Having endured the 8 hour flight to Calgary, getting held up by overzealous security checks in the airport and then trying to work out how the car hire cost has double when Alamo add their insurance on, and then an hour or so drive north, we finally arrived in the town of Red Deer. An evening wander around a small pool and a bit of woodland got me familiar again with some American bird species, including Downy Woodpecker, Boreal Chickadee and a nice mixture of ducks such as Redhead and Blue-winged Teal, which only occur in the UK as vagrants.
Next morning, we set off on the long drive across to Prince Albert, but as usual, Toni found a place en route to stop called Elk Island National Park, where there is a large reintroduced population of Bison. As it turned out, this was a really nice national park, and we decided not to press on to Prince Albert, and spent the rest of the day around the park. A lunchbreak around Astotin Lake produced a confiding group of 3 Yellowlegs, 2 of which were Lesser and one, Greater Yellowlegs. By sitting still, one of the Lesser Yellowlegs did come very close, though even when some noisy kayakers came stomping past, it wasn't duly bothered!
As we drove along the road, past the many lakes with large Beaver lodges on, we noticed a Beaver sitting on the edge of the water. After several minutes it swam into the water, found a nice stick and swam off to the lodge, presumably the beaver equivalent of grabbing. a take out for tea!
One of the features of the park is a Bison loop, where there was plenty of bison dung, but no bison, but Toni spotted a Coyote hunting among the grass, which eventually came closer and we got some lovely views, and eventually it walked straight across the track and off into deeper grass. I doubt a Coyote outside the safety of the park would have been so calm around us!!
As evening fell, we started to drive back up through the park and head toward Lamont, where we had found some accommodation. With fewer vehicles on the road and the temperature dropping from the heat of the day, several Bison were feeding along the roadside, and watching from the safety of the vehicle, they were completely unconcerned, though they probably see plenty of selfie grabbing tourists so are a bit more blase about people than they would be in wilder places.
