At the moment we are recording hawk nests within our study area in Fort Macleod. This involves driving up and down every road within six mile square blocks looking for nests made of sticks.
In theory this sounds pretty simple, and it is, until your map shows you a road that needs surveying but instead of a nice gravel road you find two deep muddy tractor tracks, the road turns into a pond and then back into the road, or the road becomes a crop field and you have to reverse 800m because there is nowhere to turn around. Then you sit in your truck debating with yourself whether or not to risk getting stuck and having to ask the local farmer to pull you out. There were no sticks around to test the depth of the pond plus the ducks seemed pretty content without me causing a rip tide so lets just say I'm getting pretty good at driving backwards.
The Ferruginous Hawks arrived around the beginning of April and we are trying to find as many new nests as possible before the leaves are out. As the days begin to warm up I've noticed the Swainson's Hawk have come flooding back and many stick nests that previously appeared unoccupied now have a fresh lining of dried grass, the tell tale 'straw hat' nest of a Swainson's hawk.
Swainson's Hawk
I am lucky enough to catch glimpses of many of Alberta's threatened species. So far this includes an American Badger, Long Billed Curlews, Bald and Golden Eagles and a Prairie falcon. These species are often illusive and are out of sight before I can get my camera lens cover off.
Two days ago I noticed two dark objects in a Hay field. Being a hectic day I continued to drive to my next surveying route. The route happened to take me not to far from where I originally spotted these strange dark objects. I had pulled over momentarily to look at a map when..
Two very cute and very smelly pigs appeared in my wing mirror!
Grunting and snuffling around as they trotted over.
I couldn't help but share my lunch with them. They chewed up the sweet peas and baby carrots I gave them with most of it ending up on the road, but that's OK, it can't be easy to chew with your mouth closed when you are a pig, plus it was fun to watch.
After a few minute they tried eating my shoes and then realised I was all out of treats.
And so they snorted off into the distance.
They might not be a threatened species, but they definitely made my day!
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