The Last Duck

On Saturday morning, I headed out of town hoping to get some sunshine birding before the forecast storm.  At first I beat the weather, then ran straight into it, but managed to find thirteen new species for the year, including a lifer!  I'll let the pictures tell the tale....

My first stop was the blind at Frank Lake, east of High River.  There were many American Coots, Fulica americana, calling to each other in the reeds.  This is one of a few that came into clear view.

A Horned Grebe, Podiceps auritus, was diving for food in front of the blind, along with many ducks including Common Goldeneye, Lesser Scaup, Mallard, Canvasback, and more. 

As I walked away from Frank Lake, this family of Trumpeter Swans, Cygnus buccinator, were also continuing their northward journey.

Heading north and east from Frank Lake the prairie is dotted with little marshes and sloughs.  Some were still frozen but, with no discernible pattern, others were completely open and each one had its own little birding treasures such as these Northern Pintail, Anas acuta, surely the most dapper of ducks.

It was in these prairie potholes that I completed my set of swans for the day with this pair of Tundra Swans, Cygnus columbianus.

Just north of Blackie I drove into a wall of fog and snow as the forecast storm arrived - welcome to April, Calgarians!  Pushing on to my next destination, Namaka Lake, this young Snowy Owl, Bubo scandiacus, sat forlorn in the middle of a field opposite the lake.  I'm used to seeing these owls on poles but this bird sat for the whole time I was there - I hope it is not "out of gas" on its return journey north.

The main body of Namaka Lake was completely frozen over but the south wetland was open and filled with ducks. Standing on the shore were these four Wigeon and the second from the right is a male Eurasian Wigeon, Anas penelope, the last of Alberta's 33 regularly occuring species of waterfowl for me to find!  As you can see in this image, the bird was aggressively chasing the two male American Wigeon, away from the female at right.  What's odd about this is that the female appears to be an American Wigeon as well.

When these same four birds flew off for a few laps of the lake, the female continued, to paraphrase Tammy Wynette, to "Stand By Your Interspecific Hybridizing Man".  Of course it could just be that I'm wrong about the ID on the female but after some reading it really seems like an American to me - more on Wigeon ID in a pdf article from the ABA magazine if you're so inclined.

All in all a lovely day out on the prairie, in spite of the weather.  I'm looking forward to my next wetland outing on the 21st, this time to Ralph Klein Park.

Boiling Reef

At the end of April, I took my Grade 9 class on their West Coast sailing trip to British Columbia's Gulf Islands.  Like last year, I thought it would be interesting for you if I featured a few of the birds and birding hotspots that we saw during the trip.  Once again the students were unsurprisingly bemused by my birdwatching but I think I made a few connections.  At least two or three students were getting very good at identifying seabirds by the end of the trip and were doing so without any prompting from me.  We also found a beautiful Townsend's Warbler which hung around on a low branch long enough for one teenager to say "OK, I guess that's pretty cool looking"!  Progress?

The warbler was on Tumbo Island, part of the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, just a short distance from Boiling Reef where we went to look for sea lions, porpoises, and a diverse collection of seabirds.  As you can see from the map below, the reef sits right at the convergence of currents where the tides empty and fill the Strait of Georgia.  This twice daily flow stirs up nutrients creating a rich feeding ground for all types of marine life.


View Boiling Reef Location in a larger map

The currents were in full flow when we were there, creating surging whitewater between the lighthouse on the point of Saturna Island and the reef, which was covered in Stellar's Sealions.  The loud and smelly marine mammals were certainly the most obvious life to be seen but porpoises were busy feeding between hundreds of bobbing seabirds.  Among the birds, alcids were probably the most common group of species.  These are sometimes described as the penguins of the north, swimming underwater with powerful wing strokes to propel them along in pursuit of prey, and I managed to get half-decent shots of three species during the trip (some not taken right at the above location - click images to enlarge)

Pigeon Guillemot, Cepphus columba, after a successful hunt

Common Murre, Uria aalge, this is a first year plumage bird (according to Mr. Sibley!)

Rhinoceros Auklet, Cerorhinca monocerata, - most of the alcids would dive as the boat approached and surface hundreds of metres away so it was nice to see a few in flight showing off their plumage

Alcids may have provided the diversity but it was the gulls that provided the numbers, specifically thousands of Bonaparte's Gulls rafting up and flying around in huge flocks as they prepared for their spring migration.  A little further to the north, in Active Pass, we sailed through a single tightly grouped flock which had, at a very conservative guess, 5000-7000 individuals.

It's nice to have friends - one of these Bonaparte's Gulls has lost a contact lens! (Actually they are feeding on small organisms on the surface of the water that have been stirred up by the current, which is more scientific but less funny.)

There were also some life birds to be had in the area as well.  Among the many sea ducks were White-winged Scoter, a new species for me, along with Surf Scoter.  Perhaps most exciting were Long-tailed Ducks which felt like a life bird as my previous "tick" had been long range scope views of a female in winter plumage on Glenmore Reservoir.

Oh, that's why they call it a Long-tailed Duck!

So those are some highlights of the impressive diversity of nearshore seabirds that we saw on our trip.  I'll follow-up with some passerines and more familiar landbirds in the coming weeks.

Juveniles at Frank Lake

I returned from Vancouver Island to find my backordered digiscoping bracket waiting for me.  The bracket attaches a point-and-shoot camera to the eyepiece of my scope and has a cable release for vibration free pictures.  I headed to Frank Lake, just east of High River to try it out.

Savannah Sparrow, Passerculus sandwichensis 

As would be expected there were many Savannah Sparrows in the grassland around the lake, as well as two Common Ravens being mobbed by a mixed flock of blackbirds (both Red-winged and Yellow-headed were present in large numbers around the lake).

By the time I reached the hide I realized that digiscoping was going to be somewhat unnecessary - close encounters were to be the order of the day.  Franklin's Gulls were standing on the pathway to the hide, and several Yellow-headed Blackbirds fed juveniles in the reeds beside the boardwalk.  A pair of Forster's Terns were also nesting nearby as one repeatedly flew at my head.  A family of Coots had their nest six feet from the path and swam about happily a little further away while I set up the scope.

American Coot (and 2 very funky looking chicks!), Fulica americana

I spent a little over an hour in the hide while several adult and juvenile Eared Grebes swam about in the reeds.  Further out on the lake, Western Grebes could be seen, including some young.  The distinctive silhouettes of White-face Ibis flew past three times, and a pair of Barn Swallows repeatedly flew up to the window to see who was intruding on their territory.  A pair of Lesser Scaup also landed in front of the hide and the male chased the female around in circles, repeatedly biting her neck until he finally mounted her, pushing her almost completely under the water.  It was easy to see how competitive breeding can, in some cases, kill female dabbling ducks.

juvenile Eared Grebe, Podiceps nigricollis

All in all a pleasant afternoon with 19 species seen at the lake.  I'm looking forward to playing around with the digiscoping some more over the summer.