Three Counties Wildlife: July 2016

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

Churchill, the other bits 'n bobs...

Trip over and I thought a quick (ha! turned out to be much longer than I planned) post to cover off a few things not mentioned in previous posts would be prudent.

Map of SW Hudson Bay

I did mention a bit about Churchill itself, a unique place where three Biomes converge, which is why it's such a rich area for wildlife. Close to town you can see where the Boreal forests end, the Tundra begins and the Sub-Arctic meets with it. The variety of birds which summer here, the mammals and the flora found in the area are difficult to find together elsewhere. Although the main purpose of the trip was to get to grips with belugas and bears, I did film and photograph everything I could including some birds and plants featured in the following short video:

Also a few images that may have made it into Tweets but didn't make it to previous posts but are worth including now...

Greater Yellowlegs: R. Harris

Chipping Sparrow: R. Harris

Green-flowered Bog Orchid

Beautiful Cinquefoil

Small Round-leaved Orchid

Sweet Vetch

Three-toothed Saxifrage

White Mountain Avens

One very large mosquito. They are plentiful in
the summer so do be prepared!

One of the 17 Tabanid species present. This one was a stonking
3/4 of an inch long. Luckily they don't bite as readily
as the mosquitoes do. See clothing note below.

A bit more about the town and how to get there...

As you may have read in my first live post, Churchill is not a big town. It is also only served by VIA Rail (40 hour journey from Winnipeg) and by air - Calm Air provide a scheduled service as well as a special charter for the Lazy Bear Lodge tours which takes two-and-a-half hours.

Calm Air - the easiest way to reach Churchill

The town has most of the facilities you might expect including a post office, small supermarket, a pub/bar etc. But as it is only designed to serve 800-900 people, don't go expecting much more than that or you'll be disappointed. It is a remote northern Canadian town, built on permafrost, so all of the buildings are made of wood too.

Lazy Bear Lodge signpost

Kelsey Blvd, the main road through town. Looking SE.

Kelsey Blvd, looking NW.

The unpolitically correctly named Eskimo Museum.
Actually a fab place to learn about the local
First Nation's Dené and Inuit peoples.

Inukshuk - ancient signpost of the Inuit people

One of the three old wooden Churches

...and a second

Old railway line near the Sea Port

'Miss Piggy' an ill-fated C-46 that crash-landed
short of the airport after developing engine
problems whilst on a cargo flight in 1979

The Sea Port (now closed) is where grain (wheat, barley, canola etc) from all over central and western Canada was brought to by rail and then shipped out all over the country and indeed the world. Because of the sub-Arctic climate the port only operated for three months of the year during peak summer. Either side of this and the Hudson Bay has too much ice for ships to reach Churchill.

The old Sea Port.

Sea Port looking back to the SE. The long bridge on legs
is the covered grain elevators used to move grain to
the waiting ships.

I mentioned in a previous post that when a vehicle is brought up to the town (by rail), they stay for good as it is too expensive to ship old ones back out. There is a surprising mix of vehicles sitting around.

Old school buses - used by just about every tour company to
ship their clients around.

The downright strange - some sort of giant, covered
skidoo waiting for winter to come?

There are also a few of these lying around - a reminder that it's the Polar Bears that call-the-shots around here. They frequently wander into town, especially in the Autumn and when they do they are captured using a baited bear trap and brought to the 'Polar Bear Jail' for a 30 day cooling off period. During this time they aren't fed (to reinforce the idea that humans should not be associated with food), before being air lifted by helicopter up to 50 miles away and back onto the sea ice in the Hudson Bay.

Polar Bear trap

If you accidentally get caught in one you won't be
going anywhere very quickly. Potentially very
dangerous in temps of -40!

Lined-up and ready for action.

Bear proof garbage bins are a common sight.

It's worth pointing out that many of the ground operators in Churchill will only book you one of their packages. That's to say there aren't too many options for doing your own independent thing up here and to be honest that's sensible given the danger from bears. You really can't wander off on your own unless you are equipped with a firearm, satellite phone and the skill and knowledge to deal with serious situations should they arise. The weather here changes every few minutes off the back of the almost constant NW winds. In the summer it can be 21 deg and sunny one minute and raining 8 deg the next. You have to take the right gear with you - layers, a good waterproof and a down jacket, be prepared for anything and you can't go wrong. In summer you must also be prepared for biting insects with 16 species of mosquito present and 17 species of Tabanid (bulldog, moose or deer flies). The best way to avoid being eaten alive is to take a good deet repellent and wear long sleeves and trousers (recommend using Craghopper's Nosilife insect repellent clothing - superb!). Anything else and you're just asking for trouble (painful, itchy trouble).

