Elk Island Hike

Today we drove (Al drove actually) back a little east of Edmonton to Elk Island National Park to do a 10 mile hike.

Wildlife viewing is one of the draws of the park and here soon after we started we saw an Elk.  It didn't have horns and moved so fast I barely got a sharp picture of it.

The hike went around a lake and we saw this bird. When we got back we looked it up in the book Will's mom got us for our birthday and it was a Baltimore Oriole.

We've used the book several times to identify birds we've seen

 Maureen and Will crossing a wet area of the trail.

Al and Maureen joked that Al often literally almost runs into wildlife.

Soon after this Will and I are 100 yards ahead and we are looking off to the right of the trail at a clearing for more animals and I almost walk into a Wood Bison.

Here you can see the Bison behind some trees about 100 feet from Will and I.

He is just hanging out about 5 feet from the trail so we just watch and wait.

Eventually Benny (My brother named him) peeks out to check us out.   He only lingered a few more minutes before calmly walking into the trees.

 Red Tailed Hawk

Will really liked all the birch tree groves.

Finally we came across a young moose, this is the final type of large mammal in the park.

He didn't seem too spooked by us although we weren't nearly as close as we were to Benny.

His ears would perk up when we made funny noises.

Just a cool mushroom we stumbled upon. Whew caught up with all my blog posts, I need to get to bed. Might be a few days before anymore updates depending on our internet situation. We are heading to Grande Prairie and then through Dawson Creek and the start of the Alaskan Highway.