsored Valentino the Burrowing Owl. She finally got to see him at the Centre.

Plus she got acquainted with another charmer, Trooper.

Because of an injury, Trooper was unable to survive in the wild.

Now he has the life of Riley, hanging around visitors at the Centre, sitting on the shoulders of staff members, reading computer screens and occasionally mating with female captive Burrowing Owls.

I once had a boyfriend like that.

Carol and I spent the rest of the day trying to find at least one of Saskatchewan's famous Yellow Headed Blackbirds, one that would sit still for Pete's sake.

No luck. But we saw lots of Western Meadowlarks with their entertaining bubbling song.

Always chasing down bugs.

Some gorgeous water plants bloomed away in a flooded ditch near Pense.

White Watercrowfoot. Part of the Ranunculus family, believe it or not.

This year's prairie floods were a completely unexpected weather aberration. It made for fantastic viewing conditions for local flora.

Many fields went unplanted in the soggy spring and farmers complained bitterly.

Shorebirds, on the other hands, were thrilled.

As an added special bonus to our day trip, a pair of American Avocets made an appearance at a farm off a gravel side road to Rouleau.

A Killdeer showed up for comparison.

This Avocet managed to find fish in the shallow mud flats.

Under the hot July sun, ponds were finally drying up fast. Must have been the old shooting fish in the barrel scenario for those lucky Avocets.

This Avocet got a fish down its gullett by repeatedly flipping it in the air until it landed sideways in its beak.

Then after a series of major horks, down the hatch.

Awkward. But ultimately effective.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Saskatchewan's fabulous hospitality came through yet again when Carol's friends invited us to use their waterfront cottage at Madge Lake in Duck Mountain Provincial Park.

The four-hour drive to the park was almost as interesting as the park itself.

Coots filled the marshes lining the highway outside Yorkton.

Historic grain elevators dotted the landscape along with railway tracks and old-fashioned hydro poles.

Balcarres had a wonderfully scenic grain elevator, especially set against that legendary endless Saskatchewan sky.

A little chapel in Lebret watched over the Qu'Appelle valley.

The hamlet of Wroxton had super interesting buildings, from abandoned old autoshops …

… to stately old Ukrainian Greek Orthodox churches.

The intricate wooden church architecture was fascinating, especially knowing that it was built in 1905 by Ukrainian immigrants who arrived to Canada with barely the shirts on their backs.

Not far down the highway, a more humble work of architecture totally stole my heart.

St. Vladimir and Olga Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Carol went to check out the little cemetery.

Cast iron gravemarkers. I'd never seen that before.

Duck Mountain Provincial Park was a piece of Boreal forest which got left behind during the glacier retreat. It felt like I'd walked into Algonquin Park.

Bears and all.

There sure was a lot to see.

Aphrodite Fritillary butterflies fluttered over our heads everywhere we went.

The outsides of their wings looked a lot different.

I tried to photograph a busy Yellow Throated Warbler, but the mosquitoes had me under continuous bombardment.

A loudly chirping Yellow Bellied Sapsucker sat still for the camera.

There were endless varieties of dragonflies, some in neon colours …

… and others not …

… but just as interesting.

They tried valiantly to make a dent in the park's 16 trillion billion kajillion mosquitoes.

No dice.

It was stifling hot, overcast and drizzly, which didn't discourage the insect population.

The Bluebells loved it.

And the American Bittern.

And the beaver that sat on our front lawn for a couple of hours.

Demolishing the scenery.

The loons called out all night long.

A classic summer vacation soundtrack.

When constuction started up at a cabin next door — another classic cottage soundtrack — that was that.

No options left and no place to hide.

We headed back to Regina the next day.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Renting a car and heading off to unknown territory in search of adventure was mandatory for vacations.

In this case, it had to include birds.

Old Wives Lake bird sanctuary was a bit more than an hour out of Regina heading southwest.

I took the scenic route looping around Moose Jaw on the Trans Canada Highway to view the Dirt Hills, a winding ridge of hilly country at the edge of the Missouri Couteau, a plateau stretching into North Dakota.

Besides, at Chaplin I had missed the cut-off for the shorebird reserve and visitor centre.

Those darn small polite Saskatchewan signs.

Argh.

But good things lay ahead.

Highway 19 west of the Old Wives Bird Sanctuary was a scenic drive through classic mixed prairie landscape with all the prairie icons a heart could desire.

I loved this old grain elevator in Hodgeville, across from an abandoned 1950s corner store and gas station.

Could have been a set for that great Canadian television comedy series Corner Gas.

Wait a minute.

It almost was. Rouleau, where they filmed the show, was only an hour away.

Over every hill lay a painting in waiting.

The loneliest church in Saskatchewan sat on a hill overlooking a flooded pond near Gravelbourgh.

St. Elizabeth Church.

In Mossbank, the signs to Old Wives Lake were … yes you guessed it … pretty darn small. When I stumbled out of the car to ask for directions, the old Saskatchewan super hospitality tradition kicked into high gear.

I didn't realize I was talking to none other than Don Smith, Mossbank's local naturalist, bird expert, hunting guide, museum curator, historian and compiler of all things to do with Old Wives Lake.

I had hit a birder's jackpot.

Old Wives Lake was the site of a WW II RCAF aviation training camp in the 1940s, and when it cleared out, a few things got left behind.

Before that, something else had gotten left behind in the mud flats of Old Wives Lake.

