Ptarmigan Ptime!

Breakfast is in 30 minutes.  If yesterday is any indication, I better use my time wisely as we are always birding. Back to yesterday morning.

We were picked up by Stephanie and Heidi who work at the Centre and Rudolf who is our bird guide for the trip.  There was one other guest who had just flown in.  Big news in Churchill, there is a Common Crane is town. It sounds boring but it is from Eurasia (also known as the Eurasian Crane), first time in Manitoba and very few previous in Canada.  First stop, the grain port where he is hanging out with some Sandhill Cranes.  We did not find him.  

Then a slow ride to the Centre during which we saw our first Ptarmigan.  At the Centre we dropped off our bags and get our rooms sorted.  Mom and I are in room 4.  There are two bunk beds, we claimed the two bottom beds.  Now that everyone has arrived, I think we get to keep the room to ourselves.  Then we had a safety orientation that mostly said - don't get eaten by a bear.

The Centre is pretty cool.  There is dorms upstairs with a library and games room.  I saw a pool table somewhere.  Downstairs is the cafeteria and gift shop.  At one end is the research area with labs and microscope-y type stuff. People are working in there so I just took a quick peek.

Meals are at 7am, noon and 5:30.  Be there or don’t eat (that's not true but that is when hot meals are served, otherwise it is cold leftovers in the fridge).  There are a couple of paid cooks but most of the clean up is by volunteers and guests.

Apparently, this is the only picture I have taken of the Centre, inside or out.

I think this was our longest 'break' while we had our bear talk.  Then we had lunch and out the door, into the van and birding commenced.  Back to the grain port but no luck again. Then to the airport to pick up the last five of our group and then back to the grain port.  Still no luck.  People were getting antsy about that crane.  Of course when we weren't at the airport or the grain port, we were looking at other birds, all of which escape me at the moment (no worries, I have pictures!).  Zillions of water birds.

Horned Grebe

Common Eider

A pair of Pintails

Green-winged Teal

Dinner and back out again 45 minutes later.  The blessing and the curse of the cold weather and long days, birding never has to stop.  No whimpy southern excuses like it is too hot mid-day or it is dark at 9 o'clock.  Nope, we birded until 10:30pm.  We were all exhausted but Rudolf is a keener.   We certainly can't complain we aren't getting our money's worth.

We saw some great birds at the end of the day - a Spruce Grouse, and a Snowy Owl.  My camera died so not pictures of these two, I'm sorry to say.  Funny bird story - one of the guests had just asked Rudolf if we would see a Snowy Owl and he was explaining how that was very unlikely as they had all left town by now.   Literally as he was saying that, another guest says - isn't that one there?  There was a huge Snowy Owl right in front of us on a tiny tree.  So awesome.  Plus, we spent all day looking for another Ptarmigan and then found one sitting in a tree just down the road from the Centre.

The Ptarmigan, in between his winter whites and his summer browns

Here are some pictures from our first day

This is an area called the 'Flats'

Squirrel!!!

There are hundreds of ponds, everywhere.

The gorgeous greeny-grey moss grows under the trees.

The Ithica in the ice.  It is an old shipwreck.  I have no historical data for you.

Houses in the Flats, it is a poor area of town

There are so many abandoned buildings here.
This was a radar station that is falling apart.

Another abandoned building.  This was apartments for the port workers

I should mention the ice on the bay/river.  We had heard that it was starting to break up when we were on the train.  Sure enough, by the time we reached Churchill, the ice was mostly gone.  There is still some in a couple of bays but not in the main body of water.  This means the belugas are here! Yay.  Breakup is also when the polar bears start coming back into town as they leave the ice and move inland.  We have been told that it is still too early and even when they do arrive, they don't mass like they do in fall.  But, just to drive us crazy, there was a sighting on a nearby beach the day before we arrived.

Ice still in a small bay

Some seals on the ice, from very far away.

That white blob is a beluga, the grey smaller blob beside it is a baby beluga.
 I don't think I can do better from shore, sorry

I cropped the photo to see if the beluga shows up.  I will let you be the judge.

It is cold here.  3 degrees yesterday.  It is colder than the coldest day in Victoria this winter.  I am bundled up with my inadequate parka, inadequate toque, inadequate scarf and mitts.  Brrrr.

Seriously, it was COLD

This morning I was up at 6am.  I spent the few minutes of breaks between meals and birding to finally upload some pictures to yesterday's post.  (I haven't actually had time to look at them so I may add or remove some at a later date.)

Breakfast where we saw our Ptarmigan sitting on some rocks outside of the cafeteria window.  I guess I needn't have worried about seeing one.  Back into the van for 7:45.  Back to the grain port.  NO CRANE!!  Onward.  Bird, bird, bird.

The grain port.  You can see why I wasn't too thrilled to be there so many times.

I had to see it over and over so you have to look at it twice,
here is the port from a distance 

Back to the grain port.  CRANE!  Finally, success.  He is a lovely bird with a gorgeous tail.  I have a crappy picture taken through a chain link fence.  And the best part - we can stop hanging out at the grain port.

Common Crane

Here is his splendiforous tail.

Lunch.  Back in the van.  Birds, birds birds.  We took a long walk at one point.  We literally just went over what we saw as a group and I can't remember what we saw.  Oh, one highlight, four snow buntings.

Birds

Northern Shoveler

Blue-winged Teal

Pacific Loon

Golden Plover

Nesting Herring Gull and her dutiful mate.  He is holding nesting material in his beak

Canada Geese. These are everywhere in the tundra, nesting.  We have even seen a few goslings.
I liked these guys posing.

Bald Eagle on the ice

I think this is a Dowitcher.  I can not keep track of the shorebirds.

Surf Scoter

Snow Bunting

Merlin

Dinner.  We are all so tired, Rudolph said he would do an easy evening activity.  So we drove a bit past the rocket launch (have I mentioned that the Centre is located on a defunct Rocket Launch site from the '50s.)

That is the rocket launcher on the right.  These buildings are abandoned.
The Centre is right beside them.

One of many duds.  This rocket is about 10 km from the launcher.

Then we did another hour long walk.  It was so cold out.  Best bird from the walk, a long-tailed Jaeger. Plus we found a broken up rocket that has been rusting in the woods for 50 years.  And lots of teeny-tiny flowers.

Longtail Jaeger

Teeny-tiny flowers.  

If I was nice, I would find out their names but I do not have time.

Now we are home again and it is already past ten and I haven't even looked, let alone downloaded my pictures. So I am going to post again without pictures (sorry) and try to do them tomorrow.  No one will look at this until Monday anyway.