I hadn't planned much for Sunday's count of the Great Backyard Bird Count, apart from a trip out to the St George Society Cliffs to have a look for any Gyrfalcons that might still be about. Then I got a call from a good friend of mine. Seven Snowbuntings had been seen at Ullisautitalik, also known as Rabbit Valley, and would I be interested in going for a look. Would I?
Being as it was Valentine's Day, and being as I am an unabashed, incurable romantic, I left Leah with the kids and a promise that I'd return soon (after carefully checking in there was gas in her snowmobile, and asking if I could use it). I met Niore on the ice, and we took off to Ullisautitalik, making a beeline there.
As we turned down Adam's Sound passed Holy Cross Point it struck me that in the 10 (going on 11) years that I've been here, I had never gone this way down Adam's Sound. Not once. I had always turned west towards the cliffs or on out to Admiralty Inlet. Ullisautitalik is on the opposite side of the sound from Arctic Bay, and I marvelled at how smooth the ice was this year. It was nice to be on the wide open road.
I knew that it was unlikely that the birds that were seen on Saturday were Snow Buntings. Although Snow Buntings arrive early (beginning of May) and leave late, they do not winter here. There was, however, a pretty good chance that they were another small passerine, redpolls. Redpolls supposedly winter in the High Arctic, and there were hints that it was a good year for them. Reports filtered in in mid dark season of "Snow Buntings" seen around town, and I had seen the first Hoary Redpolls of my time here, this fall at Uluksan.
We had, unfortunately, no information on where exactly the birds had been seen, and this is big country. So we were faced with, essentially, two choices when we arrived. We could either go up into the hills, or follow the river canyon. We chose to go up into the hills.
I've said this before, but this is a startlingly beautiful country. Adam's Sound offered stunning vistas, cliffs and jagged mountains. And as we climbed we could look back at Arctic Bay and the St George Society Cliffs in the distance (The entrance to Rabbit Valley is about 16 kilometres from town, we would cover over 50 kilometres during the trip).
We climbed to a rocky section near the first ridge top (probably about 300 metres above sea level) and left the snowmobiles to walk to a small "inuksuk"
, look at the Sundog low on the horizon (photos did not turn out, I've really got to pay more attention to the camera these days), and take some photos.
But there was very little sign of any animal life up here, only a lone set of Arctic Hare tracks, so we back tracked and headed down to the mouth of the canyon. Immediately our prospects improved and we began seeing the signs of the winter life in this land. Here, a lemming scrambled down the wall of the canyon, there an Arctic Fox left scat on the top of an ice mound. Another predator, the weasel, had prowled along the edge earlier, a hare used the river as a highway.
We drove farther up the canyon, at times by towering walls, dripping with huge icicles. Our way, a smooth ride on the river ice, reminded me again, that I live in a place that leaves me breathless. A place that exists only in most people imaginations, but it is in my backyard.
Niore stopped to examine some tracks, which turned out to be fresh Ptarmigan tracks. We climbed a little way up the side to have a closer look. As I looked down the canyon from the direction we had just come, four Rock Ptarmigan flew around the corner, straight at me, passing a little ways away. I followed them as far as I could, and when they went out of sight, but didn't appear to continue down the canyon, we walked to have a closer look.
High up on the wall, two of them could be seen feeding. Niore went farther up river, and began climbing the side for a better photo, while I snapped the first of almost a hundred photos of them, from below. Part way up he began calling insistently and I left the two birds above me
, and started up in his tracks.
I had a very difficult time finding purchase on the hard packed snow of the steep slope, and my boots were far slippier than they appear. It took awhile for me to make my way to the meadow above where Niore was waiting. He was waiting with the news that he had heard the redpolls calling, and pointed out small bird tracks on the tops of snow covered boulders.
The two birds that I had been photographing had moved off, by the time I had made it up, and we moved down the meadow towards scree slopes in the general direction that the bird calls seemed to becoming from, and where ptarmigan could also be heard churring.
About a dozen metres on, I stepped in a hole in the surface, neatly hidden by snow. It was a hole big enough to swallow my entire left leg, straight down. As I sat on the ground, one leg splayed to the side, the other out of sight, and my butt on the ground, I marveled both at my sheer bad luck to find a hole just large enough for my leg to drop into, and my sheer good luck that it was straight down and that I was not injured in the least. It would have been a long way back with a broken leg.
A little farther down we found the flock of Rock Ptarmigan that now numbered twelve birds. They were alert, but mostly unconcerned with our presence, just making sure that they kept their distance from us. We ended up on either side of them,
and they made their way quite close to me, feeding all the way.
After they flew off, we split up and continued our search for whatever small passerines these were. Both of us heard the birds call, sparingly, but were unable to either pinpoint where the sound was coming from or find the birds themselves.
The day getting late, and the sun sinking farther, we decided to give up and head for home, making a quick stop at the Gyrfalcon aerie to see if the falcon was around (it wasn't). On the way there we passed by a father and son travelling by dog team down Adam's Sound (probably the only team in the GBBC to experience that). Passing by the dog teams on the ice I grabbed a quick count of 63 Ravens, and headed in to see my wife, who promptly informed me that I had forgotten we were suppose to take part in an air rifle competition with the RCMP team in the annual Cadet open competition.
We had been gone over four hours.
Here are some more of the Rock Ptarmigan photos.
Recent Comments