Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 13

Today was a pretty rewarding day in camp with no driving here at Quetico. Although this is canoe country at its best I did not feel comfortable taking the canoe out by myself because of the wind but I did go on a few hikes.

One of the things I wanted to accomplish was to take care of the dust that had been created by the gravel roads around Last Mountain Lake and the breaches in the trailer. I did laundry, put bedding through the dryer at least to blow the dust out of them, emptied the trailer and dusted everything. I sealed the obvious places where the dust had been coming in – good old duct tape and baggies. All the time I had the Fixing a Hole song by the Beatles going through my head.

I went for one short walk along a boardwalk that was designed as a barrier free access trail. Enjoyable were plaques with quotations as I made my way around. I took some time to record some of these and message them to Yolanda and Frances who were taking course on water conservation and gardening with native drought resistant plants course in Victoria at the same time I was hiking. Frances is taking her first year of Environmental Studies at UVic.

I was quite happy that I had my smartphone with me on one hike. Quite early on I heard a Pileated Woodpecker (above) and went to a site on my phone browser and got the sound bite of the same bird. I played back that sound bite which resulted in the bird landing in the tree above my head. I was pretty happy about this because although I have seen a few such woodpeckers over the years, this was my first chance to record it and add it to my life list of observations on iNaturalist. I used a track to call in Boreal Chickadees which responded but I could not see them because they where up high in the trees. In retrospect I'm not quite sure how I feel about using artificial means to reach a goal in being a naturalist. I can equate it to using a bird feeder to see nature. I guess right now I'm not that much of a purist but will gestate the thought.

I also used my smartphone on that same hike to find my way back to the parking lot. I should have taken a picture of the map at the beginning (note to self). There was one point where I felt I had missed the trail entering this loop and was repeating the trail. I was able to use my Ride With GPS all to get a very detailed trail map of the area and see myself on the trail as I moved.

I also got the chance for other observations of Ruffed Grouse (above), Red Squirrel, Eastern Chipmunk, Golden-crowned Kinglet, and Grey Jay.