On The Road with Mike Drew: Birds of a feather flock together

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I could hear the pitter-pat of tiny feet on the FJ’s roof.

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And in the rear-view mirror, I could see what was causing it.

A flock of redpolls, maybe a hundred or so of them, had landed right beside the truck and they were now using it to perch on. In the mirror, I could see them sitting on the spare tire and I could tell where they were on the roof by the pattering of their tiny claws on the sheet metal and the tink-tink-tink as they landed and hopped around on the roof rack.

They are hardy little things, these redpolls. They’re so little, smaller, even, than a house sparrow but they manage to find a way to survive out here in the open country despite the vagaries of weather. Obviously, they’re adapted to this. Otherwise, they just wouldn’t be around. But it is still kind of a marvel to see these pretty little things flitting around in the cold.

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I’d seen dozens of flocks of them as I headed out toward Carbon and beyond. My pal Stu had been out this way the day before and seen a bunch of snowy owls so I figured I’d go out to look for myself. I cut east over to Lyalta and then north toward Beiseker, stopping here and there to take pictures of frost on the willows and tracks in the new snow.

And get my fingers frozen by the cold.

Though it was mostly sunny, the light breeze was enough to take the -25 C down at least another 10 degrees and as I hung the camera out the truck window, I could feel it on my bare fingers.

Why were my fingers bare when I knew it was this cold, you might ask. Well, the truest answer would be that I’m just not all that smart. But the codicil to that answer is that the weather over the last month has spoiled me rotten.

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It has been downright spring-like for most of February and that had lulled me, at least subconsciously, into the belief that if the sun was shining, it must be warm. Which, having spent the last seven decades in this part of the world, I know is demonstrably wrong.

Cold is cold, whether it is sunny or not. I knew that. I have always known that. And yet  …

But at least it was a pretty day. The sunshine sparkled on the snow and lit up the frost crystals on the willows and caraganas. The sky overhead was a soft blue with thin streaks of cloud.

I passed cattle in the fields munching on feed put out for them and horses idling in pastures. A pair of white ones stood and stared at me for a couple of minutes when I stopped, casting their hard-edged shadows on the bright snow and blinking against the glare.

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And there were redpolls.

I found the first flock of them over close to Carbon. They were flitting around a field just a little bit too far away to make a decent picture of such tiny birds but close enough that I could hear them chittering. Such lovely little voices.

With them was a quartet of whitetail deer that immediately ran off. They disappeared into a copse of aspens but as I left the redpolls behind and drove on I could see the silly things still running across an open field. Ninnies.

Same with another bunch I came across in a coulee not much further along. These ones absolutely launched themselves up over the coulee’s lip and ripped away in a cloud of hoof-strewn snow. I guess it must be a good survival strategy given how many whitetail deer there are but it must be tiring having to panic at everything.

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It was still sunny and cold at Drumheller but I was a bit disappointed to see that Horsethief Canyon along Dinosaur Trail was blocked off. I’d have liked to have a look into the frozen Red Deer River valley from there. I guess I could have walked in but, nah.

Instead, I kept going north kind of parallel to the river valley, angling my way toward Munson and Morrin. Clouds were beginning to build in to the southwest and there was a ring of ice crystals around the sun but it was still bright when I saw the first snowy owl. Stu had been right.

It was a female, her white plumage scattered with dark brown freckles, and she was perched high on a power pole and looking out over the snowy landscape. I pulled up below the pole and hung the camera out the window — gloves on this time — as she swivelled her head around and stared down at me with her yellow eyes.

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There was a second female not much farther up the road but she took off right away. And then a third one sitting on bales at the edge of a field.

The fourth one was a male. Smaller than the females and almost pure white, he stayed stuck to the pole he was on like he was glued there. So I decided to walk up to see if I could get a little closer.

Again, I was struck by the cold. Those warm days had really reset my mental thermostat. But, to be fair, it was still -23 C and the snow pants I was wearing crinkled like cellophane after just a couple of minutes. The snowy owl, of course, couldn’t have cared less about the cold. He just fixed me with that yellow-eyed stare until he decided I was too close and took off.

Back in the truck with the heater cranked, I kept going north and east over to Rowley. It’s such a cute little place, kind of a living museum with its false-fronted buildings and old grain elevators. Not a whole lot happening there in the winter but it’s always worth a visit.

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I cut back west now, crossing the Morrin Bridge over the Red Deer River and headed out onto the snowy hills along the Kneehill Creek valley. Cloud was starting to build in even more now and the temperature was going up. The app on my phone said that it was now a balmy -17 C over by Linden and by the time I got to Acme it had jumped another couple of degrees.

Not that it looked all that different. Stopping to take a couple of pictures of horses in a pasture I could see that they all had frost on their backs and their breath still steamed as they pawed through the snow. The willows along the fence line were still covered with snow.

But it definitely felt different.

I came across a flock of ravens flying around over a field not much further on and with the windows rolled down and the camera out, I barely even noticed that I’d again forgotten to put on my gloves. Same with the coyotes.

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There were six of them at the edge of a pasture. Not sure why there were so many at this one spot — mating season, maybe — but they took off almost immediately. Unlike whitetails, they have good reason to run. Coyotes are wise to judge every vehicle that slows down as a prospective persecutor. They know to seek cover just in case.

Whitetails, I dunno, maybe they just like to run. Ninnies.

The day was winding down and the western sky was starting to turn a rosy peach underneath the chinook clouds that were building in. The wind had dropped to nothing and the temperature had come up another couple of degrees so I didn’t even bother reaching for my gloves when I saw the mule deer.

They were lazing around a field, a dozen or so does, fawns and bucks, and they didn’t even bother getting up as I stopped the truck for a couple of pictures. I could have gotten out, popped the hood and changed the oil and they likely would have just stood and watched. I love good ol’ calm mulies.

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It was while I was taking pictures of them that a flock of redpolls flew into the same field.

I’d seen flock after flock of these guys all day but I’d never gotten close enough for a picture. And I didn’t expect to now.

But as I sat there, the flock came closer. And closer. And within a few minutes they were all around me.

At first only a couple of them flew in to look for seeds on the dry plants along the road but they were soon joined by others that weighed down the dry stalks and foraged in snow beneath them. Some of them were too close for me to even focus on.

I had this happen before back at the beginning of January. I’d parked by a flock of these little guys and they flew right up beside me.

These ones, though, nearly adopted me.

Soon they were everywhere, on the roof, on the spare tire, on the hood. One even landed on the side-view mirror, literally inches away from me. I reached for my second camera as slowly as I could to try for a picture but it took off again right away.

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They stayed around me for nearly 10 minutes, chittering and chirping and hopping around the truck before taking off in a rush of tiny wings. In seconds, they were gone. I looked around to see where they went but all that was left in the field were the mulies, still laying unperturbed in the snow.

The sun was sinking quickly now, dropping into a space between the cloud banks. A pair of horses wandered in a pasture below it while just up the road a short-eared owl posed on a fencepost for me. Such a nice little bonus on such a nice — cold — day.

Yeah, it had been a chilly one but March is right around the corner and those chilly ones should, hopefully, become more and more rare.

But if they do come and I find myself in a flock of friendly redpolls, I know one thing for sure.

I’ll remember to put on my gloves.