An old Buffalo skull.

The shallow saline lake was named after an old Indian legend.

The story went like this: a Cree encampment found itself under threat by marauding Blackfoots. The Cree men decided they and the children would head to safety during the night and leave the older women behind to light fires to confuse the Blackfoot.

The Blackfoot later charged the encampment and upon realizing that most of their prey had left, slaughtered the women. But it was too late to claim anyone else.

Now that was a strategy that worked really well, I said to Don.

I know, he said, chuckling. I've heard it before. The things that women have to put up with.

Later I said to Carol, gosh, I wish I could have heard that conversation. The one where the men tell the women okay, you're all staying, we're all leaving.

Yeah, Carol laughed. They probably told the women now don't worry, we'll be back soon.

Then never showed up again, I said. We both cracked up.

Goodness. The joke potential was endless.

So it seemed that the more things changed, the more things stayed the same.

Even where Indian legends were concerned.

Don took me on a tour of the area in his ancient but amazingly resilient Toyota hatchback. 500,000 kilometres.

There was a day-old cooked chicken in the back. I was afraid to ask why.

I was going to leave that on the prairie, Don said. Food for the animals.

Ohh, I thought. Now it made sense. But with me it was normally day-old bread for the baby grackles.

I didn't have cute little hungry coyote pups in my backyard.

Right off the bat, a Willett standing sentinel at the beginning of the causeway chewed me out.

Didn't like me being there. At all. Wanted to make sure I knew it, too.

There was an amazing number of shorebirds and chicks along the edges.

Apparently Northern Shovellers had big honkers even at birth. Who knew?

I had never seen so many Red Necked Phalaropes in one location.

Close up, too.

We drove around the lake and on the dusty sand road that surrounded it, Don pointing out the sights.

A Swainson's Hawk nested in that tree, he said. Had chicks again this year.

I nearly fell out of the car. An addition to my life list. And a darn good one.

Over on another fence post stood another bird of prey. A big one.

A Ferruginous Hawk. Another lifer.

The car suddenly screeched to a halt. Look, Don said. A Horned Lark.

Having a dust bath. Looked a bit different from the Horned Larks in Ontario. Whiter.

Maybe a Prairie Horned Lark, Eremophila alpestris praticola.

There was one bird I was itching to see. A relative of the crow with an incredibly long tail and showy scalloped wings.

They were pretty hard to find though. Elusive.

Not here.

Black-billed Magpies. Surveying their kingdoms.

Checked the life list yet again.

One more look at the prairie's most familiar bird before it was time to wrap it up and go home.

One of a million Western Meadowlarks singing its heart out.

Mossbank's population was only 600 but it sure had a great restaurant.

After a delicious steak dinner and a little more sight-seeing, I headed back to Regina.

A wonderful prairie moon showing the way home.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

A return trip to Mossbank seemed like a good way to spend the last day of holidays. Carol decided to come along and check things out for herself.

The highways were lined with Prairie Sunflowers.

It was hard to concentrate on driving.

After getting a little lost on the highway, we finally found the way to Mossbank.

Those darn signs. Or should I say, lack of them. Sigh.

The Willett standing guard at the causeway had remembered me from two days before.

She was there waiting with a few choice things to say.

None of them good. As I walked down the causeway, she flew over my head for some distance, crying and complaining.

Giving me the stink eye and trying to take me out.

Right.

Man, why the heck was she so upset with me? I was only walking.

Because she liked to park her family right there on the other side of the causeway.

Okay. I got out of her zone.

Shorebirds are hard to distinguish at the best of times, but these weren't.

Lesser Yellowlegs.

After raising their broods near the Arctic Circle, Sanderlings were already migrating south again.

There were so many shorebirds and ducks in the water I couldn't keep track of them all.

But I was disturbing them when I walked by, and I stuck out like a sore thumb.

Plus I was getting one doozy of a sunburn.

We headed over to the lake.

The sandy roads at Old Wives Lake were deserted.

There seemed to be more varieties of beautiful blooms than ever.

Sasketchewan's lovely official flower, the Western Red Lily, popped up between the grasses.

Along with Bellflowers.

My favourites, Prairie Coneflowers, bloomed in profusion.

It was an artist's paradise.

It was also a steaming hot day, one of the hottest of the year.

The sparrows of the area were all using fence posts as bug observation towers. Made our lives a lot easier.

But it sure was hot with that relentless sun beating down.

They panted and tried to cool their bodies in the hot breeze. Poor things.

Not much shade on the prairies unfortunately. But a lot of wind.

Things were never completely still. It made it a little hard to take good pictures.

One variety of sparrow kept on showing up wherever we went. Singing and singing.

I had a devil of time trying to figure out the species.

A female Chestnut collared Longspur.

Here's the male.

Much easier to identify. Even with a big bug in its mouth.

Hey, look up, Carol said on the way out of Old Wives Lake.

A flock of more than 100 American White Pelicans circled the west end of the lake, tilting and shimmering in the sun.

Amazing.

We had a great dinner at Nits Thai Food in Moose Jaw. I highly recommend the beef noodle salad. Delicious.

Moose Jaw was one of the most beautiful small towns I had ever seen.

The main street was a wide boulevard lined with paving stone sidewalks and preserved nineteenth century buildings.

Even the back alleys were tidy and picturesque.

It was such an interesting town, I promised myself that I would return and explore it.

But that would be on another trip to Saskatchewan.

My next summer vacation.