Some animals can be seen all year round in Glacier National Park while other animals arrive or wake up in springtime and disappear in the fall. Others still shoe up for a very short time and are gone again. Such is the case for the Trillium and the Harlequin Duck. I went out to McDonald Creek on a sunny Spring day to find both of these and I got a nice dose of what I was looking for.
It was a perfect spring day and I knew that Harlequin Ducks had arrived back at McDonald Creek and my schedule was going to be too crazy to be able to get to see them soon, so I made a call to head on up for a quick hike and see what I could see. I had also seen some Trillium flowers just starting to bloom and figured I could get both.
I parked by the footbridge over McDonald Creek by Sacred Cascade, walked across the bridge and started heading upstream. I started seeing Trilliums, took pictures and kept walking. Not far down the trail I started seeing Harlequin Ducks and ended up seeing three pairs and watched them for about half an hour and then headed back to work.
As a bonus, I got to see a Red-necked Grebe catching a fish on McDonald Lake.
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