Waiting for the Meadowlark

The western meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) is one of the most iconic birds of the prairies. They’re certainly hard to miss, easily identified by their distinctive yellow chest, their abundance, and their sweet, melodic song that echoes throughout the plains from sunrise to sundown. They seem to appear out of thin air as soon as the snow starts to melt and the days start to lengthen. Uplifting and cheerful, you can’t help but associate their song with warm sunbeams and grasses blowing in a gentle breeze. Thus, the meadowlark has come to symbolize the arrival of spring in the prairies, and I can’t think of a more appropriate icon of springtime. When I arrived in Montana at the beginning of March, I was already looking forward to hearing their buoyant tune.

March 3^rd – The first day of field work introduces us to a typical day of harsh prairie winter: -20^oF, cold biting wind, and a full blanket of snow on the ground. The only birds to be found are horned larks, rough-legged hawks, and the hardy grouse that persevere on the plains year-round. Warm days and meadowlarks seem a long way off…

March 10^th – One week water, temperatures hit the 60’s and we hike in t-shirts for the first time, excited about the unseasonably warm weather. It’s certainly starting to feel like spring, although noticeably lacking in birdsong.

March 11^th – The first three-flowered avens pokes its vibrant green leaves up through the thawing earth, welcoming the warm temperatures. The meadowlarks are really missing out on some prime springtime wildflower excitement here.

March 12^th – Migratory waterfowl start to settle in the ponds and marshes on APR. We observed northern pintails, blue teals, goldeneyes and tundra swans. Surely the meadowlarks can’t be too far behind?

March 13^th – The first butterfly floats through the gradually awakening landscape, searching for some flowers and nectar. They’re a pretty good sign of spring, but still can’t compare to the meadowlarks!

March 16^th (morning) – The first scarlet mallows and cinquefoils show their miniscule leaves on the plains, fighting their way through last year’s litter.  Many plants are sprouting up now for the growing season, but it’s just incomplete without the meadowlarks and their lively tunes.

March 16^th (afternoon) – Finally!! What a welcome sound! The first meadowlark breaks the silence of winter with the song of springtime. Perched on a fencepost across the road, its long-awaited voice rings throughout the plains and warms the heart of anyone who listens. At last, the most iconic bird of the prairies has come back to its home and brought with it the reassurance that springtime is indeed returning.

April 8^th – The meadowlarks are absolutely everywhere by now, and not a day goes by that I don’t pause and listen to their cheerful melodies. In both an ecological and cultural sense, they’re a ubiquitous and integral part of the prairie community – life on the plains just doesn’t seem right without them. I also realized this March while waiting for their return, that the meadowlark doesn’t only represent the arrival of springtime, but also the hope and optimism that’s associated with the changing of the seasons. Even during a token cold snap in April when you wake up to a world of snow, you’re still in high spirits because as long as there are meadowlarks singing, warmth and sunlight will assuredly return.

The herald of springtime and a symbol of hope, meadowlarks will always be one of the best-known and best-loved birds of the prairie. And every winter I will continue the patiently wait for the day when that familiar, cheerful song rings once again through the landscape, and then I’ll know that spring is just around the corner, the meadowlarks are here to welcome it, and I am here to welcome them.



Thanks for reading! Feel free to peruse more of my photography fun at www.elainekennedyphotography.com :)

Two weeks of adventure and science with Landmark in Montana!

So I’ve been living and volunteering for the Landmark project for two weeks now, run by Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation on the American Prairie Reserve. What have we been doing way out here in the middle of rural Montana? Monitoring all sorts of prairie wildlife with passion and gusto, that's what!

The two main monitoring methods we use right now are survey transects and trail cameras. Transects are about 10 miles long through rolling hills, flat plains, streams and occasionally flooded mud flats. Armed with binoculars, cameras and tablets, we try to identify and count all the wildlife in sight – from coyotes to deer to eagles to grouse, we want ‘em all!  Trail cameras need to be checked twice a month; we swap out memory cards and batteries and look over all the footage to see what unsuspecting critters they’ve picked up.  And next week we start counting sage grouse on their lekking grounds at sunrise – can’t wait!

