On Sunday evening I was looking wistfully out past King George V Mountain, sulking because of the grey cool weather that has been hanging around for a week or so. From time to time Environment Canada posts tantalizing promises of sun, later down the road, only to take them away as time draws closer. Low clouds hung around the top of King George, coming and going as they pleased.
My work for the day was done and Leah was about to head down to her mom's with Hilary and I thought "To heck with it, I'm going to go back to see the Peregrines!" There was no point in waiting for sunny weather, who knows when it would appear, and it wasn't like it was going to get dark. So I gathered my hide, camera and tripod, dropped the women in my life off and headed back to the canyon.
It quickly became clear that the bird life didn't care about the dull drizzly skies. Dozens of Glaucous Gulls, Thayer's Gulls and Ravens lifted from the tundra by the dump as I headed up the pass. On the pass Lapland Longspurs and Snow Buntings sang, and as I crossed rocks older than multicellular life, I saw my first American Pipit of the year, nervously flying off at my clumsy approach, camera in hand.
When I reached the canyon it took awhile to find a place to ford the river, much higher than my previous visit, gingerly stepping onto a shelf of ice overhanging the river. Then it was a matter of climbing higher to the spot I'd picked out for the hide. Curses but it didn't look as steep or as high when I decided it would be the best spot for taking photos of the falcons. Zigzaging up the slope I eventually made my way through boulders larger than the hide to the edge of the canyon and set up it up on a patch of moss, crawled inside and waited.
(The hide is here in this picture I took the next day, in the upper left corner amongst the boulders)
I settled in, comfortable on the moss, and waited for the Peregrine to return. I could hear her on the nest but she was not visible, and he had flown down the canyon as I approached. It was quite comfortable, the temperature dropping noticeably as a cloud rolled in, softening everything in the late light.
As an aside you have to wonder what goes through an animal’s mind when a hide suddenly appears… “Hey Cecil, look at that four foot high square bush that sprung up over there”. “Wow. There was a guy over there just a little earlier, he must be quite the horticulturist.”
Alas, the birds were not going to co-operate, I could hear the male upstream from where I was, but soon he was quiet. Another pipit flew in and perched on a boulder not 6 feet away. Unfortunately not on the same side as my camera was pointed. I contemplated taking the camera off the tripod to try for a shot, but he didn’t stay long enough. The time passed too quickly, and I was past the time I had told Leah I would be back, with still an hour hike ahead of me. As I tried phoning her to let her know I’d be late (the phone at her mom’s was off the hook) I phoned my dad to wish him a happy Father’s Day, then my sister for birthday wishes, and still no opportunity to photograph the falcons came.
Finally I could wait no longer, and I came out of the hide, much to the surprise of the male, who had quietly moved across from me. As soon as I stood he began screaming at me and bolted across the canyon, circling and mobbing me until I moved farther down the slope, leaving my hide in the hope of returning soon. I paused to photograph a great bunch of Purple Saxifrage
, and then searched for another place to cross the river, not wanting to trust the shelf of ice in order to step into the river. I had to travel downstream a ways, climbing out of the valley once, in order to find another safe crossing. Once across I climbed up to where I was on the first visit, looking for a lost lens cap (to no avail), but I could not put off returning home any longer, and I arrived back at the truck a little after 1am, some two hours later than I said I’d be back.
Monday, contrary to the forecasts, blue skies appeared. When they stuck around into the afternoon, I made plans to get away once more. I thought I’d take advantage of the sun to get those falcon pictures, and bring back my hide. I was not the only one to be taking advantage of the sun, butterflies were everywhere. I know that I should have been photographing them, but I only took along the telephoto (that lost lens cap thing) which wasn’t conducive to macro photography.
And while I didn’t try to photograph the butterflies the American Pipits were proving just too darn camera shy for a photo. But I did manage to find a co-operative Snow Bunting, who paused long enough from chasing his mate for a picture.
When I arrived at the river around 3 pm, I discovered that it had risen significantly in the last 14 or so hours, and that I could no longer easily cross it. My hide was stranded on the other side, probably for a month or so now. I hiked back to the second branch of the stream, ate a snack, drank deeply from the very, very cold waters and sat back to enjoy the sun.
Then up I went again. Once again I was on the wrong side of the canyon from the nest, but as I couldn’t see or hear either bird I thought I might have a chance. I set up the camera in the shadow of a large boulder, and waited, and while I waited I glassed the canyon.
And there he was, high up on the lip, no doubt having watched me for a long time.
And he didn’t budge from his perch or call to betray his presence. I sat for an hour and realized that once again I had stayed past my stated return time, and reluctantly hiked for home, too late to pick up Leah at work.
But Monday wasn’t over yet, and after supper Leah took an opportunity to go fishing at the water lake. An hour later Hilary and I had enough of staying at home and at 9pm we went out to the lake to join her. Once there though we took a different tack, and with Hilary in the child backpack I set off along the outflow for another bird survey, a couple kilometre route to the Bay. Once we got out to the sandy area and dry tundra, Hilary walked on her own, joyfully pointing out Purple Saxifrage and Lapland Longspurs, until it was time to head back and meet Leah.
So in a little more than 24 hours I managed to fit in three good hikes, not much climbing in the last one, but about half of it is tussocky wet tundra. And yeah, I hurt on Tuesday. Hurt so good.
Comments
3 responses
Sounds great! Wish you’d had better luck with the falcons.
Gorgeous, Clare! I was going to comment on how beautiful your Purple Saxifrage is but I see that you’ve already given it a place of honor in your header.
Me too Liza, me too.
Thanks Mike, you usually see it in smaller bunches. This was nicely set off by the rocks.