On the Road: Flowers, flowers, flowers

Well, at least there were flowers.

And it was a particularly lovely morning. The sun was shining, the air warm and moist. A breeze was wafting up the valley from the east, just strong enough to ruffle the harebells and clover in front of me. There were mosquitoes buzzing around but they weren't very hungry.

But I was here in the Harold Creek valley west of Water Valley hoping to see wild horses. And so far, there were none.

I'd actually been out this direction the day before, too, though not quite this far. Then, low cloud and generally boring light kept me from going much farther than the country around Winchell Lake. There were still things to take pictures of, of course. This is gorgeous country so there's always something.

These bright orange beauties are still blooming strongly, brightening the grassy parts of the forest everywhere. Their colours are so bright, in fact, they overpower nearly everything else. And with the slight yellow tinge that the maturing grasses around them have now, it seems like the camera is lying when you look at the pictures later.

Your brain says, this can't be right. But it is.

And there were other flowers, too. Blanket flowers, anemones, roses, of course. I even found a patch of spotted coralroot, a very cool chlorophyll-free orchid. Warblers were singing high in the trees and I came across a little chipping sparrow that posed out in the open for a few seconds.

But the day was dull and I was just wasn't feeling the muse so I headed on back to town.

I was out the door by 6:30 the next morning, though, and it looked promising. Morning sun lit the city and I had visions of wild horses among the Harold Creek willows as I headed north and west.

And I mean fog. It wasn't a pretty morning mist caressing the meadows with wispy fingers, it was a full-on, two-car-length visibility wall of airborne moisture. I passed pastures where I was sure there were cattle but I couldn't see them, ponds that likely had swans swimming with their babies, grain fields more grey than green. If I hadn't noticed the big ears of a mulie doe lying in the roadside grass, I would have missed that, too.

But the day was warming, the sun was getting higher, so maybe this would burn off. And just before Water Valley, it did.

Now the air was clear, especially to the west. I could see mountaintops peeking over the ridges above the Harold Creek valley and cloud shadows moving across the willow-lined creek. A whitetail buck bounded across the road and past a clutch of cattle that never even looked up. Ravens lifted off from something they were breakfasting on among the pines.

It was just lovely. All I needed now were the horses.

Especially the cremelo. I first saw this vision in white maybe three years ago now and then again a couple of times since, so I was hoping to see her and the little band she was with again today. But I know these wildies move around quite a bit, up and down the valleys, over the next ridge, so I wasn't surprised that they weren't right where I'd seen them before.

But they weren't at the next meadow, either. In fact, there was very little sign of horses at all. Usually there would be piles of fresh poop from the stallions and scattered road apples along the way but all I saw was old stuff, dry and dusty wads of digested grass. There was plenty of cattle sign, though. And plenty of cattle along the road.

No horses, though. At least, none that I could see.

Clover was everywhere, pink and white flowers carpeting the roadside. Harebells, too, their blue blossoms trembling in the light breeze. Down the slope toward the creek there were goatsbeard and daisies, patches of roses and, closer to the water, big purple thistles and patches of white anemones.

Putting up the little drone for a look down on the valley, I could see cloud reflections on the always-brown water and new growth on the gravel bars. There were willows and alders and a few spruce among all that green. I was pleased to see it all because I'd passed a place where a beaver dam had either failed or been removed for some reason and I was a little concerned the water in the creek might be low. But all was well here upstream.

Had I found any horses I would have been content to just hang around there but I decided that, since I was close, I'd head over the ridge to the Little Red Deer River valley. There were beaver ponds back that way that might be interesting.

They were but once again, it was the flowers that caught my eye.

There were roses in profusion next to the milk-chocolate water in the beaver ponds with harebells and goatsbeard mixed in. Across the road I saw the first paintbrush blossoms, pale pink and catching patches of light passing between the trees. Clover, too, plenty of it. This clover isn't native — neither are the horses I'd sought — but it looks and smells nice.

There were patches of flowers that absolutely looked like they'd been arranged there, clover, paintbrush, yarrow and harebells surrounding clumps of cinquefoil decorated with bright yellow blossoms. A few solitary wood lilies glowed in the forest shade.

I turned around and started heading back over to Harold Creek foolishly hoping the horses might have appeared and was stopped by more colour. This time, though, it wasn't flowers.

Butterflies were fluttering around spring seeps and old rain puddles, landing on the damp ground and extending their tongues to lap up minerals. There were plenty of those little blue butterflies and a few skippers. White admirals — mostly black — flitted around and looked their nicest when their wings were folded and their external colours showed.

The most plentiful, though, were the fritillaries, orange and rust with plenty of dark reticulations and rectangles. Lovely.

There were no horses, of course, and the clouds were starting to billow so I kept on going over toward Winchell Lake again. I'd seen some cool flowers in the boggy area along the shore the day before but the light was dull. I wanted to have another look just in case the clouds turned ugly.

There were little sweat bees on the roses away from the shore and anemones in the shade. A couple of bog orchids, too. Damselflies were everywhere and a few of them even sat still long enough for a photo. I found a small patch of mint on the edge of the wet area and nearly stepped on a wood frog that disappeared into the water among some dwarf willows.

Best of all, though, were the pond lilies. Some of them were blooming, their big yellow blossoms butter bright. As water seeped into my shoes I concentrated on one blossom as a hoverfly landed and hunted around. Checking to see if I got anything in focus I saw that a very tiny crab spider was also on the flower and it had caught an equally tiny fly. Bonus!

Not so nice were the dead trout along the shore. Not sure what had killed them but it was unpleasant to see.

What was pleasant, though, was the profusion of pond lilies and I was dying to fly my little drone over them. But there were folks fishing nearby and I wasn't about to buzz them. Fortunately, there was another nearby pond away from the lake that was covered with lilies.

So I put up the little drone there.

They look so cool from above, the patterns among the patches of plants, the yellow blossoms smiling upward. With the waterlogged vegetation around the open water I never would have been able to walk over to shoot them but the drone's camera could stay dry and hover just a few feet above. Nice.

Just like the day. No, I didn't find any horses and that was disappointing but, as is always the case in southern Alberta, there were plenty of other things to see.

And at this time of year, at least there are flowers.