Year of the Woodpecker?

Regular followers of this blog may remember that my nemesis bird in Alberta was the Pileated Woodpecker.  I finally tracked one down early last year and finally had some decent views in the fall.  This year seems to be off to a different start on the woodpecker front!

To begin with, a Pileated Woodpecker was the very first bird I saw for the entire year. Arriving at dawn in the Shannon Terrace parking lot of Fish Creek Provincial Park for our January 1st bird count, one of these crow-sized woodpeckers flew across the valley calling as it went.  There have been more sightings since then, notably a pair of birds feeding at ground level by the bike path in Bebo Grove a short distance from our bird course group.

Above: Pileated Woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus, Bebo Grove, Fish Creek Provincial Park
Below: Example of flight call from xeno-canto.org

On that January 1^st bird count, even the Pileated wasn’t the woodpecker highlight of the day, as we found a Black-backed Woodpecker later in the morning.  There had been some sightings earlier in the winter and we soon found tell-tale signs of the feeding activity of a three-toed woodpecker species.  The three species in this group are specialist woodpeckers, needing mature coniferous forests with dead and dying trees, from which they meticulously peel the bark, searching for insect larvae.  The resulting pile of fine bark shavings in the snow around the base of these trees is distinctive but sometimes finding the responsible bird is a little trickier.  Eventually one of our group members spotted this beauty feeding high up on spruce trunk and we were able to watch it at work.

Black-backed Woodpecker, Picoides arcticus, Marshall Springs, Fish Creek Provincial Park

In the same genus (for now?) as the three-toed woodpeckers are the Calgary area's more common species – the Hairy Woodpecker and the ubiquitous Downy Woodpecker - both of which we also saw on that woodpecker-filled New Year's Day.  Although common, these two species can play tricks on birders, as they can be confused with each other.  Here’s the Hairy Woodpecker, in South Glenmore Park last year.

Hairy Woodpecker, Picoides villosus, South Glenmore Park, Calgary.
The red spot indicates that this is a male bird.

There are a few physical characteristics that help to separate the two species.  The Hairy is larger than the Downy, although there is a tiny bit of overlap between the smallest and largest of the two species.  The outer tail feathers on a Hairy are pure white - although this can be hard to see and is not universally true.  Less ambiguously, the bill is always proportionately larger in the Hairy – as long as the head.  However, the easiest way to tell the two species apart is their calls.  The Hairy is fairly flat in pitch while the Downy's call is distinctly descending (“Downy goes down”).  Here’s the Downy Woodpecker, this one at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary.  If you look closely you can see the black spots on the outer tail feathers and the bill is clearly shorter than the bird above, but it's that call that makes it clear, as you can hear below.

Above: Downy Woodpecker, Picoides pubescens, Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, Calgary.
No red spot on the head means this is a female.
Below: Example of call from xeno-canto.org

Four of Calgary’s woodpecker species on January 1st is a pretty good start to any birding year.  I’ve seen Northern Flicker since then which leaves three more common Southern Alberta woodpeckers – American Three-toed, Red-naped Sapsucker, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker – to turn up for the remainder of the year.  Here’s to the year of the woodpecker!

Christmas Bird Count - Calgary

Plans for a quiet Christmas around town enable me to participate in three Christmas Bird Counts this year.  The first of these was last weekend's Calgary count where I counted with four other birders in South Glenmore Park and the Weaselhead Natural Area.  This area has been referred to as "the long walk" by some as it's a relatively remote area for an urban count, has historically low species diversity and is therefore assigned to birders willing to spend six or seven hours wandering the woods in winter weather.  Nevertheless, I've had fun on this count the last couple of years and looked forward to our day out.  Here are a few shots of some of the twenty-one species we encountered.

Although I've seen a lot of Golden-crowned Kinglets, Regulus satrapa, I've not had much luck photographing them.  That's perhaps not surprising as they are Alberta's tiniest songbirds, barely bigger than our smallest hummingbirds, and weighing in at just six grams - less than a loonie!  Their flight reminds me of hummingbirds too as they flit around the shadowy branches of spruce trees looking for food and somehow eking out a living at thirty below.  This particular bird finally sat still in the sun long enough for me to get a decent shot.

Believe it or not, this photo is also an improvement on previous work.  Of course that's easy when I have never managed to photograph Brown Creeper, Certhia americana, in Alberta!

