Montréal Wildlife

I was out walking the other day, and saw a very science-fictiony view of Île Sainte-Hélène, one of the many other islands in the St. Lawrence River.

Manon and I have been out on the Île before — once in summertime when we drove around looking at the views, and once in a frosty February when we attended the Fête des neiges de Montréal. That latter experience deserves its own posting here, which may happen at some point.

It’s not hard to get to the Île, and it had been recommended as a short afternoon excursion. So I took the Metro green line one stop from Beaudry to Berri-UQAM, and then the yellow line one stop out to Jean-Drapeau.

Walking from the station to look at the city view, I came to a viewing platform and was surprised to see a curiously focused crowd below.

I had just this morning read in the MTL Blog a story that a wayward Minke whale had been spotted in the St. Lawrence. Could this be what it was about?

As I joined the crowd, a photographer with a shiny big Canon rig and a huge telephoto lens said something to me that I couldn’t understand. As I mumbled my unintelligible apologies for lacking French fluency, he moved aside and gestured that I should take his vantage point. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that before! Normally, everyone’s so anxious to get The Shot.

Within just a few minutes, a barrage of shutter noise indicated that the whale was surfacing.

The poor thing is lost, and probably won’t survive if it doesn’t turn around and return to the estuary or ocean, although according to the experts it appears healthy. According to various online sources, whales often come into the St. Lawrence, but rarely come further upstream than the confluence of the Saguenay River some 450km north-east of here.

Thanking my photographer buddy again, I wandered off to see what other wonders the park has to offer.

It was a warm and sunny afternoon. The trees are turning that bright spring green that practically glows, and, being a weekday, there were not a lot of people about. I contemplated falling asleep under a tree. Instead, I went over to the Swan Lake, where I saw no swans (or even Canadian geese). However, I met a fine healthy carp.

Walking back towards the metro station, I saw a few other birds, including two who were willing to pose for me. Then, over by the rocks of a dry waterway, I met up with a marmot who regarded me with twitchy-nosed suspicion. However, it quickly got bored, and proceeded to ignore me.

I didn’t take the time on this visit to go to the Biosphere, which seems like an oversight. From the closer perspective, it looks even more like the cover of a 1970s Science Fiction paperback.