During a return trip to Salt Spring Island recently I visited Ruckle Heritage Farm in Ruckle Provincial Park. I was with a friend, lets call him Stephen, who lives on the island. As we didn’t have an abundance of time, I thought we’d just do a quick loop on the trail starting near the Henry Ruckle Farmhouse through to the Campground area. To start this journey we walked past the barns, the farmhouse, and several fields where I usually see sheep grazing. The last time I was there several curious sheep made a point of begging for treats through the fence, an endeavor which I presume proves successful with some visitors to the park. This time, however, about 6 of the sheep were outside of the fence. This proved to be interesting.
We continued down the trail behind the farmhouse and sheep barn and these 6 sheep happily tagged along behind us. It seemed likely they were not supposed to be there, but I figured that once we reached the part of the trail that went into the forest they would realize this wasn’t the journey for them. I was wrong. The sheep happily trundled along behind us under the tree canopy and through the Salal lined trail. There were some attempts to discourage this, but to no avail. Our first destination was Grandma’s Bay which was not far away. We reached the top of the stairs leading down to the beach with the sheep still right behind us. As we started down the stairs I figured the sheep would stop and realize the stairs weren’t a suitable adventure for them. I was wrong. All of the sheep clomped their way down the stairs and onto the beach with us.
Large Arbutus (Arbutus menziesii) trees along the shoreline at Grandma’s Bay (Purchase)
The photo above shows the large Arbutus (Arbutus menziesii) trees that line the hillside at Grandma’s Bay and much of the island. You can also see the landing for the stairs. What you cannot see in this photograph, however, are the 6 sheep crowded around us checking to see if there are tasty morsels laying about on the beach or not. In retrospect this photograph is a lacking portrayal of the experience because of this. The story of the moment, the sheep, aren’t pictured at all. That said, and I’ll give the excuse that this may have been what I thought at the time, including them in this scene might be difficult as they were always so close by. If I backed up to get them in the photograph, they’d have likely mirrored my movement. Alas, this is not a photograph with sheep and ewe’ll just have to imagine the woolly, bleating tag-alongs without visual aid.
Once our time at the beach was done, perhaps after 10 minutes, we headed back up the stairs. Well, some of us anyway. I had though that the sheep would shy away from going down the stairs, and while this proved incorrect, I figured they’d have no issues attempting the return journey. For all I knew these sheep busted out of their split rail enclosures for a beach romp daily. Alas, there seemed to be some consternation about how ascending the stairs was to be attempted. Two did ultimately take the risk and galumphed quickly up the stairs to the top. The rest milled about in a restless quandary regarding this new stair problem. Ultimately, perhaps encouraged by the ringleaders who had left them behind at the bottom, they eventually decided to just climb the hillside next to the stairs and make their way back up to the top.
This gave our journey another problem. I felt slightly responsible for these sheep, and having almost left them marooned on the beach, we came to a fork in the trail. One presumably lead back to where the prison break originated, and the other was the rest of the loop trail through the campground and back to the car. All 2.5 kilometers (1.55 miles) of it. At this point we were only about 250 meters from the spot the sheep had joined our expedition. “Leading” them through the remaining 2+ kilometers of narrow trail, and into a shoreline campground seemed like an event best avoided. So at the junction the earlier pleasant attempts to dissuade further following degraded into louder statements of disagreement. At one point this took the form of a relatively polite, foot delivered shove to the backside by the aforementioned Stephen. This seemed to have the desired results, as offense seemed to be taken, and the gang of six no longer stuck close to us. The liberated livestock appeared to be favoring a journey back to the barn area to find the next batch of tourists who would hopefully be more forthcoming with inappropriate foodstuffs and adventures. As the shine had come off notions of accompanying us in our intended direction, we did not see any further attempt to follow us. We continued along the trail, taking in the views, the forest, and the campground.
Beaver Point Lighthouse at Ruckle Park’s Campground (Purchase)
When we had reached the half way point through the campground a farm vehicle came by driven by Mike Lane – the operator of Ruckle Heritage Farm. He had someone else with him, and one or two very alert border collies. I waved them down and evidently there were some sheep reported in the campground. We pointed out they may have followed us, and had thought they were headed back towards the barn area. I purposefully failed to mention that they were on the beach with us in case this was some sort of unforgivable farm visiting transgression that would lead to consequences including possible chastisement. Evidently the apparent success of our discouragement attempts were only temporary, and the sheep carried on along the trail after us. Or perhaps this was a different roving band of farm escapees who had sought good times in the campground only to be reported by the current residents. People just aren’t as much fun as they look from the other side of the fence! I don’t know how sensitive sheep noses are but the scent of campground delicacies carried on the wind from the campground might be a tantalizing enough prospect that a jailbreak was deemed worthwhile. I’ll bet this wasn’t the first time this had occurred, and I’m sure they are occasionally aided by idiots who open gates they shouldn’t or otherwise interfere with normal farming operations. There are plenty of signs, but we know how that turns out – the sheep would sometimes do a better job at following them.
The Roadside Grocery
Common Raven (Corvus corax) with a stolen Turkey egg gathered from a roadside nest at Ruckle Heritage Farm (Purchase)
Another interesting event at Ruckle Farm was this Common Raven (Corvus corax) flying low over some of the road side ditches with apparent purpose. As I walked towards the barn area unaware of the sheep lying in wait – the raven disappeared into the foliage alongside the road. Then it popped out holding something in its mouth. I couldn’t quite tell what it was, so I made a few quick photos with my longer lens (luckily already attached to the camera), and zoomed in with the LCD. It looked like an egg! Searching the roadside it was apparent that some of the farm’s turkeys had been laying eggs in makeshift nests along the ditch. As Corvids tend to be really smart, I’m sure this raven is well aware that a fresh egg snack is available almost every day in that location!
For more photographs of Ruckle Heritage Farm visit my Ruckle Provincial Park Gallery.
