Canyons and Monuments

Youn-Young and I didn’t get to see each other very much over the summer as I was away doing fieldwork, so we took a little over a week to spend some time together and visit some of the places she had always wanted to see – the famous canyon and monument national parks in the southwestern U.S.A.

Driving southwest into eastern Colorado we spent a few hours in arid habitats where I enjoyed sightings of species like Scaled Quail and others that I have not seen many times in my life. In a rather comical moment, this Sage Thrasher and Lark Bunting posed side by side on a wire, permitting an unexpected size comparison.

Another surprise was a pair of Mississippi Kites, which the range maps in my field guides did not show in Colorado… just goes to show how quickly field guides become out of date!


We then planned a drive westward across Colorado with a stop or two in the Gunnison Valley where I wanted to seek out a potential lifer in Gunnison's Sage-Grouse. The scenery here was much more mountainous but also still somewhat dry. Youn-Young’s photo of the canyon rim at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado gives a sense of the shrubby habitat broken by coniferous forest in places that we encountered here.

As it was August, my search for Gunnison's Sage-Grouse consisted of cruising along creeks in dry sage brush habitat (exactly the strategy that had found me my lifer Greater Sage-Grouse in Oregon many years ago) at recommended sites. Sure enough, just south of the town of Gunnison, I spotted a hen with her brood. Amazingly, they were not skittish and allowed us to park on the roadside and photograph them (without getting out of the vehicle). Note the very prominent white tail bands (one of the features that differs from Greater Sage-Grouse).

Higher up we took a short hike in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, where an obliging brood of Dusky Grouse appeared magically on the trail in front of us. The speckled dusky (current name) bluish (recall their former name “Blue Grouse” before the split) plumage of this individual exhibited remarkable camouflage against the mottled rocks.

From here we drove west into eastern Utah to Arches National Park, an extremely arid landscape of red stone and patchy juniper… you get a sense of the grandeur of this place in this photo Youn-Young snuck in of me birding...

There were relatively few birds to be seen in the desert heat although Western Scrub-Jays were an almost constant campground companion…

Black-throated Sparrows also seemed relatively easy to see here, at least in the early morning,

But my real interest was to search any juniper patches for another species I had never seen before - Gray Vireo. At first, I found little else in the juniper but Juniper Titmice and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers; however, after a morning walk I noticed a ravine with a lot of juniper and suggested to Youn-Young that we go over and sit down in the shade there. When we got there, I tried playing the Gray Vireo song, a little speculatively, once on my mp3 player. Lo and behold, with a few minutes, a Gray Vireo flew in and landed above Youn-Young’s head and started scolding her... Oops! Sorry! Before long, I had located what appeared to be a family party and got a few photographic souvenirs of a long-awaited lifer!

Next stop was the spectacular Bryce Canyon! We came for the scenery of course but I was delighted with how birdy this place was – at a higher and cooler elevation with tall coniferous forests (considering the aridity of most of the surrounding landscape).

Mixed species flocks here produced many exciting western species like the handsome Grace's Warbler,

The common and curious Mountain Chickadee,

And three species of nuthatch including the fascinating Pygmy Nuthatch (I was delighted to see them low down on the trunks where I could get quality photos like this one), and many others.

From Bryce, we formulated a plan to go down to the Grand Canyon, which Youn-Young naturally wanted to see, before coming back up through Zion National Park and then homeward via Yellowstone. I insisted that we postpone ur lunch stop until we got to Vermillion Cliffs, Arizona, where I could look for California Condor. We arrived in the early afternoon at it was an unbearable 38°C and Young-Young thought I was crazy! Worse, there was no sign of anything alive except for an inquisitive Say’s Phoebe. I had almost finished lunch when I spotted three specs high above the cliff and nervously found them in my scope… immediately the large white windows on their wings indicated that I was viewing none other than the living phantom, the California Condor. Vermillion cliffs is of course one of the earliest release sites (1996) of the famous reintroduction effort that has kept this species alive… at least for now!

In the sweltering heat it was a relief to climb up to higher elevations at the rim of the Grand Canyon. One certainly learns to appreciate the staggering force of water in a place like this! The Colorado River, with its mighty erosive power, seemed to be miles below us…

Birding in the Grand Canyon area was surprisingly good with treats like Northern Pygmy-Owl, Pinyon Jay and the beautiful Acorn Woodpecker shown here.

