Despite a forecast for rain, the sun broke through the clouds and it remained partly cloudy for most of the day. We did finally get a bit of a sprinkle this evening, but it didn’t last long. The kids and I hiked up to the viewpoint on Gavan Hill. It took us a couple of hours to get there between the rest breaks, Connor’s quest for bow material, and Rowan’s desire to turn over every rock or piece of wood to see what was underneath. Not too far below the view point (but above the 1000 ft post), we started running into snow on the trail. I later briefly talked to a guy who hiked up to the ridge, and he said he did a little post holing up there up to thigh deep.
On the way up, Connor saw a deer briefly, but it turned around and quickly ran back where it came from when he started excitedly saying “Deer! Deer!” , so Rowan and I didn’t spot it. On the way down I while I waited for Connor (he wanted to retrieve a bow he had set down to pick up, then passed with out realizing, so he hiked back up to it), Rowan checked out part of the upper cross trail. She ended up seeing a family of small mammals – she wasn’t sure if they were mice, voles, or shrews. There were three or four young and an adult. She said she saw them first then could hear the young squeaking a bit. They disappeared long before Connor and I were able to look, but Connor and Rowan spent some time on the hillside where she had seen them hoping to catch them out in the open again. After Connor got tired of looking but we were still waiting for Rowan to be done, Connor noticed a bristletail on his hand. I have seen the upland bristletail once and got a really bad picture, so I’m hoping to get better picture at some point, but unfortunately the one Connor saw was able to escape before he could show it to me. Quite a bit of Fern-leaf Goldthread was blooming along the trail, even a fair ways up the hill. Another first of season bloomer I found were crowberries in the muskeg at the start of the trail.
After we returned and had lunch, we headed out yet again, this time to meet up with some folks to look for spring greens. We went up to the Cross trail and then a short way down it before heading back (it was still a bit early for the targeted Devil’s Club).
This evening we walked down to Totem Park. It was pretty quiet there bird-wise. A flock of Black Turnstones with maybe a few Surfbirds mixed in were the only shorebirds I saw. I didn’t see any sparrows, the geese were gone, and there weren’t even that many ducks. I did find Red Huckleberry and Trailing Currant blooming – both first of season blooming for me.
I took lots of pictures today, but no doubt it will be some time before I get through them all and upload them