Grasslands National Park

Even some Saskatchewan residents told us that there is nothing to see in their province but wheat fields. They are so wrong.

Special thanks to Kelvin Wood for recommending that we visit this park.

We did a self-guided 80km loop drive from the Parks Canada office in nearby Val Marie. Oddly enough we saw more species outside the park than in it, but the office agreed that the farmlands round about had lots of wild animals.

The first 'tick' of the day - a Sharp-tailed Grouse

These deer slipped through the fence with an ease that argued much practice.

The most abundant, and actually in the park, were the black-tailed prairie dogs (silly name - they are marmots, not dogs). They have a very high coefficient of cuteness and were not shy at long camera range. 

The Richardson's ground squirrels outside the park are also cute, but not vehicle savvy. Luckily we managed to miss them all.

There were lots of deer, including a whole herd of white-tailed. The coyote was our first and *is* a member of the dog family.

A number of birds remain to be identified from the photos, but there were definitely double-crested cormorants (yes, this far from the sea), Swainson's hawks and Eastern kingbirds.

A (Field?) Sparrow

Eastern Kingbirds

A sparrow takes flight

Double-crested Cormorants - young ones don't have the crests.

The one thing  missing was the park's pride and joy - prairie bison. Before we set off we were given warnings about the bison being extra dangerous because is is their breeding season, and how to dress and walk (eyes down) to avoid being chomped by rattlesnakes. We neither saw nor heard any snakes.  We could see over huge acreages of grassland but somehow the bison managed to hide.

This does not do justice to the vastness of the prairie.  It is huge.  But there are contours and coulees in which the bison were presumably concealing themselves.

Grass - what the park is all about.