Churchill-the finale

As promised here is the final installment from my trip to Churchill Manitoba. Our interactions with the birds were absolutely phenomenal, by moving slow and low even with our group size we were able to get close to the birds. The Lapland Longspurs were present for a few days because there was a north wind holding them from migrating further north. They were hanging around the granary ponds and the railroad tracks up by the granary. The pictures were taken by laying on the ground in between the sets of railroad tracks, at present there were no trains running up to the granary.
Following the same techniques we were able to get close to the common eiders and view the eider sitting on her nest. The same technique was used for the long-tailed ducks.
A Bonaparte skull just sat on her nest and ignored us. The semi--palmated plover was nesting at the tern colony and utilize the "broken-winged display" to keep us away from the nest. The broken winged display is also utilized by killdeer's and some other shorebirds.



The female Willow Ptarmigan in some ways is a prettier bird than the male.
We visited the parasitic Jaeger a number of times and it always put on a great flight display for us. The bird that was flying was on a mound a distance away from the bird that was nesting.
The pine grosbeak and lesser yellowlegs were hard birds to photograph since the sun was right behind them and there was no way of getting a picture with a side lit bird or a front lit bird. Because the lesser yellowlegs was jumping up onto tops of spruces with the sun right behind it, I made the picture a high key.




Churchill "was also the site of the Churchill Rocket Research Range  part of Canadian-American atmospheric research. Its first rocket was launched in 1956, and it continued to host launches for research until closing in 1984. The site of the former rocket range now hosts the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, a facility for Arctic research. " This is a picture of one of the old rocket launch buildings.



Old ship and plane wrecks at Churchill are left where they occurred.
In October and November many people come to Churchill to see the polar bears and they are driven around in tundra buggies.
The easiest way to come to visit Churchill is by air.

Churchill continued

Polar Bear Statue at Chamber of Commerce



Map of Churchill Area



Granary at Sunset

Churchill, Manitoba is a very interesting place, it is located on Hudson Bay and beside the Churchill River. The biggest business besides Eco-tourism is a granary which ships grain to Europe and Asia from early July through November. This year they hope to ship 1,000,000 tons of grain.
The morning the day after I had arrived was cloudy and cold, but after that the sun came out and we have had sun every day. The temperatures have ranged from 32°F to 60°F, the wind most the time has been blowing at least 10 to 15 knots.

Our Hotel

Our days consisted of either waking up and having breakfast, and then leaving for photo shoots and returning back to the hotel at around 10 o'clock or leaving at 5 AM to do photo shoots, and then come back at around 9 AM for breakfast. Because of the harse light in the midday we would rest, download our pictures or look around town.

Gypsy Great place to eat

After lunch in the later afternoon we would go out again for more photography, we would either take sandwiches with us and not return until 9 to 10 o'clock at night or have a separate and then return out to photograph until the light was too poor. Sunrise would be around 4:40 AM and sunset would be around 10:30 PM. This gave us around 16+ hours of light per day.

Boreal forest Flowers

Tundra at Cape Merry

Tundra Flowers

Tundra with Whimbrel



Hudson Bay with Ice



Boreal Forest

Churchill stands at an octane ,on the Hudson Plains ,at the juncture of three ecoregions: the boreal forest to the south, the Arctic tundra to the northwest, and the Hudson Bay to the north. We visited all the areas: The tundra was very flat, with many small ponds and extreme amount of wet areas, on the high mounds the various types of birds would use those to nest on, both ducks and gulls with nest on the mounds in the middle of the ponds, most of the spruce and willow trees that were in the area were very low; the boreal forest contained a higher spruce trees, and a large amount of lichen on the floor of the forest;


Ice Flow in Churchill River with an Eider

 While we were there the Hudson Bay at the mouth of the Churchill River and the River became free of ice, there were higher cliffs with a large amount of rocks covering the surface with tundra and small little ponds around the rocks.