Kinbrook Island Provincial Park April 23, 2025

Well, I never did make it back to Kinbrook Island Provincial Park for a camping trip during autumn of 2021.  In fact, I never did get back to this park until today. After staying at my home away from home last night, it was nice to have such a short drive to get here and to get an early start.  During that April 2021 visit, I enjoyed two viewing platforms along the route and a dirt trail through the cottonwood forest.  The platforms are gone and the dirt trail is now paved.  Nevertheless, it is still a wonderful park for birding.

I covered an eight kilometre route and opted to park and start at the Marsh.

the route I covered

The following photos are in the order as they loaded into blogger and is not the order in which I took them.  There were many more ducks and birds and birds of prey that were in the area than what I am sharing here.  For some I was not able to capture photographs of or the photos I did take were not good.  The beautiful sights and wonderful sounds were non stop the entire route. I stuck to the trail but so many times I wished I could veer off to get closer to the views and sounds.   

Lesser Scaup (male and female)

American Coot

Western Meadowlark

Western Meadowlark

view along the way

Common Grackle

Common Grackle

view along the way

Red-necked Grebe

view along the way

Northern Shoveler (female)

Black-necked Stilt

Yellow-headed Blackbird

This guy put everything he had into his song!

Red-winged Blackbird

The following three photos were taken while they were flying overhead.  The first one which looked like an owl, I startled and it flew from out of the brush.  The last two were continuously circling and it looked like they were chasing each other.  Once I got home I used the Merlin app to get an ID and it told me this: 

1. Short-eared Owl   

2. Northern Harrier

3. Northern Harrier

While walking and birding here, I thought this is such a great spot to see many species.  It will only get better as each day passes and more birds and ducks arrive for the spring/summer season.  It's close to three hours from home so too far to make a day trip.  I will return another time and do an overnighter but that will probably be spring of next year.

 

Dinosaur Provincial Park April 22, 2025

While hiking the trails at Dinosaur Provincial Park today, I thought this is the perfect location to acknowledge Earth Day.  I was happy to leave the snow & ice covered city behind then arrive two and a half hours later at this UNESCO World Heritage Site. I last spent a day here back in mid April of 2021.  I noticed some nice new things, came across more closed off areas and saw more trail signs notifying trails are closed when wet.  It was wet today after last night’s rain so I stuck to the gravel trails.

I visited the overlook location before driving down into the Valley.

 views down into the Red Deer River Valley

notice the crocuses on the sunny grassy slope 

Mourning Dove

When I was here back in 2021, I noticed construction workers near the overlook parking lot.

  I am assuming they were constructing this new trail.

It was cold when I started hiking down in the Valley. I was thankful to have my little gloves and light hat. I noticed a few trailers in the campground on my way to the trail and also people biking some of the trails even though the sign said no bikes. 

some of the sights along tbe way

Eventually it warmed up enough to discard the hat, gloves and jacket.  

The gravel was easy to walk along, yet

 I accidentally stepped off the trail and it was a mess of slippery mud. 

getting back on the trail 

 

After three hours of hiking, I felt fulfilled from seeing what I saw on this Earth Day and was ready to head to my home away from home.  While driving a country road to Brooks, I had to stop to let this Ring-Necked Pheasant cross. I made it to my home away from home and settled in for the night!

The American Robin

My latest knitting project is this American Robin! I followed a pattern for the majority of it, but veered away from it when the knitting got complicated.  It was then that I created an easier way to meet the challenge.  It measures roughly ten inches tall and is suppose to be proportionately wide but she turned out being a bit more pleasingly plumb. She proudly sits in her nest.  The side view shows her feathers cover her back, she does indeed have a bright red big belly and her tail feathers fit in the nest too.  Oh and that beak has a life of its own!     

When I thought about knitting a Robin, I looked back to what other of my works of art were all about the Robin.  In 2020 when our world changed was when the artistic side of me screamed out loudly.  I began with coloured pencils making both of these Robins.

It was quite some time later, I jumped ship with the coloured pencils and went for watercolour painting.  Robins always catch my attention even to this day.  Yet, the biggest call was when I spotted a Robin sitting on a nest in May of last year.  I shared this story!  This is one of the paintings I did while I was monitoring the Robin.  

While I was knitting the Robin today, I watched snow fall outside, yes this is April in Calgary! I thought about this Robin that I painted back in 2022, it's bewildered looking at the snow fall.  

Over the past couple of days while "out & about", I spotted numerous Robins. These are a few of the many I saw.  Their activity tells me they are in the nest building mode.  It was the first week of May of last year when I first began to spot nests in various places.  I am excited for this year's new beginnings!  

OH, I forgot to place the following photo at the beginning of this post to go along with the photos of the Robin I knitted.  She is only sitting on the nest, she is not sewn to it.  This is the view when you remove her from her nest!  A sweet surprise!