Today we spent the whole day in Whitehorse, Yukon. I woke up this morning around 2:45 and it was STILL light outside!! It never got dark last night, if I wasn't so tired, I may have stayed out to enjoy it! This morning, we birded in the campground to start, but the birds were not out singing or moving. We walked around and explored downtown Whitehorse. I am not usually a fan of cities at all, but I love this city!! I really feel like I could fit in happily here. We went to Alpine Bakery, which is mostly organic foods and snacks. I got an amazingly delicious chocolate walnut roll. Afterwards, we drove around looking for a place called the Fish Ladder. We got there in time to watch a fish filleting and grilling demonstration! I tried a really tasty Arctic Char with spruce maple seasoning! If you are interested in a new flavor for you fish, try adding spruce tips, maple syrup, grainy mustard, and salt/pepper to taste. I also squeezed some lemon juice onto mine... and I think I could have eaten about 3 whole fish, it was so good!
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| Whitehorse, Yukon |
While we waited at the Fish Ladder for the Yukon Birding Club, a porcupine showed up outside!! It was so cute, and since it wandered in behind a fence, I was able to be about 2 feet away from it! We met up with the YBC and entomologist Syd Cannings for a field trip to a local pond to look for birds and damselflies. It was a TON of fun!! I ran around catching dragonflies for a while, saw my lifer Gray Jays and Olive-sided Flycatcher, caught a Wood Frog, spotted a White-winged Scoter (a year bird for Margaret), saw a Red Fox, got some great contacts for coming back up here to do some research, learned a lot about local plants and insects, met some really cool people, and overall, just had an AWESOME time!! One really interesting thing I learned is that most of the birds in this area are Eastern birds (Myrtle Warbler, instead of Audubon's, Yellow-shafted Flicker, instead of red, Slate-colored Junco, instead of Oregon, etc.) This is because of the way the glaciers receded. As the moved down, they still blocked the western species from expanding their territories, but the eastern species were able to expand westward from the north. By the time the glaciers were gone, the eastern species had already taken over the area so the westerns couldn't move in! Other areas near here to the south have all of the normal western species, but up here, they get a lot of the same birds we see in Ohio! Cool, right!?
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| Syd Cannings teaching the YBC about Damselflies |
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| Me properly holding a live dragonfly so I could examine it better! |
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| Green Bog Orchid |
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| YBC catching insects in a local pond |
After we left the YBC field trip, we went back in Whitehorse and explored the S.S. Klondike and found some Mew Gulls and Arctic Terns!
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| S. S. Klondike |
What an awesome day!! Tomorrow (Sunday) we are heading to Alaska and probably won't have internet for a few days. I will post again as soon as I can! Until then, check out some of my trip photos on my facebook page!
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