So much green. Looking down on the foothills from a rise just west of the city, endless emerald pastures and leafy forests extended all the way to the mountains. Washed clean by three days of rain, everything glowed in the morning sun. I had decided to take a chance on the weather forecast and wait until Wednesday morning instead of braving the wind and rain. Glad I did. The morning was cool but sunny and bright, and the foothills were gorgeous. Swallows swooped through meadows, grabbing bugs out of the air to take to their babies. Little ephemeral streams ran through carpets of dandelions, full of rainwater.
All of it was stunning, but what I really wanted to see was my favourite little waterfall. It is tiny, a mini-Niagara not much more than waist high, but it sits in a pretty declivity in the foothills surrounded by jagged rocks and green moss. The last time I saw it, it was encased in ice, but with all this rain, I was sure it would be roaring today.
Stops Along the Way
But there were a few stops to make along the way. Jumpingpound Creek was predictably high and dirty, though not as much as I expected. It was running right up to the banks, and the side channels were flowing as well, but it had not really spread out much. With all that rain, I expected it to be flowing among the trees, but no, it looked like pretty normal spring runoff.
What the rain had affected, though, were the roads. The gravel sections were a slimy mess with a lot of heaved-up areas in the low spots where water was pushing through from underneath. If they were like this nearly a day after the rain had quit, they must have been nothing but grey soup when the rain was coming down. Glad I decided to wait.
The sunshine was helping dry things out, though, and it filtered nicely through the trees where I stopped to look for orchids. I figured I might be a bit late for the pretty little calypsos, but there were lots of other things to catch my eye. Lichens loved the damp forest, and I do not know if it was the rain or the light, but the greens, oranges, and yellows were really rich. Against the dark dampness of the mossy forest floor, they seemed like they had their own light, tiny bits of neon stuck to twigs and fallen limbs. Among them were plants still unfolding their tiny leaves and fallen spruce and pine needles.
And one small patch of orchids. One blossom was still opening, another looked to be finishing up. But close by were a couple that were clearly done, the pink drained and faded to jaundiced yellow. Still lovely but past their prime.
Wildlife Encounters
The whitetail buck I found down the road was just coming into his. His antlers were starting to branch out, the velvet on them slick from walking through the wet forest. Winter hair was still coming off, but the soft brown fur of summer was showing through between the patches. Another week or so and he will be magnificent.
I made the turn onto Powderface Trail and had to ford the overflow from Sibbald Creek caused by a beaver dam at the bridge. It was not deep or treacherous in any way, but it kind of put me off from continuing much further. The road ahead would be mucky at best, flooded even more along Jumpingpound Creek at worst. Instead, I watched a group of cowbirds. They were entertaining, flying back and forth along the road, searching the grass for fallen seeds and poking through the muck for whatever meaty things they could find. Seemed like they were still in courtship mode, too. Several of the males were doing this wing-spreading, tail-raising thing whenever another male showed. The females, as usual, seemed unimpressed, but I would think they had already laid their eggs in another species' nest — they are parasitic that way — and were happy to just keep foraging.
There were plenty of other birds around for the cowbirds to parasitize. Yellow warblers everywhere along with song sparrows, blackbirds, and waterbirds of every kind. Redtail hawks flew over the wide meadow while harriers patrolled the beaver ponds. I even saw a little sora rail in the water right beside the road, but it eluded me.
Sibbald Meadows Pond was lined with people, most of them fishing. I suspect the pond had recently been stocked and word had gotten out, so folks were there to catch their share. Good luck to them, but I decided to roll on a bit further. My little waterfall was right there, but I kinda wanted it to myself.
And they were not the only fish-seekers. Common mergansers, fish-eating ducks, were swimming on the beaver ponds up by the summit. Two females were on the lower pond, swimming in synchronization like a couple of ladies out for a stroll, while a group of males kept to themselves on the far side of the upper pond. A little bufflehead swam nearby. The mergansers were pretty wary and stayed close to where a rain-swollen spring stream was feeding into the pond, but a mallard posed nicely as it preened on a submerged log. He was funny, quacking and flexing his wings, the opposite of the nervous mergansers.
The marmot I found up the road was not nervous either. It was out in the muddy gravel for some reason and never moved until I was right up to it. Even then, it just ambled off into some roadside rocks and posed like it was the master of its domain. Given the size of it, it probably was.
The Little Waterfall
Crowd or not, time to go visit the waterfall. And it was roaring, though again, not as much as I thought it would be. Water was pouring down the narrow valley and dropping over the hard sandstone lip of the falls, but with all that rain, I kinda expected more. It was still a lovely sight, and the bubbles around the edge of the plunge pool reflected the sky above while water splashed on the rocks and flowed down the often-dry stream below. A lone clematis blossom bloomed in the spray while the moss soaked up whatever it could. Canada violets showed their pale faces in the shady forest close by, and I am sure I could have found other pretty little things had I decided to cross the stream. A combination of laziness and a desire to keep my feet dry held me back.
Return Journey
I debated going over the summit and heading back along the highway but decided to retrace my steps instead. I had heard frogs singing on the way up, so I figured I would have a look for them. Found them, too, in a rain-filled ditch next to the road. It sounded like there were hundreds of them, but I only managed to see one. It looked very relaxed.
Clouds were building up again as I headed east, and they loomed over a set of beaver ponds closer to town. I could see where the rain had sent the water across the road and carved away a bit of the gravel. It would not take much more to flood it again. But the ducks were enjoying it. There were ringnecks and green-winged teal, a young shoveller still in last year's baby feathers, mallards, and geese. Downstream, below the road, water gushed out and flowed away through the beaver ponds. Where it would go on to nourish so much green.
