Having flown across the Atlantic, driven 1,500km from Calgary to Thompson, we caught the overnight train to Churchill. The train is quite a slow moving and very rocky and clattery one, trying to get a decent night's sleep on the reclining chairs is not easy and we arrived in Churchill feeling more jetlagged than we did after the flight to Canada. As we approached Churchill, we did see a few birds, mostly Willow Grouse, which had mostly moulted and so had a lot of white on them, and also a couple of Rough-legged Buzzards.
The rental car company met us off the train with the truck we were hiring, took payment for the car and handed us a map of the area, with roads and track we were allowed to drive on marked and then a series of Xs for those we weren't. However, given the scale of the map, it's not that easy to work out which is which in real life, but annoyingly, the track known locally as "Polar Bear Alley" was one of the off limits ones!
A couple of people we had met en route to Churchill were adamant we would see bears and we rather innocently thought there would be quite a few around along the shore and easy to see, if not get close to. However, it is early in the season and the biting northerly wind may be making them keep their heads down, and after 2 days of driving various road and tracks and scanning shorelines, we still haven't seen a Polar Bear, or much else come to that.
The excitement, for me anyway, reached its peak as we drove along a track by the river. Suddenly I braked and swerved so that I could get my lens lined up on something ahead. Toni said, "Is there something exciting?" to which I replied, "Yes, Sparrows!". Possibly not what she was expecting, but on the track were 4 sparrows - 3 American Tree Sparrow and 1 Harris's Sparrow, both species I've not seen before. The Harris's Sparrow showed quite well by the side of the track and I did at least manage a few respectable photos of it.
To even things out, since Toni much prefers furry animals to feathered ones, this morning while driving down one track, we did find a couple of Arctic Hares, both hunkered down behind rocks sheltering from the blustery wind, and when we returned later in the day, they were still there and clearly not moving far from their sheltered spots.
Hopefully, tomorrow's tundra buggy tour will be more fruitful for seeing and photographing Polar Bears than driving back and forth along the same roads each day has been...
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