On the Road: Signs of spring​on March 9, 2025 at 11:00 am

The frost disappeared quickly, though, as the sun worked its radiant magic so after a half hour or so, I headed down to Fish Creek Park to while away a bit more time.

It was, strangely, a little more chilly here and the mist that had been thinning upstream was still hanging in. A momma whitetail and her fawns stood in the cottonwood forest looking at me and I could see their breath as they stared. It blended with the blueness behind them.

Finally, it was time to head over to Les’s place but when I got there he was still battling away. Could I come back in a couple more hours? That would seriously eat into my plans for the rest of the day but, yes, of course I could.

Home now to grab some lunch and have a look at what I’d shot. Got a couple that I wasn’t entirely embarrassed by so that worked out. By a quarter past one I was back at Les’s garage. An hour and a half later, I was on the road. And headed east.

My original thought had been to go out toward Hussar, maybe Bassano, to see if I could spot any snowy owls. They will be heading north to their summer nesting grounds fairly soon but there might still be a few around. With the snow mostly gone, their white plumage would be easy to spot.

But with it now being three in the afternoon, there just wasn’t enough time left in the day to explore effectively. Sure, I could get out there but it would have to be a straight run. I don’t do straight runs.

So I decided to keep exploring along the river instead.

Bare fields dotted with blue ponds of snow melt covered the land from the edge of the city eastward. Cattle idled in muddy pastures while magpies and ravens poked around in the stubble looking for tidbits revealed by the meltdown.

Gawking around as I drove, I almost forgot I was on gravel. No rattle, no bounce, no wobble in the steering wheel. The new suspension was working. Thank you, Les!

So I stuck to the gravel as I headed toward the Carseland weir. I didn’t really expect to find much there with the river still being frozen but I was anxious to see how the new shocks would handle that nasty washboard road that leads into the river valley. Last time I was there the hammering nearly knocked a crown off my tooth.

The further east I went, the more birds I saw. Canada geese were in the fields, as they often are, but there were bunches of them in the air as well. A lot of bunches. Just before Carseland I saw a flock of several hundred swooping down to land on a meltwater point.

Many thousands of geese spend the winter in and around Calgary, toughing it out here instead of flying south but I didn’t get the impression these geese were locals. Individual flocks of 50 to 100 are pretty common during the winter months and they often accumulate in the same fields to forage.

But this flock was much bigger. And there were some really fast ducks flying along with them.

Could those be pintails? Sure looked like it. Very early for them to be back. But there was an even bigger surprise on the pond the geese were heading to.

There were swans, big white swans.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen swans around this early in the year before. Yes, there are some both in the city and out near Exshaw that stay year-round but I’m sure these weren’t any of them. Add to that the pintails and that huge flock of geese and it seemed clear to me. These were migrators already on their way back north.