Owl Prowl

Yesterday was a great day to be outside and I took full advantage of that.  The snow clouds moved on and the sun was shining so I headed out with the snowshoes to Elk Island Park.

Amisk Wuche is my favorite trail as there are lots of hills and a variety of things to see.  The boardwalk across the beaver pond was drifted over and in places it was difficult to tell where it actually was.  I made it across without ending up in snow that would be above my knees.

I was the first human on the trail.  There were lots of animal tracks including bison, moose, coyote, squirrel and hare.  It's always a great work out when you have to break trail and yesterday did not disappoint.  

On my travels around the loop, the only sound I heard was a squirrel nattering at me from a tree top.  The rest of the forest was silent.  I was looking forward to resting and having a nice hot drink at the only bench on the trail.

I got to the bench only to find it almost buried.  I won't be enjoying it anytime soon unless I bring along a shovel.  With it being -26C this morning, I don't think a big melt is going to happen today.

I decided to take a scenic route home so headed to the north park gate rather than the south.  The snow storm this week seemed to have hit areas north of me harder so I wanted to check it out.

The highway to Lamont still had an inch of ice on it places.  Highway 15 east was wet and slushy.  The range roads that run north/south got hit the worst.  Graders were working to clear the drifts.  They had the v-snowplows on the front to break through the drifts and then they were using the blades to push the snow to the ditches.  The banks in some places were as high as the middle of the grader cab door.  Some of the roads had 'road closed' barricades on them.  The drifts were as high as the barricades.

An owl prowl was planned for Elk Island in the evening.  I had it in mind earlier in the week to participate but with snowshoeing in the morning, I was hesitant to go back again.

Well, evening came and we headed back to the park to meet in the Astotin Lake parking lot for the prowl.  On the way we saw 2 moose, a deer, an elk and a lot of bison. 

There were not many people; only one guide and 8 of us in the group.  As we waited to see if more participants would arrive, we got to witness a beautiful sunset across the lake.  The colors were magnificent as the sun disappeared.

Our guide brought some pre-recorded owl calls.  He was letting us hear them before we actually left for the prowl.  The very last call was that of a Great Horned.  Just as he finished playing it, a great horned owl swooped into a nearby tree.  It remained long enough for everyone to get a peek of it through their binoculars.  I guess it realized that it was just a bunch of humans calling so it soared away in the opposite direction.
That was the only owl that we saw last night.  There were no other sightings and no owl calls.  That was okay because even though the night was chilly, the moon was shining brightly and the stars were out.  What a great way to spend a Saturday night.