Nature
The park comprises 17.80 square kilometres (4400 acres) of coulee and prairie habitat, and boasts a diverse variety of birds and animals.
Bird species include prairie falcon, great horned owl, short-eared owl, American kestrel, cliff swallow and the introduced ring-necked pheasant and grey partridge.
The prairie surrounding the park is a habitat for pronghorn antelope, and other species inhabiting the park include mule deer, northern pocket gophers, skunks, raccoons, yellow-bellied marmots, and bobcat. Tiger salamanders, boreal chorus and leopard frogs, and plains spadefoot toads represent the amphibians, and garter snakes, bull snakes and prairie rattlesnakes can be found.
The coulee environment is optimal for tree species such as balsam poplar and narrow leaf cottonwood. Peach leaf willow and plains cottonwood are also found here. A large number of shrubs grow here, including chokecherry, juniper, saskatoon, sandbar willow, and two varieties of wild rose. Some of the most northern species of cactus, including Opuntia (prickly pear) and Pediocactus (pincushion) are found in the park as well.
Read more about this topic: Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park
Famous quotes containing the word nature:
“When we reflect upon the cruelties daily practised upon such of the animal creation as are given us for food, or which we ensnare for our diversion, we shall be obliged to own that there is more of the savage in human nature than we are aware of.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innovation, should dare to arouse the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature should be addressed in the school-room, and children should be treated as the high-born candidates of truth and virtue?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If Nature is our mother, then God is our father.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)