Back up into Utah on the return leg, we stopped in at Zion National Park as planned, a landscape of more monumentous red rock and coniferous trees. This beautiful place nonetheless stirred sadness in me when I learnt of its inappropriate renaming to Zion National Park from the former Mukuntuweap National Monument (this word “apparently means “Straight Canyon” in Southern Paiute)… felt like the sad modern history of a continent wrapped up in a simple word swap! The Freemont Cottonwood trees in the canyon provided much appreciated shade and a variety of birds including species like Wild Turkey and Black-chinned Hummingbird and that I had not seen elsewhere on the trip. A second sighting of California Condor here was not much closer than my first sighting, and came only an hour after I had watched a Golden Eagle gracing the cliffs.

In the early morning, while Youn-Young slept in, I went up towards Kolob Reservoir, stopping on the sage brush slopes before dawn in the hopes of a third lifer. I only had to wait until a few minutes after dawn to hear the beautiful song of the Black-chinned Sparrow, though it took many more agonizing minutes until I got good views. In the end I saw quite a few birds, nearly all of them juveniles, as shown here, which lack the black chin that gives this species their common name.

Higher up in the forested areas near the reservoir I found more trip birds like Western Tanager and Virginia Warbler but I wanted to spend more prime time down in the arid scrubland where I could see species like this Phainopepla that I have only seen a few times in my life.

We left Zion and traveled north on the Interstate with a short stop at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge on the edge of Great Salt Lake. The gates were closed but we found a few waterbirds and shorebirds like this Snowy Plover (recently split from the Old World Kentish Plover).

We drove through the night to arrive in the magical world of Grand Teton National Park – since a picture is said to paint 1,000 words, here are three photos (poorly stitched together into one) of the mountain chain that includes Grand Teton (the pointy peak second from left).

On the mountain slope stood lush coniferous forest; however, the flatter valley floor was clad in low shrubs, especially sagebrush, shown here.

And in that sagebrush roamed bison, deer and pronghorn (deer and antelope play). Here is a wide angle photo that tries hopelessly to capture the grandeur of pronghorn feeding in the sagebrush.

And now two with a telephoto lens to show the fine features of those beautiful animals!

Grand Teton was also good for raptors. Swainson's Hawk is not a bird one expects in the mountains (although if you have seen the trailer for the new movie the Big Year you will notice one bizarrely placed in a downhill ski scene) but they are quite at home on the sagebrush flats. This one posed on a fence pole and was unperturbed by my parking the vehicle beside them for a portrait.

Our last stop was to be Yellowstone National Park, famed for its geysers and wildlife viewing opportunities. Indeed Yellowstone was to prove excellent for wildlife watching on this visit (almost as good as the stunning Jasper National Park in Canada to give you a sense of just how good). We enjoyed sightings of mammals such as beaver, coyote, back bear, mule deer, and elk…

I see plenty of black bear in Manitoba so I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to get photos but seeing a total of FIVE Grizzly Bears was an enormous treat! Here is a photo with four of the five (in the Hayden Valley) all at once… a large male is feeding on a bison carcass while a female and two cubs wait their chance…

Another awesome highlight was seeing this timber wolf (grey wolf) in the Lamas Valley. Smaller but even better than the one I had seen in Wapusk National Park, Manitoba this year because I managed to photograph this one. Here are two photos on the wolf walking up a sagebrush slope and then a closer image.

We departed Yellowstone but there was one more order of business – the ascent of the Beartooth Pass and the quest for one more new bird for me – Black Rosy Finch. The Beartooth Pass is just northeast on Yellowstone on the Wyoming – Montana Border, and at 3,337 m ASL (almost 11,000 feet) seemed like the perfect place to look for a high altitude specialist! As we drove up into the rocky alpine zone dotted with snow packs and their pink flushes caused by snow algae (Chamydomonas nivalis) as seen in this photo, I started to feel that I had come to the right place… surely, these dappled browns, greys and pinks would harbour the black and pink gem I was seeking…

Youn-Young wanted us to head back at an appropriate hour and so I only had 90 minutes to search. Walking around the rocks, I saw several American pika, a fascinating, mouse-sized rabbit relative!

