Wildlife Interlude

Magpies, the little crow-like birds in tuxedos (and more in Calgary, even indoors!):

 

My cab driver to the bus depot asked if the ones I saw had made any noise. Now, I know what noise he spoke of. There is at least one magpie hanging out in the food court of the downtown mall keeping up quite a lot of squawking and chatter.

Red squirrels:

One of the few that I saw was clearly trying to warn the others in the forest that I was in the area on one of my ‘detours’. I find it curious though that he made noise only every time that he tapped his head with his tail.

Elk:

I saw one of these just grazing while walking back from the hockey game… and saw either another one near the same area at 5am on my way into town, or else the same one had stayed put.

Coyotes:

I did not actually see one of these, but my taxi driver pointed out where he had seen one on the way out of town to pick me up.

Bears:

Thankfully, only saw these on the train into Jasper. However, I had major difficulties after first arriving to town in getting the garbage cans to open. Later, when I didn’t have all my possessions with me and I took the time to figure it out, the garbage cans made sense: we are in bear country up here, so complex manoeuvres will keep them out of the garbage. 

Also, someone I met while leaving Jasper ran across some fresh bear tracks and smartly decided to turn back from the trail he was biking.