Transect 12, 10 miles of muddy floodplain ;)

And I happened to grab the perfect Clif Bar for the day, "get muddy"

Then of course, there’s all the other fun stuff we do in our time off. We visit beautiful places like the stunning Larb Hills to the east, the gorgeous Charles M Russell wildlife refuge on the Missouri River to the south, and the humble Little Rockies to the west. We cook family dinners and make lots of music. We cuddle the farm cat and play many board games. All in all, it’s a great time of adventure, conservation and fun.  I’ve been spending lots of time photographing the plains wildlife and landscape, and scouting out subjects for future shoots (golden eagles and short-eared owls to come, if all goes well). 

Betty the farm cat. 

Ice patterns on the Missouri River at Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge. 

Let's have a little fun!

Relaxing with Yuccas in the Larb Hills. 

Burnt trees at Burnt Lodge, overlooking the Charles M. Russel Wildlife Refuge. 

Cool-looking burnt trees at Burnt Lodge.

View of the Bear Paw range from the Little Rockies.

The crew taking in the view atop the Little Rockies!

Until I get around to actually photographing them, I’ve been keeping track of all the fun new wildlife we’ve been seeing on the prairies:

• ·         Two short-eared owls
• ·         Three snowy owls
• ·         Three golden eagles
• ·         Three bald eagles
• ·         One prairie falcon
• ·         Two grey partridges
• ·         And lots and lots of sage grouse!

Everything is very exciting here, especially with spring just around the corner and new wildlife returning to the prairies… But I can’t help but miss my dear sweet home of Guelph and all my wonderful friends there. There is a big empty space in my heart that all the horned larks and sage grouse in Montana cannot fill!  

First butterfly of spring on the APR.

As usual, my bigger nicer photography website can be found at www.elainekennedyphotography.com.

On the road to Landmark: Theodore Roosevelt National Park

So I recently made the move from Guelph, ON to the American Prairie Reserve near Malta, Montana to volunteer for the Landmark Project. It's a volunteer-based wildlife monitoring project run by Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, where volunteers get to live on a ranch in the prairies and hike transects to spot wildlife, maintain and analyse trap cameras, and count certain species of interest such as sage grouse and prairie dogs on APR land. But that isn't what this blog post is about. This post is about Theodore Roosevelt National Park! 

I drove from Guelph to Montana, driving by day and sleeping in my car in McDonald's and Wal-mart parking lots by night. Typical road trip lifestyle. On the third night I slept over at Theodore Roosevelt National Park on the western border of North Dakota. I arrived fairly late so I only saw the badlands in the dim evening light before I tucked in for the night. But I woke up bright and early to the prairie sunrise bursting in my car's frosted-up windows, casting a gorgeous glow on the fractal ice. Unfortunately my camera was too cold to function for a shot of this :( Oh well! I hit the road further into the park, only to stumble upon a herd of wild bison, which I eagerly photographed, a herd of wild pronghorn, which I eagerly photographed, and a small herd of wild horses, which I eagerly photographed. Here, of course, are the results of the sunrise safari:

The bison were still covered in frost from the night.

This one's probably my favourite bison shot of the day. Something about the frost on both the bison and the grass, and the way they're positioned so linearly, and the contrast of the dark fur and white frost...

I really loved the way the sun caught in her eye here.

The pronghorn did not stick around for long.

I'd never seen wild horses before so these were a great find!! There were only four altogether but they were very majestic. 

They actually seemed pretty accustomed to people; they allowed me to get very close :)

Sooo majestic. 

I definitely don't remember exactly where I found this great-looked abandoned farmhouse; somewhere along a highway in Montana. But I loved the combination of red roof, blue sky and golden grass.

And later that day I made it to the American Prairie Reserve, and the start of a whole new adventure in Great Plains of Montana!

And as always,  check out my photography web site at www.elainekennedyphotography.com :)

I am the worst at blogging!