If anyone is interested in visiting Churchill I'd be more than happy to offer advice. This was my 40th visit to Canada so I know the country better than most and I'm always glad to help point you in the right direction.

Friday, 22 July 2016

Polar Bears...

Polar bear, Ice bear, Sea bear, Nanuq - call it what you will, it has many names. It's certainly a maritime species much more at home on sea ice and in the water than it is on dry land. At this time of year though they have no choice other than to leave the retreating ice flows, which are currently around 20 miles off shore of Churchill and swim that distance to land to wait out their time until the Hudson Bay freezes once more allowing them to go and hunt again.

The owner of Lazy Bear Lodge, Wally Daudrich, has been guiding for bears and belugas for over 25 years and his knowledge of how they behave and where they will be is second-to-none. Although they can (and do) turn up anywhere along the south western shore of the Bay, just like migrating birds they have preferred spits of land that they will try to reach if they can. Locally there are several hotspots, the best being a place called Hubbard Point 50 miles to the north east of Churchill and this is where we were heading on day 4 of our visit.

Wally Daudrich, Owner/Operator
of Lazy Bear Lodge.

The Samuel Hearne. Specially built for Lazy Bear this
aluminium speed boat has an ice-reinforced hull, a drop
down drawbridge at the front, holds 40 people and skips
across the waves at just over 30mph.

After leaving port we headed to Eskimo Point just past Prince of Wales Fort where we saw the mother and cub coming ashore a couple of days ago and to our surprise they were still there. They were both very cautious at first with just their noses appearing above the rocks to sniff the air as we approached but the cub's curiosity soon got the better of it and it came out to see what all the fuss was about, closely followed by mum.

Inquisitive cub coming to take a look at our boat.
Mum is understandably more cautious and keen to
keep en eye on her little one.

Mum was constantly sniffing the air.

After watching them (watching us) for about 10 minutes, we started the journey to Hubbard Point 90 minutes away. An hour later the engines slowed and captain Wally announced that he could see a large pod of Belugas about a mile in front of us. He eased the boat quietly forward and 10 minutes later we found ourselves drifting into a superpod feeding in just 15ft of water. Superpods are formed when several large pods join forces to feed on a particularly good supply of Capelin, their favourite fish. The average size of such pods is usually around 1000-1500 animals but this was a 'super' superpod, which Wally estimated at around 4000 strong. It was certainly a spectacular sight!

Attracted to the outboard motors the largest adults fed
constantly around the boat.

Part of the feeding frenzy.

The feeding frenzy wasn't exclusively for the whales, they were joined by dozens of Arctic terns complete with entourage of Arctic Skuas, Eider ducks and White-winged scoters.

Arctic Tern joining in the feast.

I will expand on this post and add some video of the whales once I get back to the UK. We easily spent two hours with the whales and it was a magical moment I will never forget. We dropped a hydrophone into the water but you could hear them calling just as easily without it, they are a very vocal species earning them their other name, Sea Canaries.

Eventually the pod moved off and we continued to Hubbard Point another 20 minutes to the north and only 40 miles from the border with Nunavut territory. As we approached the headland I spotted three adult bears lying in the grass on the highest point. It didn't take long for them to stand up and start sniffing and looking in our direction, even from a quarter of a mile away. Two big healthy males disappeared into the water while another slightly skinnier bear stood its ground and gave great views.

Polar Bear, adult male: R. Harris

We decided to move around the headland to see if the other two bears were anywhere to be seen and we soon found them swimming around in the Bay - two huge healthy males estimated at over 1600 lbs a piece!

There they are! Powering their way across the Hudson Bay

Head of the largest male: R. Harris

I can't begin to describe the size of these two.
You certainly wouldn't want to meet them on land.

Polar Bears, Churchill, Manitoba

Hand held from the boat.

So the boat trip was hugely successful. On return to port I decided to take my chances and walk back to town - not a decision I took lightly! I really wanted to stop by the pools that I visited the other day though just to see what was around. I kept a careful eye out on all the scrub that I passed and was ready to scale the chain-link fence into the old sea port if required but thankfully no encounters with Polar bears was had. I port worker even stopped and asked if I wanted a lift back into town - I guess I looked nervous!

The pool delivered again with close views of three Sandhill Cranes, the red-necked phalarope that I saw distantly the other day, a nice Lesser Yellowlegs, the drake Surf Scoter, loads of American Wigeon and of course the Arctic Terns nesting close to the road.