It was foolish of me to try to race that train. Read More
It was foolish of me to try to race that train. For one thing, it was nearly past me and all I had to do was wait a couple more minutes. For another, we weren’t even going the same direction. I was out looking for birds — again — hoping the recent snowfall might have
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It was foolish of me to try to race that train.
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For one thing, it was nearly past me and all I had to do was wait a couple more minutes. For another, we weren’t even going the same direction.
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I was out looking for birds — again — hoping the recent snowfall might have gotten them moving a bit. A lot of the migratory birds, waterfowl especially, might be concentrated around areas of open water instead of being scattered. Might be some robins or maybe even a bluebird around, too.
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And, luckily, I was kinda right. A little north of the city I found a pair of trumpeter swans on the edge of a small patch of water along with a handful of geese. That made me happy both because I might have headed out with the right idea but also because trumpeters have nested on this particular pond for at least the last five years and I was hoping this was the same pair back to nest again.
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But what I hadn’t counted on was the lack of snow cover I had expected to push the birds around.
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Last weekend’s dump of snow was apparently concentrated a bit more to the south and west. By the time I hit the countryside west of Airdrie and Crossfield, there was barely any snow at all. Some in the shadows, a bit along tree lines but otherwise, brown grass and muddy fields.
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But there were birds. All the usual spring suspects were there, mallards, wigeons, pintails, swans and Canada geese. Because there are always Canada geese.
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But there were also a few snow geese, the very first ones I’ve seen this year. And, in fact, some of the few I’ve ever seen this far west. I usually see snow geese out in the open country a hundred kilometres or so toward the prairie but here they were, a dozen or so of them, on a patch of open water in the foothills.
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Nice to see them here but it made me wonder if I might find more if I continued eastward. So I put the foothills in my mirror and aimed east to find out.
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The snow was still deep on my front lawn as I left the house but out here east of Crossfield there was none. The fields and pastures were bare, the trees were budded out. Pairs of partridge ran along the road before taking off with short, rapid wingbeats. I found owls keeping their eggs warm and managed to get absolutely no pictures of a rough-legged hawk I saw hovering over a meadow. It flew off to the north as I slowed down to try.
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There were a few swans around wet spots far out in the fields but no snow geese that I could see. That wasn’t really a big surprise. Most of the ponds up this way were frozen solid with only a bit of open water along the shores. Looked like this part of the world had missed out on most of the snow but got all of the cold that came with it.
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But there was one place I thought might have some open water so I headed there.
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And ran into the train.
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There’s a Canadian National line that runs this way up through Beiseker to Three Hills and beyond and for the most part — as all rail lines do — it runs pretty straight. But there is a sizeable ridge between the Kneehill Creek and Three Hills Creek valleys so to keep the grade from being too steep, the railroad kind of snakes around through a series of shallow S curves.
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Kind of cool to see a train rumbling by on those curves. From certain angles the train looks like it’s looping back on itself. And that’s what I was watching as I approached the height of the ridge at Swalwell. There’s a lake near town — Swalwell Dam — that has a creek running into it so I was hoping the creek’s flow might have kept some of the water ice-free.
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I watched until the train passed and then idled on toward Swalwell. Only to see another train, this one heading south, the same direction I was going. If I was going to get to town and then on to the dam, I was going to have to get a move-on.
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So I punched it along the gravel, came to a T-intersection and turned east, trying to get to the rail crossing before the train. It was going to be close so I sped up.
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And made it to the crossing a good minute before the engine.
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Thing is, I didn’t have to race the train at all. The turn to the dam was on the side of the intersection I was already on.
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OK, then.
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At not much more than an idle now, I passed through town — so many robins there! — dropped into the valley and approached the reservoir. As I suspected, there was open water. No snow geese, though. But a whole whack of goldeneyes.
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We have two varieties of these little diving ducks around here. One is the Barrows goldeneye but they are more often seen further to the west. The ones here were common goldeneyes, a slightly smaller and much more numerous cousin. If you’ve seen small ducks whipping by with whistling wings along the Bow River in the city, they are likely these guys.
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At a guess there were a hundred or so of them on this patch of open water along with wigeons, mallards and a few pintails. Canada geese, too, but they were mostly standing around on the thinning ice. As I slowed and stopped, most of the goldeneyes took off but within a minute or two, they flew right back.
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And they had love on their minds.
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Goldeneyes do this funny little dance when they’re courting. A bunch of males will gather around a female, swimming beside her and bobbing their heads until finally bending their necks so far back that their heads end up between their wings nearly to their tails. They do this over and over hoping to catch a female’s eye.
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This can be both flattering and frustrating for the girls. As I watched I saw several couples pair off and swim away while other times the crush of male attention led the females to dive and try to get away. That, inevitably, led to male frustration and fights broke out.
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And those weren’t the only fights. Two Canada geese started hammering on each other while a pair of mallard drakes went at it out on the ice. Viciously. I could hear their wings slapping and their quacking as they fought while in the background a meadowlark was singing. They have a much more pleasing way to declare their territory.
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I kept rolling south now, leaving the ducks behind and crossing the ridge between Kneehill Creek and the Rosebud River. There were more swans on meltwater ponds but, again, too far off for pictures. And there were Vs of birds crossing the increasingly cloudy sky. Might have been snow geese but too high up to tell.
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Out of curiosity, I flew my little drone over the Rosebud River near Stahlville Colony to see if it was still frozen. If it was open, I would spend some more time in the valley. And it was pretty much ice-free.
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But as I brought it in for a landing, I felt a few raindrops begin to fall. Rain was forecast to turn to snow later in the day so I figured, just in case it hit early, I’d save the Rosebud for another day. The clouds continued to build as I rolled south and west again.
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There was more open water along the way and more birds, too. Canada geese and swans, pintails and mallards. Flocks of bobbing goldeneyes. I saw one male pheasant with iridescent plumage but it hit the deep grass before I could aim the camera. An eagle eating a gopher was just too far off. Same with the swans and geese by Nightingale.
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Most of the open water had birds of some kind, especially around the feedlots just north of Strathmore. Here there were gulls in addition to the regulars.
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And one pond was populated by a horse. Why it had decided to wade in just to have a drink, I don’t know. But I’m glad it picked a photogenic moment to do so.
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Rain was coming down as I stopped to photograph the geese on the ice at Weed Lake by Langdon. And snow was falling — again — by the time I got home.
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Got the snow. Didn’t get the snow geese.
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Next time, I guess. It’s springtime in southern Alberta, after all.
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And snow — in one form or another — will be flying.
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