The May long weekend is eagerly anticipated by people who love the outdoors, and is recognized as the first great camping weekend of the spring. A mass exodus takes place from the city into parks, campgrounds and natural areas – on a warm weekend it looks like the city is being evacuated.
For us, the May long is the perfect time to stay home. The highways are congested with people in a hurry, pulling trailers for the first time this year, and gawking around at the countryside. Boom boxes abound in campgrounds, which drive me insane. More speeding tickets are handed out on Alberta highways this weekend than any other.
This year we had an added incentive to stay home. It was cold, dreary and raining. Night time temperatures near freezing did not make us look fondly towards our lakeside campsite.
So while I don’t have any new stories for you, I do have more photos to share from previous trips.
This little Yellow-rumped Warbler provided me with a record number of empty tree photos, but I did manage to catch him in a few frames.
A cluster of about 8 male scaup were frantically, unrelentingly pursuing a lone female though the water. Clearly a case of being too popular.
There is still enough water in the little prairie pothole to keep a pair of Northern Shovelers happy.
Hundreds of these fish were converging in the shallow waters on the edge of the marina, and I suspect, laying eggs.
The furballs, a.k.a. Richardson’s Ground Squirrels, were out and about for another summer.
As we were leaving, I spotted something crossing the road. When we got a little closer, I realized it was a badger. I was in such a hurry to get his picture I apparently lost the lens cap off my camera. And after all that, he just sat in this position until I was tired of taking pictures of him. If I hadn’t seen him move I would have thought he was stuffed.
And speaking of thinking he was stuffed…
