Springtime = Best Time!

Spring is possibly my favourite time of year for many reasons:

- My birthday falls in Spring (I turned 25 – and survived!);

- Classes wrap up in Spring (I defended my Master’s proposal last week and am now officially an MSc candidate!);

- Temperatures and conditions shape up for GREAT climbing (Graham and I leave for Smith Rock in two days!!);

- Birds undertake their long migration journeys towards breeding territories!!

I was out at Iona Bird Observatory with Wild Research this morning (5:30am start – when I return in two weeks, it’ll be a 4:45am start!) to volunteer for their six week bird migration banding program. As a first timer I was mostly watching and learning  - there is so much to take in!

I got to see my FIRST Common Yellowthroat:

As well as an adorable Lincoln’s Sparrow and Hermit Thrush.

I learned a bit about aging birds based on plumage, as is being done with this American Robin:

I also learned “Bander’s Grip”, the first and safest bird handling technique, and got to hold an American Goldfinch:

...a Ruby-crowned Kinglet:

...and a Spotted Towhee:

It’s incredible the detail you can see on birds this close.

Off to Oregon now – more awesome bird and climbing updates to come!!

Adventures in Whitehorse

I have just returned from a beautiful adventure in the Yukon. I flew up to Whitehorse to visit Jenna, who is all grown up and teaching high school now:

We had fantastic weather all weekend, which made the entire experience even more magical. There is so much to do there, the lifestyle is laidback and adventurous, and the sense of community is strong. I can’t wait to go back.  

The Yukon is like Canada’s last frontier. I fell in love with the virtually untouched Boreal Forest of winter: 

Jenna and her partner Ben are currently house sitting on Marsh Lake. The ice is so thick you can build ice sculptures from it! Across the lake and behind the mountains is Alaska, only 2.5 hours away: 

Saturday morning we hit the road to go to Skagway, Alaska. Unfortunately about halfway there I realized I had forgotten my passport, so back we had to turn. At least the drive was beautiful, and we passed some caribou on the road! 

We decided to go cross-country skiing for the afternoon instead! It was super fun, and totally kicked my butt: 

…and I was very excited to ski through a stand of burned lodgepole pine with all its regenerating babies: 

Although the vast majority of the Yukon’s population lives in Whitehorse, it is still quite a small town with a huge sense of community. We met up with some of Jenna’s girlfriends and went downtown for “Burning Away the Winter Blues”. We checked out some musical instruments: 

…and hiked along the river to the site of a large bonfire. Here we burned the 15-foot long golden dragon effigy and old-man-winter: 

   

…and tossed in our own pieces of paper upon which we had written our winter blues: 

Today we had a beautiful lazy morning, and then went to the Yukon Wilderness Preserve. This is a vast reserve where several northern animals (thinhorn sheep, moose, caribou, elk, bison, muskox, lynx, arctic fox, mule deer, mountain goat) reside: 

Throughout the reserve there are antlers from moose, elk, and caribou for public education: 

Thank you Jenna for a beautiful and memorable weekend! 

Finally, the weekend would not have been complete without investigating the climbing potential and looking for birds. Turns out, in addition to loads of ice climbing, the Yukon DOES have a budding expansion of rock climbing: 

And although I didn’t get all the bird species I set out for, I did manage some “lifers”.

The list:

-spruce grouse

-bald eagle

-black-billed magpie

-common raven

-black-capped chickadee

-boreal chickadee

-pine grosbeak

-common redpoll

-hoary redpoll *99% certain*

<3 Kim

Musings from the geographical centre of BC!

While Graham has been frolicking in Squamish over the past month, I have been working as a research assistant at a study site about 1.5 hours SW of Vanderhoof, BC (the geographical centre of the province!). The region where I am working is referred to as the "Big River Country", expansive backcountry more than 15 times the size of Hong Kong (pop: 17 Million) with a population of 150 people.

Our study site is called Carrott Lake. It looks a like this:

Carrott Lake Experimental Site (photo cred: M. Krawchuk)

We spend our days counting and measuring vegetation species, coring and characterizing trees (many of which have been killed by mountain pine beetle) and collecting soil samples. We collect our data at measured intervals within our study plots, centred around sample pins that looks like this:

Sample point centre

Here we are enjoying a fun day of soil sampling!

Digging a soil pit in the rain! (photo cred: M. Krawchuk)

The product of our soil sampling day (photo cred: M. Krawchuk)

When we are not at Carrott Lake, we are back at our campsite, which is an hour away at Nechako Lodge (www.nechakolodge.com), a beautiful wilderness and aviation resort near the Kenney Dam. We really like food...

Photo cred: M. Krawchuk

 and campfires...

Photo cred: M. Krawchuk

You might be asking, "what is the purpose of all this fieldwork?" Well, in the next week or so, we will be returning to Carrott Lake to participate in the BURNING of our study plots. I am pretty excited about this prescribed burn, and the awesome outcome for research in vegetation resilience when the burn is complete. Hopefully it will inspire some great Master's Research questions :)