Pileated Woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus, started the year as a bit of nemesis for me - never seen in Alberta or anywhere since I started birding in earnest a few years ago.  I finally found one in the spring and then got fantastic looks a few weeks ago.  Two of the members of our group, who were newer birders, had been having similar issues so it was nice to relive my experience through them as we got great looks and a startlingly close flypast from this female.

I don't have much to say about this photo except that it's a Common Redpoll, it's very pretty, we saw a hundred and thirty others just like it, and no, we didn't see any Hoary Redpolls.  But that's fine because these birds are perfectly lovely with their streaks intact.

Boreal Chickadees, Poecile hudsonicus, are a target species for this count area and we found a half dozen of them hanging out with various flocks of Black-capped Chickadees.  They are distinguishable by their brown caps, reddish-brown flanks and different calls but this uncharacteristically bold individual made life easier by feeding a few feet away while we ate lunch.

At the end of the day, we had another great count experience and I look forward to the next one - Sheep River/Turner Valley on December 29th.  There's a full list of counts on the Birds Calgary website and lots of time to get involved.  Hope to see you out there!

A Nemesis No Longer

Some of my childhood was spent in Ontario and I clearly remember seeing Pileated Woodpeckers a few times in the forests around Peterborough and Ottawa, mostly while out cross-country skiing.  When I started keeping track of my bird sightings a few years ago, I assumed it would be a quick addition to my Alberta list.  No such luck!  Eventually I followed some advice to Griffith Woods in early March of this year and got my "tick" - a quick disappointing flash of distinctive white underwing vanishing into the trees across the Elbow River.  With that backdrop in mind, you may understand why I was approaching this past weekend's Friends of Fish Creek Birding in Bebo Grove, where Pileateds had been reported all week, with more than the usual excitement.

View Bebo Grove in a larger map

The first thirty minutes of our outing was extremely quiet with a handful of Black-billed Magpies, Pine Grosbeaks, Black-capped Chickadees, and a flyover Sharp-shinned Hawk.

A Sharp-shinned Hawk (possibly the same bird), Accipiter striatus, that we connected with later in the morning

Eventually we made it to the creek where we enjoyed the company of Brown Creepers, Boreal and Black-capped Chickadees, and Golden-crowned Kinglets.  Unnoticed by the main group, the star of the show - a Pileated Woodpecker - flew across the creek behind us and alit on a trunk right in front of three birders who had lingered by the water.  As soon as they got our attention it flew off downstream, landing among some picnic tables that were a more comfortable distance from our mob of nearly two dozen birders.

More deeply unsatisfying views of my nemesis (this is a 420mm lens) - right in the centre of the frame, apparently headless!

Given the woodpecker's tolerance of birders earlier in the week, I decided to play a hunch and headed off by myself to make a giant (and hopefully nonthreatening) loop around through the trees to get the sun behind me and hopefully to move closer to the bird.  As you can see from these photos, it worked...

Male Pileated Woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus

Pileated Woodpeckers are, probably needless to say, the largest of North American woodpeckers, about the size of a crow.  They chisel away at trees with their large powerful beaks, often foraging close to the ground where they excavate rectangular holes to feed on ants and other insects inside the tree.  The whole woodpecker family has evolved a number of fascinating adaptations to enable this feeding behaviour: stout bills with an elastic layer of tissue between bill and skull bones, long barbed tongues that curl around the back the skull, nasal tuft feathers (visible above) that protect their nostrils from flying wood chips, and stiffened central tail feather shafts (visible below) that help prop the bird up on the trunk.

Going up!

That was the main excitement of the morning - certainly no Citrine Wagtail or Hepatic Tanager but a stunning bird and an important sighting for me.  We concluded our morning by heading down to the westernmost bridge in the park, on the off chance of an American Dipper, but "settled" for the first Common Redpolls of the season, along with more friendly Black-capped Chickadees and a particularly characterful Red Squirrel.

Black-capped Chickadee, Poecile atricapillus

Red Squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus

Birding at Thirty Below

Yesterday it was -30°C (-22°F) in Calgary - all day long.  Today it had warmed up to a balmy -23°C (-10°F) by late afternoon so I headed out for a brisk walk around Inglewood Bird Sanctuary to see how the birds were making out with the weather.  I snapped a few photos (click to enlarge as usual!) along the river and enjoyed the company of friendly chickadees.

A huddle of Canada Geese settling down for the night

This Northern Flicker landed quite nearby and then hopped on to another nearby rock.  Why?....

...even in the coldest weather a bird's got to drink!

More riverside geese with Common Goldeneye in the background.

