Grey Jay Day

Today we meet up with Anika and Julie to rent a cabin in the park. You can't check in until 4 pm and Anika and Julie wouldn't arrive for a few more hours yet. So, Carsten, Penny and I packed up our things and took down our tents from site 40 and headed over to the picnic shelter on Slab Lake to play board games to pass the time. 

About an hour before Anika and Julie were scheduled to arrive, Carsten decided that it was time that he started home. Penny and I stayed and played another board game or two. 

While we were there, we spotted a Yellow-Bellied Sap Sucker in the tree next to the Comfort Station. ​

We tried to get as close as we could for a picture. The comfort station has 2 entrances with the tree growing within feet of one of the entrances. So, we thought maybe we could go in one door and then walk down to the other door and quietly pop out close to the tree undetected to get a better look. 

It didn't really go according to plan.  We didn't anticipate that someone else would come in the other door and scare the bird away while we tried to get closer. But that's ok. We had still gotten a couple of pictures before the Sap Sucker flew away. 

The cell service in the park is not very good so we were not sure that Anika and Julie would get any text messages we sent regarding where to meet up. Since that was the case we decided to play it safe and pack up the board games and just go and explore the Amphitheatre for awhile. 

At the Amphitheatre we spotted a group of about 3 or 4 Grey Jays., also known as Whiskey Jacks or Canada Jays. They are Canada's national bird. 

I hadn't seen a Grey Jay in over 10 years, so to see am bunch of them all in one place was a real treat for me. 

It was getting close to 3 pm and Anika and Julie could arrive at any moment, so Penny and I headed over to the park office and bought some ice cream and sat and waited for them to show up. 

As we sat outside on the picnic table benches, a Red-spotted Admiral butterfly came and waited with us.

We didn't have long to wait at all. Maybe 10 minutes later Anika and Julie arrived and we were able to register for the cabin we had reserved on Irrigation Lake. 

This year we found that they no longer had a key for the cabin or the gate. Instead, they had a combination lock. We didn't really like this much because, unless they were changing them combination between each visit (which I highly doubt they were), this meant that all the visitors who rented the cabin previous to us had the combination to get into the cabin. 

We backed our cars into the private parking lot and excitedly started to unload our stuff and bring it into the cabin. 

After last years mouse invasion, I decided to bring along a live trap for mice this time. The way it works is, the mice climb up the black ladders on either side of the orange bucket until they get to the top where the bait is. They walk under the yellow top and fall through a trap door into the bucket where they can't get out. 

However, we did not seem to have any mice in the cabin this year. But it was better to bring the trap and not need it than to need it and not have it. 

Out at the bathroom we found a sign saying "Do not disturb the birds nest".  We located the birds nest up in the corner by the sink just like it was last year.  It was empty though. 

In the yard between the bathroom and the cabin sat a Northern Flicker checking us out..

And of course our family of loons was back. They only had one baby this year instead of two.  Since loons always return to the same lake, we knew these were the same ones from before.  In the visitor's log in the cabin someone had written about the loons. They named the loons Guida and Miguel. 

As we sat drinking our drinks and watching the loons we noticed one of the loons behaving strangely. All of a sudden it seemed as though it started flopping around and bashing its wings against the water. Almost like it was trying to fly but couldn't.  We thought maybe it had gotten caught on a fishing line or something under water. 

In a flash, operation Loon Rescue had begun! Julie and I grabbed life jackets and a canoe and quickly headed over to the loon to see if we could help. 

Of course in our haste we hadn't really thought this through. If the loon was caught on something we hadn't brought any scissors or knife to free it with. Nor had we brought any gloves or towel to protect our hands with. 

The loons let us paddle up quite close to them. By this time the loon that had seemed to be in distress was no longer in distress and was just looking at us. 

We paddled around for a bit and kept an eye on it but ultimately determined that the loon did not actually need any help. We took a wild guess and figured that perhaps they were teaching the baby to either fly or how to scare fish in the direction that they wanted them to go in. So, we headed back to shore.

The rest of the afternoon, evening and well into the wee hours of the morning were spent eating a great BBQ meal, drinking booze and playing board games. We were loud, we were laughing and we were having a great time. 

The nice thing about being on our own private lake, is that no one came by to tell us to keep the noise down. It was probably about 2 in the morning before we got to bed. We are definitely going to be sleeping in tomorrow!