While the temperatures might be getting springlike and the snow is melting fast, nature is slow to awaken from her slumber. (More like a coma in Saskatchewan)
I visited Beaver Creek with my camera yesterday. The main things moving were the chickadees, and they're here all winter. People feed them a lot here, so they're quite inquisitive. If you hold out your hand (even empty) they will fly over to have a look. But there are plenty of leftover sunflower seeds on the ground for them to feed on. Despite their curiosity, they don't sit still for more than a few seconds at a time, so they're still a challenge to photograph.
I've been coming to Beaver Creek since I was a kid so I tend to resent how regimented it's become. I'm all for protection, but all too often it devolves into bureaucracy. Now there are fences and locked gates and official hours and official paths. If you want to protect it, put the parking lot back at the highway and let people walk. The most numerous and fanciest signs are the "Trail Closed" ones. It's a natural area for goodness sake. The trails aren't meant to run smooth and straight from your house to the mall. Trails are meant to meander and branch and run into obstacles or dead ends. You don't need an official "Trail Closed" sign to stop people walking into a flooded area, or into the creek. I think they'll figure it out. Places with beavers (like Beaver Creek) are always in flux. Trees get cut down and fall across the path. Areas get flooded or drained. I saw one tree wrapped in chicken wire to protect it from the beavers. Really? If they can't eat the trees at Beaver Creek, where can they? But the beavers had the last word - they had pulled down the chicken wire and chewed down the tree anyway. Fellow anarchists :-)
Sorry, off on a bit of a tangent / rant, as us old curmudgeons are apt to do.
There were still a few remnants from the autumn that survived the winter.
And a few that are around all year.
The only other wildlife stirring were, surprisingly, spiders. The first one I saw was skating around on the surface of the melting creek. I wonder if it was there deliberately, or fell in?
Then later I notice many of them on a sunny dirt bank. I think they're the same kind as the first. I assume they must have overwintered to be out so early. They look like hunters. I wonder if they were finding any prey?
Not much open water, so no reflections, but I still managed an abstract of the melting river.
Back in Saskatoon, the Canada geese are trickling back although no big noisy V's in the sky yet. No sign of crocus flowers, although the snow is gone from their usual spot and their green leaves are appearing. The gophers are starting to emerge. And a Hairy woodpecker (quite a bit larger than the little Downy woodpeckers that come to our feeder) was noisily hammering on a tree.
See all 15 photos in this album
I visited Beaver Creek with my camera yesterday. The main things moving were the chickadees, and they're here all winter. People feed them a lot here, so they're quite inquisitive. If you hold out your hand (even empty) they will fly over to have a look. But there are plenty of leftover sunflower seeds on the ground for them to feed on. Despite their curiosity, they don't sit still for more than a few seconds at a time, so they're still a challenge to photograph.
I've been coming to Beaver Creek since I was a kid so I tend to resent how regimented it's become. I'm all for protection, but all too often it devolves into bureaucracy. Now there are fences and locked gates and official hours and official paths. If you want to protect it, put the parking lot back at the highway and let people walk. The most numerous and fanciest signs are the "Trail Closed" ones. It's a natural area for goodness sake. The trails aren't meant to run smooth and straight from your house to the mall. Trails are meant to meander and branch and run into obstacles or dead ends. You don't need an official "Trail Closed" sign to stop people walking into a flooded area, or into the creek. I think they'll figure it out. Places with beavers (like Beaver Creek) are always in flux. Trees get cut down and fall across the path. Areas get flooded or drained. I saw one tree wrapped in chicken wire to protect it from the beavers. Really? If they can't eat the trees at Beaver Creek, where can they? But the beavers had the last word - they had pulled down the chicken wire and chewed down the tree anyway. Fellow anarchists :-)
Sorry, off on a bit of a tangent / rant, as us old curmudgeons are apt to do.
There were still a few remnants from the autumn that survived the winter.
And a few that are around all year.
The only other wildlife stirring were, surprisingly, spiders. The first one I saw was skating around on the surface of the melting creek. I wonder if it was there deliberately, or fell in?
Then later I notice many of them on a sunny dirt bank. I think they're the same kind as the first. I assume they must have overwintered to be out so early. They look like hunters. I wonder if they were finding any prey?
Not much open water, so no reflections, but I still managed an abstract of the melting river.
Back in Saskatoon, the Canada geese are trickling back although no big noisy V's in the sky yet. No sign of crocus flowers, although the snow is gone from their usual spot and their green leaves are appearing. The gophers are starting to emerge. And a Hairy woodpecker (quite a bit larger than the little Downy woodpeckers that come to our feeder) was noisily hammering on a tree.
See all 15 photos in this album
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