Gaillardia

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

Evening of 1 July 2016, around 7:30 pm: TORNADO WARNING in effect for areas north of Calgary (Olds, Didsbury, Carstairs)!

Gaillardia grows in open grasslands, dry hillsides, roadsides and open woods. Its bright yellow petals tinged with orange make a welcome, cheery sight. This is one of many Gaillardia flowers that were seen on 28 June 2016, in Bow Valley Provincial Park.

“Gaillardia /ɡeɪˈlɑrdiə/, the blanket flowers, is a genus of flowering plants in the sunflower family, Asteraceae, native to North and South America. It was named after an M. Gaillard de Charentonneau, an 18th-century French magistrate who was a patron of botany. The common name may refer to the resemblance of the inflorescence to the brightly patterned blankets made by Native Americans, or to the ability of wild taxa to blanket the ground with colonies. Many cultivars have been bred for ornamental use.” From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaillardia

On this day, I went with friends, Dorothy and Stephen, to Bow Valley Provincial Park They are leading a day trip out there in the near future and wanted to do a dry run and very kindly invited me to go with them.

The mountains at Bow Valley Provincial Park are the first ones you come to, when you drive westwards from Calgary. They form the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. Mt. Yamnuska is a spectacular sight, and very popular with rock-climbers and hikers. I've never hiked up there - and am never likely to : ) The flat area at the foot of these mountains is Bow Valley Provincial Park, very popular with botanists and birders. It is less than an hour's drive west from Calgary.

The Many Springs trail is perhaps the most rewarding in the park. A great variety of plants can be found, including the beautiful Yellow Lady's-slippers. The view from the small wooden bridge is my favourite view in the park.

We saw a reasonably good variety of wildflowers, including Western Wood Lilies, Yellow Lady's-slippers, Sticky False Asphodel, and lots of Gaillardia. Though the end of June is usually the best time to go for the wildflowers, you still never know what you will find. We barely had a spring this year, it was so hot and so dry, more like summer.

Birds were much harder to find, even though we heard them. There were quite a few small birds flitting about, but our best sightings were of a brightly coloured male Yellow Warbler and some kind of Flycatcher (Least?) near the boardwalk at Many Springs. Both were on the move constantly, though I did manage to get a few less-than-good photos. One of my Warbler shots made me smile when I saw it on my computer. The bird was perched, with a beak full of insects, right next to a large spider's web. Kind of robbing ones neighbour.

On the way out of the park, we stopped at Middle Lake and walked down the path as far as the lake. We were horrified at how low the water level was - we had seen the same thing at Many Springs, too.

The weather forecast for this day mentioned the risk of thunderstorms, but we were so lucky. The sun shone all day and the sky was full of puffy clouds. Once our visit was over and we were ready to drive back to Calgary, a bit of rain did arrive.

Thanks so much, Dorothy and Stephen, for such an enjoyable day! It was a real treat to go to the mountains, as I so rarely go.

www.albertaparks.ca/bow-valley-pp/

The link below is a map showing the turn-off to the park and the layout of the lake areas. The roads at the junction with highway 1A are quite confusing!

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