At least it will be flat.

This is what we told ourselves as we prepared for our final habitat surveys of the season. Our last site was Ruby Lake, coincidentally the first site I visited last season. It seemed appropriate that my first year of goshawking should be bracketed by the same site. And it seemed like it would be an easy site to end with, after the steepness of Mt. Ford and Twenty Mile Creek

Red-legged from (Rana aurora) at Ruby Lake. The site contains vernal wetland/riparian, and hosts an abundance of frogs.

At least it’s the last one.

We told ourselves that, too. Because in the back of our mind we knew that, while Ruby Lake may be flat, it was covered in thick, thick vegetation. And it might not be such an easy site after all.

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