However, the only bird I seemed to be able to find was American (Buff-bellied) Pipit. I couldn’t resist trying to get a few photo of the few that were still in breeding plumage as the alpine subspecies are much more colourful than the tundra-breeding subspecies that I usually see.

The clock was ticking and over an hour went by before it happened… I heard a choppy call note from below the summit that I strongly suspected was Black Rosy Finch. Walking quickly across a boulder field I stared down in a wide rocky ravine and far below me caught sight of some small birds on the rocks. No time to waste! I scampered down until finally I caught sight of some all-dark birds feeding amongst the rocks and on the pink snow. I was looking for their pink highlights but the first birds I saw well were all juveniles with yellow bills and very little pink (like the one below) that threw me for a loop for just a few seconds until I realised why they didn’t look quite like what I was expecting…

Maneuvering into position, I watched them feeding and finally saw some adults. The Black Rosy Finch below was particularly obliging, landing close to where I sat, and also interesting in that it showed some yellow at the base of the bill but otherwise adult features… I had good intentions to try to photograph the wing feathers to see if i could find a moult limit but I got distracted by a most unexpected Brewer’s Sparrow and missed the moment when the finch flew.

A whirlwind tour and not nearly long enough to appreciate the American southwest but nonetheless packed with fond memories…

Into Wapusk National Park - Part 2

The tree to tundra transition was also a special place and it was not uncommon to find multiple singing male Smith’s Longspurs (two photos of males) and Harris’s Sparrow here.


Lapland Longspur (photo of male, then female) and American Pipit were also relatively common.

These are four species that require a little work to find in Churchill and seem to be declining there. The Smith’s Longspur is always a target species for visitors to Churchill but requires effort; whereas here we would be greeted with their rich colour and song on a daily basis and we even found a nest (photo).

Travelling downstream, we perceived subtle changes in the bird community. We saw more Bonaparte’s Gulls than previously and then our first Arctic Terns (1 photo perched and one in flight) and then Parasitic Jaegers still relatively far inland.

We began seeing pairs of Semipalmated Plover on the gravel banks, accompanying the abundant Spotted Sandpipers.

Red-breasted Mergansers now became common while Common Mergansers started to become less common.

Some species which had been thinning out since we left the tracks such as Tennessee Warbler dropped out altogether. We had two surprises in store, the first being several sightings of Cedar Waxwing (apparently new for the park), the second being a Northern Mockingbird in the middle of nowhere, hanging out by a Bank Swallow colony in the steep river bank. As the river broadened we saw our first of numerous Canada Goose broods, the goslings being just a few days old. Along with the goslings though came the predators. Up until this point we had seen Bald Eagles but in the lower reaches we eventually found four different pairs of Golden Eagles! At one point, a Golden Eagle came swooping in low right over our heads and plucked a gosling off the water with just one foot (photo shows one mobbed by a Bonaparte’s Gull)! I really wanted to confirm breeding Goldens as there has always been a question of whether this species breeds in Manitoba or is just a non-breeding visitor. Alas, we did not find a nest and even though we always saw two birds at a time, since we could not distinguish male from female, we were left guessing as to what they were doing there, i.e. did they bred locally or had they just moved in for the gosling fest?

The window to paddle the Owl River comfortably is fleeting and the water levels were dropping on a daily basis. Alas, one set of rapids got the better of one canoe, after the lead canoe had gone through no problem. Perhaps a hidden shelf caused the capsize, we weren’t sure, but there were a few anxious moments until Martin and David R. managed to right their canoe and bring it into shore. The canoe was well packed and nothing was lost except Martin’s tripod that had been wedged in (instead of tied in) and his camera in his pocket in a zip lock bag was damaged thanks to a tiny break in the seal.

Martin and Dave on the other side of their dip in the Owl River. Photo: Jill Larkin

As we neared the coast, we had an additional safety concern on our minds – polar bears. We began to erect a polar bear fence around our campsite every night.

Top: camp with an alarm fence for polar bear. Bottom: view of a campsite on a sandy bar by a bend in the river. Photos: Jill Larkin

We may also have begun to look a little weary after teh long morning hikes then the long all-day paddles on a daily basis. I certainly look a little worse for wear in the photo below taken by Jill.

