Great trip to Canada

Jan and myself have just returned from a fantastic three week holiday in Canada where we travelled as far north as Jasper and as far south as Invermere on the shores of Windermere.

We spent some of the time with some friends Andy, Sarah and their two growing sons. They now live in Canmore and we managed to do some good things with them.

Andy is super-fit at the moment and is into 50 and 100 mile races. He ranks in the top 20 in North America. In contrast I am still on the road to recovery from illness earlier this year and am not as fit as I have been in the past. Despite that Andy did manage to coax me up some big hills.We then spent some time with other friends and did some canoeing, rafting and walking with Kirk and his family.

Whilst we were there we managed to see a lot of wild-life that we have not seen on previous visits. We have seen grizzly bears before and this time spotted a black bear. A particularly special sighting was of a lynx but sadly I wasn’t able to take a photograph of that. We also saw lots of squirrels, marmots, deer and elk etc. So, we had a great trip!

Grizzly bear (picture from previous trip)

Grizzly bear reflected in wing mirror

Coyote

Mule deer

Grouse

Bald eagle

Snowshoe rabbit

But you don’t have to go to Canada to see wild life. You can come and see it in the Lake District or in your home area. In the Watendlath area you can see an ant highway for example.This are made by hairy wood ants (formica lugubris) that are found in coniferous forests.  They may not be big mammals but they are still very interesting. You can read about some hairy wood ant research that is taking place on a National Trust estate in the Peak District at this link.  

Ant highway

Otter tracks

     

I’ve also included some pictures of animal tracks we saw in Canada. If you look carefully, you might be surprised at how many tracks you can find in your garden or the nearest park. It’s often a particularly good time to look when there is a fresh fall of snow or even muddy puddles. Even if you can’t identify them all, you will see just how many creatures frequent quite small areas.

Moose track

Beaver track

Bear track

Daisy here: 

Jan’s Mum and Dad came to look after me whilst Roy and Jan were away. It was great. They gave me special treats but I don’t think Roy is supposed to know.