I can report that it snowed a fair amount over the last couple of days when I took the train from Thompson to Churchill on Hudson Bay. Heavy overcast moved in with a strong north wind carrying the snow.
(Snow near treeline, en route to Churchill)
Linda had just passed through there a couple of days earlier and then flew east down the coast into Wapusk National Park. This name means "Great White Bear" and the entire area has been set aside as a Polar Bear preserve. It contains one of the highest concentrations of maternal denning areas known for Polar Bears and is reachable only by air or by canoe.
I was interested in learning why Linda was moving south so slowly and most especially what she might be feeding on in this area as winter approaches. At Churchill, I discovered that there are many large flocks of Snow Buntings (300+) congregating among the sea grasses near the shoreline of Hudson Bay. These are fairly small prey for a female peregrine but they are abundant and very conspicuous.
(Hudson Bay shoreline showing Snow Bunting habitat. Note ship offshore)
In addition, I was somewhat surprised to find good numbers of ducks in the area (58 degrees north latitude), especially Mallards, Pintail and Green-winged Teal. The multitude of small ponds one finds in the sub-arctic tundra, were just beginning to freeze over when I was there. Local hunters told me the ducks will all be gone very soon as a result.
Since we have not received any signals lately, I will be driving towards Winnipeg tomorrow morning in case she has been traveling south.
It is amazing to me to learn that Ontario (the next province east) has almost no roads in the northern and central parts of the province. My route will be limited to a narrow band near the southern border with the US. I'll try to link up with Linda there as she crosses the US border.
She has been migrating for 15 days now (11 for me) and has still not departed Canada. Pretty surprising.