Wow so it's actually been like 4 or 5 months since I last posted anything here. Ummm in that timespan I hitch-hiked around the states a bunch, backpacked around Mexico for a bit, spent Christmas with my family and got re-established in Guelph even though I'll probably only live here for a few months at most. It's been a crazy time of travelling and catching up with friends and family, but I've lately been starting to sort through photos and update the social media and website and junk, so blog is the next of the list.

To come: a brief outline and photos from around the states!

And hopefully I'll stop being a wimp about the cold and actually go out and shoot some stuff soon.

The lovely view from Highway 12 or 24 in Utah! 

Two weeks as a Rocky Mountain Nomad

This is a very rushed, last minute post because I'm in the middle of packing for a 6 week trip to the states but I figured I should do a quick update before I go off the grid for a while...

For the past two weeks or so, I've been living in the Rocky Mountains with my Norwegian pen pal Jorn. He came to visit and since I was already living in Edmonton, conveniently beside some mountains, and the mountains are one of the best parts of Canada, we decided to spend the visit there, backpacking around and such. We mostly wanted to do two min trips: the Brazeau Loop and the Skyline Trail. I don't have much time so I will cut right to the chase. 

The Brazeau Loop! 

It's a five day, 81km loop through the southern part of Jasper National Park. 

Day one was semi-decent weather, only overcast half the time, lots of up and down and different ecosystems - forest, rock field, alpine meadow, pretty rivers. Only 14km, went by pretty quickly (we also rushed since we didn't even get on the trail until 3pm). 

Day two was 18km of forest and mostly flat - pretty boring. It also rained all day and the damn trails were all lined with scrubby wet willow so we got thoroughly drenched . Gross. 

Day three went up above the tree line though! Many kilometers of beautiful mountain views and alpine meadows. Alpine meadows are actually even better in fall than in summer; they turn all golden and red and it's just stunning. There were a few late bloomers too, some sedges and aster species were still in flower. Over a pass and down to the campground! This was an especially cold night at a high elevation, probably around 2100m. Brrrrrrr. 

Day four began with a big old mountain pass at 2450m. Just hike up and up and up through the alpine until you find a towering pile of scree with some switchbacks heading to the top. Huff and puff and finally over the top aaaaand WOW that's a really breathtaking bottom half of a mountain starting me in the face. Seriously, it looked great. Climb up onto the pass and you're standing level with a huge mountain range of typical jasper colours - warm reddish and rusty tones. The top half was becoming increasingly shrouded in cloud, and then it started snowing. Excellent. Such typical mountain weather, snowing on the first day of September. It looked like Christmas in the mountains, a nice soft friendly snow. Although it was definitely blowing sideways when the wind picked up. Anyways, the view was okay, the next 10km+ was hiking in a valley of alpine meadow between two huge mountain ranges and it was super spectacular albeit very very cold. At the end, hike down a whole bunch into the forest and back to the camp from the first night where two friendly and somewhat drunk hikers have already started a campfire which makes you want to kiss them because you happened to slip in a glacial stream earlier that day and your feet are soaked. Or maybe that's just me. 

Day five: develop a bad cold and hike the heck out. There may or may not be a mouse living in your trunk by this point, eating your oats and raisins. 

The Tonquin Valley Loop! 

We didn't have a ton of time so we just did 20km in to Amethyst Lake and then back out the next day. 

Caribou. All I really want to say about this is that we saw caribou. three of them. It's pretty much like seeing a unicorn, but better. Also the mountains are phenomenal (the Ramparts Range, if you were wondering), the campground is the nicest and most scenic I've ever been to, it's a huge alpine valley meadow thing in the middle of these mountains with a giant lake and god damn caribou. If you ever get the chance, go to Amethyst Lake and you will never ever regret it. 

 No time to process pictures argh!

Ummm after that we went to Banff, it doesn't hold a candle to Jasper, but we bummed around there and saw Moraine and Louise and I have to go finish packing. Next stops: Colorado, Zion, Arches, Red Rock, Grand Canyon, Sequioa, Yosemite, Yellowstone, etc etc etc. XO!

