BWCA Flora and Fauna

 In addition to the crazy brilliant beaver rock dam, there were other wonders of plants and animals. Alas, there were no moose sightings again this year though we wouldn't have seen the beaver rock dam if we hadn't gone moose stalking.

Near Jenny and Andrew's cabin is the "Moose Pond" that has to be surveyed on every trip to the cabin. The Grade is being worked on (widened?) and as part of the project the culverts are being upgraded which has resulted in the "Moose Pond" being lowered. No moose this year but there were two beautiful swans. The Moose Pond is very close to the road so you can see truly how big these birds are.

The bear for the 'Daryl and the Bear' story was supposed to be here

We had lots of song birds at are campsite. They are often difficult to see though. From the vantage point of the latrine I as serenaded by a small flock of red breasted birds. And we had a robin and a song sparrow fist the campsite and show themselves.

Two really enjoyable bird events were: 1) an eagle pair flew very low and near the campsite and performed their aerial talon intertwining right next to us. We have had the good fortune of having seen this before but it is always breath taking. .. and 2) an adult Merganser duck with 15, yes 15!, ducklings. The ducklings were practicing diving while mom kept a watchful eye and made sure no one swam out too far. It was hilarious watching the little downy ducklings go underwater but because they are so buoyant, they actually pop out of the water before quickly swimming along.

We also saw a Merganser with a single duckling on her back. It was too adorable. After the two eagles performed their midair dance, a very large bird landed in a tree that was super far away. With our binoculars we could see it was huge but couldn't tell what it was. It might have been a Golden Eagle as they are bigger than a Bald Eagle and we could almost make out that it wasn't a Bald Eagle.

There was some sort of small mammal in the little cove next to our campsite. I'm going to call it a mink. I only saw it one time.

We had several chipmunks around camp and frogs and toads. We also enjoyed watching the fish in the crystal clear waters at camp.

So may variety of evergreens

The variety of evergreens in the BWCA is always amazing and stunning. I must have hundreds of photos of trees reflected in the water. There were not a lot of big trees where we were. You could tell the area was coming back from long ago fires and blow downs.

Tree reflection

There were a variety of bees on this flower

The mid summer flowers were wonderful though there were not many water flowers and hardly any water lilies on the lakes we paddled.

A water lily from under the water. The water is crystal clear.