I ended up finding ten species in the forty-five minutes that I was able to handle the cold:

1. Canada Goose
2. Mallard
3. Common Goldeneye
4. Bald Eagle
5. Northern Flicker
6. Hairy Woodpecker
7. Black-billed Magpie
8. Black-capped Chickadee
9. Bohemian Waxwing
10. European Starling

It's remarkable how many birds seem so utterly unfazed by even the coldest weather - if you've got the clothing, go out and see what you can find!

Christmas Bird Count Continued

As promised, a few more Christmas Bird Count images to brighten up your mid-week.  More on Flickr if you're interested and Dan Arndt posted his own recollections of our count over on the Birds Calgary blog.

Our count group in the Weaselhead

Common Redpolls busy feeding

Hairy Woodpecker hammering away

A fairly appalling photo of a lifer juvenile Northern Goshawk

I believe I already mentioned there were a LOT of Pine Grosbeaks (male above, female "on approach")

High River Red-bellied Woodpecker

With only a handful of sightings and a single official provincial record, this report, originally by Peter Maksymiw, was a big deal for me.  I booked a morning off work and drove down to High River at dawn.  It wasn't hard to find the bird because:

1. It has a very distinctive call
2. Red-headed birds show up well in the snow with no leaves on the trees
3. There was another birder already in the park who said "look, it's over there"!

If anyone is going to look for themselves, it's in George Lane Park in High River - you can click on the location link at the top of this post for a map.  For the entire time I was there it was periodically visiting the feeder at 506 4th St (which is right on the park) and then caching food (and occasionally feeding) in the trees in that area of the park.  All of this information has already been posted on Albertabird.  Anyway, here are some photos from the morning - click on any image to enlarge.

Red-bellied Woodpecker, Melanerpes carolinus, caching what I assume is a peanut

An entirely accidental flight shot included only because the white patch on the wing is a useful identification mark

Another tree, another cache?

Since the bird is caching food and has apparently been in the area since October, there is probably no rush to get there - but try telling that to me at seven o'clock this morning!

Warbling in the Rain - Father's Day Outing Part 2

After returning from the Drumheller outing I took some time in the evening to wander around the local bird sanctuary, which led me to the following random observations:

- Mosquitos are okay, even when they're flying right at your face, because they're the reason that Yellow Warbler is foraging six feet in front of you.

- Rain is okay, because it keeps the mosquitos away, when you're done looking at the warbler.

- Sometimes a scope is really handy...

Spotted Sandpiper, Actitis macularia

- ...and sometimes it's just overkill!

Northern Flicker, Colaptes auratus

- Maintaining a network of blogs is useful, especially when they help you with ID's.  This post, on "Birding Is Fun", finally helped all the pieces fall into place in identifying a loud but well hidden Warbling Vireo (third photo down on the linked page).  They sound like this and I'm sure I won't forget that call again.

- And finally, urban parks are wonderful places where you can be surprised by nature...

- ...and nature can be surprised by you!

Raptor Commute

Another sunny day meant another pleasantly meandering bike commute.  I headed for Confederation Park where I soon heard a harsh "jaaay, jaaay" from the bushes that took my mind back to Ontario.  Sure enough there was a Blue Jay, noisily foraging in the bushes.

Further down I met an experienced birder - really nice binoculars are a good sign of someone who might be able to teach me something!  He kindly put me on to an accipiter which he identified as a probable Cooper's Hawk.  I had some good views and snapped a few shots but, as I re-examine the photos, the size (11-13" based on the branch diameter) and the squareness of the tail have me thinking Sharp-shinned Hawk.  Comments would be appreciated as Cooper's would be a lifer for me so I am particularly wary on rushing to judgment.

Unidentified Accipiter, top image is 1/4 frame crop of 170mm image, bottom image is further crop from same, Click to Enlarge

Further along I found a Northern Flicker, looking very unconcerned about traffic, cyclists, or accipiters...

Northern Flicker, Colaptes auratus

...as well as this muskrat feeding in the creek.

Muskrat, Ondatra zibethicus

After picking the kids up I was heading up the 10th St. hill when I spotted a Merlin engaged in what I can only describe as a dogfight with an American Crow.  I watched these aerobatics for a moment, until they disappeared from view over the crest of the hill.  Rounding the corner at the top of hill and somewhat out of breath from the climb, I was pleasantly surprised to find a merlin, presumably the same bird, sitting in the top of a spruce tree.  A beautiful falcon and this one nicely showing off the paler brown of the prairie subspecies. 

Merlin, Falco columbarius (richardsonii)

 Not bad for an hour of cycle commuting!