September 7 2014
Bird of the Day
Whooping Crane
This was an amazing day. We started off with Christine's French crepes and some fruit and coffee. Then we were off to the Parks Canada office where we were greeted by Craig, our Wood Buffalo guide when we arrived. Since we were the only ones who had tours today (booked for us by Alex), we decided to go out for the day. So we picked up some lunch in Fort Smith and we were ready for our adventure.
Craig suggested we return to the Salt Plains where he had spotted some Whooping Cranes a few days before around supper time. No guarantee that we would see them this morning, but he thought it was worth a try. It wasn't long before he picked out some little white dots in the far away fields in his scope. We got our scope out too. Craig helped us take a digiscope shot with our camera. What good luck to see these birds which nest far away in the north of the park.
Craig kept scanning and found a far away herd of Wood Buffalo. We were very glad we had returned to the Salt Plains!
Our next stop was to check out a pelican colony which nests on rocks in the middle of the Slave River at Mountain Portage Rapids. A beautiful spot. The sand revealed some large footprints. Back up on the road some kayakers were getting ready to run the rapids.
Now we were on our way to the Salt River trail. A Garter Snake slithered past us and we almost stepped on a dead Long-tailed Weasel. We spent about an hour checking out a large salty plain at Grosbeak Lake with some fascinating rocks. A special treat was a large group of Pectoral Sandpipers.
By the time we got back to Fort Smith it was late afternoon. We thanked Craig for an enriching day...
For supper we ordered takeout from the Pelican Restaurant and Christine drove us over to pick it up. We enjoyed our dinner in our suite and packed up for our return home the next morning.