Oh and funny story, on the first day back in real civilization (Calgary) there was a freak snowstorm during rush hour that resulted my car getting seriously crunched. This is why I should live in the wilderness forever. City life is too much. 

Bison rut at Elk Island National Park and how much I miss the real prairies.

So our 2014 field season is over, all the pressed plants have been sent in to the experts, all the field guides and hand lenses have been returned, and we've all moved out of Red Deer and into Edmonton for a month of lichen ID and sorting. As fun as it is to live in a real city with lots of restaurants and festivals and museums and indoor climbing, I still sorely miss working every day in the rolling grasslands of Southern Alberta. The Hesperostipas are probably just losing the last of their dart-seeds, the Astragaluses probably all have pods now, and it's probably all starting to get that really lovely golden glow of the very beginning of autumn (even better when the Rumex turns a rich deep burgundy). And I'm stuck way up here in Edmonton surrounded by roads and buildings and beyond that, farmland and parkland and so many god damn trees. Prairie withdrawal is a serious issue...

On the bright side, Elk Island National Park is sort of nearby, only 45 minutes east of the city, and as it turns out, August is rutting season for the bison! The bison rut is when the males bellow, wallow, and fight each other to establish dominance and mating rights. So I got myself over to Elk Island for a day with the goal of finding and photographing some rutting bison.

Elk Island has two population of bison: the plains bison in the north and the wood bison in the south. As much as I would have loved to see wood bison (since I've seen plenty of plains bison at Grasslands National Park), the north section of the park has way more trails to offer, so I set off on the popular Hayburger Trail. As soon as you hop onto the trailhead, it's pretty clear that the area is a hotspot for bison. There was just as much bison poop on and around the trail as there was cow poop in most of the ranchland I worked in, and bison fur and hoofprints everywhere. I definitely stepped in more than a few bison pies... However, in the whole 11km trail I didn't see a single bison. Although I did happen across some dried up quicksand.

I don't think this was actually a danger; it was all dried up.

Oh well, no bison there, that just means they're hiding out at another part of the park, right? Time for another hike! Maybe a nice hike around a lake this time, maybe the bison were all just thirsty. To the Tawayik Lake Trail! Oh wait.... where is this trail? Where is the lake? All I see is a bunch of wet meadow... Oh. Okay. Turns out the lake was more of less dried up to a large wetland. But I did get a nice hour-long nap at the birding platform and a quick 5km loop near the lake. Found a friendly beaver, lots of baby American Coots, several handfuls of raspberries and a thousand mosquitoes. But still no bison!

Beaver!

16km down, I'm getting hungry and tired and ready to head back to Edmonton, and still not a single bison. But there is a 1km driving loop called the Bison Loop, I mean that's not nearly as glamourous as finding them while hiking, and if I didn't find them in that 16km there probably won't be any in this teeny area, but what the heck it'll only take a few minutes, might as well check it out. And of course, as soon as I get in there, there are a bunch of bison right at the beginning. They are bellowing. And wallowing. And being bison. UGHHH. So a couple hours later, I've finally gotten my fill of bison rut. These things happened within that couple hours:

• Beautiful sunset
• Incredible amount of bellowing
• Lots of wallowing
• Met a gentleman named Steve who was doing contract bison photography for Elk Island who taught me a bit about bison behaviour, such as when to run away (tail is raised and bison is not pooping = RUN)
• One very agitated male bison started bellowing and trotting towards us very intimidatingly. As we turned to hop back into our cars for relative safety, we then realized another male had snuck up behind us on the road, and the two were getting ready to face off. 
• Places I would HIGHLY recommend avoiding: the space between two angry male bison in rutting season. 
• Some really (REALLY) stupid young teenager actually approached the dominant male bison and his mate within ~30 meters while holding out a fistful of grass. This makes me wonder about whether letting tourists hang out with free-ranging bison during the rut is really a good idea after all...
• I got really scared when a bison passed by a couple meters from my car. I don't think a little Toyota Echo would stand up too well to an angry 1.6tonne charging horned beast. 

This bison was just itching for a fight, but was too scared to actually fight the dominant male. He sure did make a racket though! 

