I’m visiting Canada for a few weeks, having failed the theoretical test for a Georgian driver’s license (long story). I couldn’t renew the Canadian license online, despite assurances online that I could, so here I am for a few weeks. Staying at my sister and her husband’s place, Spring Lake, rural Alberta.
A few days ago she took me on the short walk to the lake itself, and left me to discover what wildlife I could there with my 100-300mm lens and camera. It was a rich experience, with some overlap of details and other things to contrast with the wetlands near our apartment on the edge of Tbilisi.
The lake is a proper lake, much bigger than any of the ponds we have in Dighomi Meadows in Tbilisi. People have built lakeshore houses where the land allows, and they were canoeing enthusiastically when I was there. But the population close to the lake is still tiny compared to where my wife’s and my apartment is, because this is a whole set of complexes with thousands of people living up to 21 stories high. The Spring Lake version is a few hundred people at most.
We have beavers in evidence hard at work here, felling trees with their always-growing teeth (thus the generic term “rodent”) and making dams to live and survive the harsh Canadian winter in. None of that in Dighomi. Deer, caribou and moose can be found in the surrounding forests, too, though they are shy and uncommon. There could be terrapins or turtles here; I didn’t see any, but they would have to have a good strategy to survive -20 to -40 degree winters, especially being cold-blooded.
The birds… some overlap. Herons in both locations; mallards too, and the gulls and coots here might also be found in Georgia. Pileated woodpeckers. The species might differ, that’s all.
The birds I found which I haven’t yet seen in Dighomi include big white pelicans (nine of them in one flock); grebe, though not the great crested variety; beautiful honking Canada geese returning form their winter migration; and the common loon.
The loon used to be Canada’s national bird, featured on our dollar coin, nicknamed the loonie because of this. This water bird, unlike ducks, coots or geese, can hardly walk on land at all. Its coloring is beautiful speckles of white on black, and its fish-spearing bill is sharp. But its cry, which I heard three times in the couple of hours I was at the lake, is the most hauntingly magnificent thing about it, utterly and beautifully chilling, especially if you hear it in the dark of a still night. There will be many examples of this on YouTube, I’m sure. Worth listening too in a quite evening with the lights off.
I stayed long enough to learn when the loon will rise up mostly out of the lake and flap its wings, making beautiful images. First it gets down low in the water and flaps the wings there to inundate itself, then dramatically emerges nearly vertical. What a sight.
Out of over 750 images from that evening. I achieved less than 10% good images. Motion blur, out of focus, and simply multiple similar images from holding the shutter down in burst mode, as I’ve learned is good practice with fast-moving birds. Enough to satisfy, though, and make me want to go back for more.
It is such a privilege, in both locations, to have the abundance of wildlife around to observe and learn from. I cherished my time at the lake edge, seeing what was what and who was who as spring gets underway.
One huge contrast, though, is the garbage situation. I saw not one single piece of trash of ANY kind on my walk to and roving at the lake. Nothing. Dighomi Meadows, however, as you will know by now from my recent articles, has for some years been an illegal dumping ground for large-scale waste from building projects, as well as a general horror story of household rubbish, needing much attention, cleanup, and reversal of evil habits. The flora and fauna persist, but side by side with a monstrosity of human-brought ugliness. This needs us to change ourselves and it!
Blog by Tony Hanmer
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
