Tuesday, April 5, 2011 Lethbridge

5:30 am tag: Morning Musings

Coffee is in hand.

Two of my major activities during the last couple of years have been Model Trains and Geocaching. In both cases I set up a separate website to chronicle those times. I am seriously thinking of simply integrating my activities in both and integrating the stories into this website.

6:00 am tag: Geocaching

This is my first entry for my geocaching activities.

I want to try using my iPad with its 3G capability to find a nearby cache. There are two immediate issues. One is geocaching and the other is cost. At the moment I have no feeling for the costs while using the iPad 2 and tracking my progress on a map.

Then there is the issue of geocaching itself. Clearly I do not want to be looking at the screen while driving. Therefore it makes sense to first get a sense of where I am going and drive there. The Garmin GPS unit does this very well and there is no cost associated with this. Thus it still makes sense to load the coordinates for at least one cache into the unit.

Then when I am ready to leave the vehicle I turn the iPad on and use the Geocaching.com iPhone app (on the iPad) to make note of the details. I do not want to carry the iPad with me when searching for the cache until I have a suitable carrying case. Once again, it seems to make more sense to continue to use the Garmin to actually find the cache. Then when I return to the vehicle I could use the iPad to log the entry.

Where the iPad may be useful is in an urban environment where I want to see if there are any nearby caches which I have not loaded into my Garmin beforehand.

I can see the iPad being useful if there are two people in the vehicle and the navigator is using the screen to give directions to the driver.

Nonetheless I have loaded the coordinates for 2 nearby caches into my Garmin GPS and will see how this goes.

Another possibility is to use the Notes app to make a few notes at the time that I can then use when updating this website after I return home.

8:30 am tag: Geocaching

I tried to find GC2QXX2 Every Kid's Paradise but was unsuccessful. I took the owner's advice and arrived early in the morning and as a result I had the area to myself. I can imagine that it is busy with children during the day.

I used my iPad to read over the description, hint, and logs before leaving the truck. My GPS put me right beside a large rock with a plaque called Every Kid's Paradise. There were three seats beside the rock but I couldn't see anything that looked like a container. I also looked at a refuse container and a nearby light post with the same result. That seems to leave the playground equipment. I had a brief look at this but most of it is metal and the hint clearly says the container is not magnetic. I was grateful for that comment.

Addendum: After posting a DNF to the Web for my search, I received an email from the owner saying that he had checked the coordinates and corrected them to a location about 20 feet from the original posting. I will try again tomorrow morning.

9:00 am tag: Birding

There was still ice on much of Henderson Lake, but there was a lot of open water near the shore. In addition to the numerous Canada Geese that nest on a nearby island there were about 20 Mallard ducks. I also saw 4 Common Goldeneye ducks and about a half-dozen Ring-billed Gulls. This was the first time for these two birds this year. Now to add these latter two birds to my birding database for my 2011 finds.

Addendum: There was a serious problem with my birding database. I recall playing with it a week ago to see if I could make the reports web accessible. I finally gave up but in the process I must have inadvertently created a password without realizing it. The result today was that I was locked out from accessing the database. I mulled that over while going geocaching again and then wondered if I could find an earlier version of the database. The answer turned out to be yes, but not perfectly. I had unplugged the backup hard drive while doing an update to the system and thus missed about a week's work. The good news is that I still have all the records except for the two sparrows that I saw while on my coulee walks.

Then this afternoon I decided to take my camera and see if I could take some photos of the waterfowl that were beginning to appear on the sections of open water at Henderson Lake. By then the wind was gusting to about 60 -70 kph and most of the birds had left. But I did key on one of the sea gulls. It was much larger than the gull beside it. My recent experience in Florida suggested this might be a Herring Gull. I checked my books against the photos and I was right. This was the first time that I have seen this bird in Alberta so I can add 1 to my Alberta totals. I had seen it previously at Point Pelee in Ontario as well as in Florida.

 

Notwithstanding the wind I decided to try a little birding at the Elizabeth Hall wetlands near a local Par 3 golf course. Almost immediately I saw a Great Blue Heron which surprised me for this time of year. There were very few birds on the water but I did see three American Coots, four Common Goldeneyes and a pair of Hooded Mergansers. I recall seeing Common Mergansers in the early spring a year or two ago so that was not a total surprise. A check of my database indicated that the Hooded Merganser was another Lifer.

11:00 am tag: Geocaching

I drove out to Coaldale to look for another relatively new cache: GC2QTK5 Log Fun. This turned out to be an easy find. I took a Travel Bug that had been placed there by the owner and will soon place it somewhere west of here. I logged the find using my iPad while sitting in the truck. But in general I do not see it replacing my Garmin for geocaching. The Garmin gives me excellent driving instructions and once I leave the vehicle I want a device that is small and durable. But I did find it easier to use for logging the find as the typing of a message is much easier than with the iPhone.