Two male bison facing off for a fight (eventually one charged and the other backed down). 

Overall, there were lots of false charges and bellowing, and plenty of bison being bison, but no actual fights broke out. The only logical conclusion is to return to Elk Island again and again until I see a real bison fight.

Botanizing at last!

The summer shifts at ABMI are mostly focused on plants, since most prairie plants go into flower later in summer (July-ish?). As a plant technologist, my job is to identify and/or collect as many plants as I can at each of our sites! It’s been an amazing learning experience, and I’ve definitely become a much much much better botanist than I was before summer. Although I had a bunch of help with the boreal plants from my wonderful supervisor, most of the prairie work has been independent, so I’ve gotten very intimate with all my plant books (the Common Plants of the Western Rangelands series, put out by the Government of Alberta, is my favourite go-to field guide, although the paper covers and first few pages have long since fallen off...).

The first few days of shift were in the Rocky Mountain House area, which I hadn’t really worked in before, so there were lots of new and exciting plants to learn! I definitely liked the shrubs the most. Fun species I found in the boreal:

• ·         Raspberry (Rubus idaeus)
• ·         Lowbush cranberry (Viburnum edule)
• ·         Spreading dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium)
• ·         Baneberry (Actaea rubra)
• ·         Blueberry (Vaccinium myrtilloides)
• ·         Saskatoon berry (Amelanchier alnifolia)
• ·         Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana AND vesca)
• ·         Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana)
• ·         Lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea)
• ·         Lots of gooseberries (Ribes hudsonianum, lacustre and oxyacanthoides)
• ·         Twinflower (Linnaea borealis)
• ·         Spotted coral-root (Corallorhiza maculata)

As you can probably tell, I really like berries… 

But as lovely and buggy as forest sites, are, it’s the prairie sites that I was really gunning for. We had a bunch of sites on the Suffield military base which I probably can’t say much about, except that there were a very concerning amount of weeds and disturbance species around. All of the tank and truck trails were just covered in crested wheatgrass and yellow sweet clover, yuck! But one site there was just amazing, it was super sandy and apparently very undervisited because there were barely any disturbance species or invasives. Just lots of fun fun sandy species! Here are some that I have only found at that site and one or two other sandy-soil sites:

• ·         Indian rice grass (Oryzopsis hymenoides)
• ·         Dropseed (Sporobulus heterolepis)
• ·         Sand reedgrass (Calamovilfa longifolia)
• ·         White evening primrose (Oenothera pallida)
• ·         Chamaerhodos (Chamaerhodos erecta)
• ·         Scurf pea (Psoralea esculenta)
• ·         Indian bread-root (Psoralidium lanceolatum)
• ·         Ground plum (Astragalus crassicarpa)
• ·         Purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea)
• ·         White prairie clover (Dalea candida)
• ·         Drummond’s milkvetch (Astragalus drummondii)
• ·         White beardtongue (Penstemon albidus)

Sandy species are a bucket of fun :) We had another interesting site only a few kilometers from the Montana border, and also within easy view of the Canadian rocky mountains. More fun plants to be found there:

• ·         Shortawn foxtail (Alopecurus aequalis)
• ·         So many astragaluses! Agrestis, crassicarpus, drummondii, flexuosus, pectinatus, and one that I couldn’t ID
• ·         One-spike AND California oatgrasses (Danthonia unispicata and californica)
• ·         Alum root (Heuchera parvifolia)
• ·         Fernleaf biscuitroot (Lomatium dissectum)
• ·         False gromwell (Onosmodium molle)
• ·         Owl-clover (Orthocarpus luteus)
• ·         Sticky locoweed (Oxytropis borealis)
• ·         Woolly groundsel (Packera cana)
• ·         Scouler’s popcornflower (Plagiobothrys scouleri)

That one was probably my most diverse prairie site so far with 80 species J So it's been a fantastic two shifts of botanizing around the boreal and the prairies, keying out milkvetches and grasses to my heart's content. Kind of bummed that there are only two more days of surveying left... And I don't even have any good photos to show for it except for a cool elk skull that my partner found:

Elk!