New Canoe and lots of birds on the South Saskatchewan River

Lee solos Searszilla

We finally got a new canoe! We have been using Lee and Sandi's old 17' Sears beast since we were married. It has served us very well and has now been handed along to Liz. At my strongest, I was able to carry it down to a boat launch myself, but that is a decade behind me now.

I tried to talk Wendy into an ultra-light kevlar replacement, but at $4-6K that seemed like a remote possibility. Instead we settled on a sensible 14'6" Clipper - Escape from Eb's Adventure.

Clipper - Escape

While she didn't want to admit it--"A canoe is a canoe" <yawn>--Wendy is clearly in LOVE with the Escape. Even with the river at faster than average flow rate, she was able to solo (with me as dead weight) across the river and even make easy headway upstream. The ostensible reason for this needless test of her paddling prowess was a large bird nest that she spotted on the East side of the river. As it turns out, it wasn't a nest at all.

I am not any kind of bird expert, so I'm hoping that my mother or Ryan will step in and add some intelligent comments for clarification. That said I'm just going to do some googling and make a few guesses. <begin "guru" voice> These Bald Eagles appear to be siblings a few years apart. I would guess the darker, juvenile one is in its second year, and that the older "immature" one is maybe 4 years old. </guru> All my "knowledge" on this matter was gleaned from this helpful website.

2nd year plumage?

Sadly, my shutter speed was a little slow to manage a perfect shot during flight. But, I'm keeping the photo anyway.

After 10 minutes of hovering under their perch and fruitless waiting for the older one to take flight, we continued down river.

We usually like to take our pick of dozens of sand bars for a lengthy snack and lounging stop. While the river has dropped a meter from the level where boats weren't permitted on the water, there was really only one candidate for our consideration. It had some really interesting erosion formations.

The rest of the trip into Saskatoon was Wendy gleefully darting in and out of eddies while I directed her to "hold steady," or "the dead fish will have better light on the other side of the boat." Lest you think I am kidding...

But, mostly this day was all about birds. They were everywhere and seemed to be quite active and even playful. Again... all of my bird IDs are novice guesses. If you have a better, more educated guess, please let me know.

Cedar Waxwing

Canada Goose

Eastern Kingbird

Belted Kingfisher

This little one below was so fast and tiny that I didn't think I would get a picture worth keeping at all.

Yellow Warbler

All in all, it was a perfect day. There was a bit of a breeze that kept off the mosquitoes, and enough sun that a dip in the river was really refreshing, but you warmed up quickly after getting too cold.

For more photos of birds--mostly duplicates--but, also including Grey Catbird and American Crow, check out all 54 photos from our day trip