Near the coast, we found our one and only Horned Grebe of the trip and our first American Bitterns in quite a while plus a single Sora. Finally we reached the Parks Canada compound which is located 5 km inland from the Hudson Bay coast and were greeted by an alarmed American Golden Plover, a noisy flicker and the short sweet song of Smith’s Longspurs. Behind the compound we stumbled across a pair of Northern Shrike with 3 fledglings. This photo shows one of the fledglings on the ground.

On the following morning’s point counts, while trudging across a coastal fen, I was delighted to hear the first of seven Yellow Rails and to find a Short-eared Owl (our only owl along the Owl). That afternoon, we all decided to walk the 5 km to the coast, finding several nesting species, many shorebirds and our first Common Eiders and only Red-throated Loon of the trip.

The tide was well out though and when we looked at our GPS we realized we were standing in the bay!

All too soon, we were ready for out chopper ride back to Churchill, (2 photos) where we stayed at the new building of the Northern Studies Centre for a couple of days before boarding the southbound train.

Boarding the chopper and the view on te hway back. Photos: Jill Larkin

As we disembarked the chopper, we were told that four Polar Bears had come off the ice that day. Wow! Martin was keen to see them and, though it took several drives along the coast, we eventually found three of them including one massive individual. We were glad to see them at a safe distance from a vehicle rather than having met one on foot.

The town of Churchill produced birds we had not seen in the park along such as American Crow, House Sparrow and European Starling (that is not entirely true since Jill found a dead starling inside the Owl River compound, which might have been dropped by a passing raptor or accidently brought in with building supplies).

We completed point counts in three atlas squares from the Studies Centre to Twin Lakes but found that the densities of tundra shorebirds and tundra passerines much lower than where we had been in the park. Indeed we did not hear any Smith’s Longspur, Lapland Longspur or Northern Shrike in Churchill, Horned Larks were mysteriously scarce, and we heard only one Harris’s Sparrow – so different from our experience along the Owl River. At least some species like Parasitic Jaeger, Common Eider and Pacific Loon were more common in Churchill and there were also plenty of scoters and eiders. In addition to Polar Bear, we added Beluga, Arctic Hare and Arctic Fox to our mammal list.

The Arctic Fox sighting was partcularly dramatic. I took a whole series of photographs of one trying to steal goslings from Canada Geese but the geese stood their ground…

We also had great sightings of Red Fox with cubs at a den at Churchill but here the Red Foxes we saw were red, unlike the silver and cross foxes we had seen along the owl river.

Nonetheless it was now the end of June, no ice visible on the bay, and the migrants had moved on, so Churchill was quite different than what one would expect from a visit in early June with many fewer species. This was not the time for rarities but rather a time to appreciate those who raise their families here. We did manage to find one Iceland Gull (in close proximity to a Polar Bear) and I had brief views of a Little Gull.

The memories of our fantastic Owl River trip will linger with all of us for years to come I’m sure. I feel that we had exceptional luck on this trip and were privileged to be in such pristine wilderness. What a gem of a park we have! It is true we had to contend with several days of stiff nor’easters that forced us to paddle hard (even though the current was on our side, the wind was occasionally so strong that without paddling one came to a sit still). At least the wind was kind enough to wait until after we had finished point counting every morning before raising itself. The bird gods blessed us with freezing or near freezing nights that kept the bugs down, glorious crisp and calm mornings full of song, water levels that, even though they were dropping, were just right to carry us through, and just the right window of time to get off the river one day before the polar bears started coming off the melting sea ice. However, to chalk that up to luck would be misleading, for this trip was planned in meticulous detail by Bonnie Chartier plus Jill and Sheldon Kowalchuk of Parks Canada and others who know the north, especially Jack Dubois and Kim Monson, who’s experience and knowledge proved invaluable (they were to join us on the river until a last minute conflict made that impossible). Thank you to everyone!

We are already making plans to tackle a different section of the park next year, so this adventure will continue! And we always need volunteers…

From left to right: Jill Larkin, Christian Artuso, Martin Scott, David Raitt, David Britton, Denis Funk. Photo by Jill Larkin