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!

Birding Banff in the New Year

2012 found us waking up in Canmore so there was a good chance that the all important first bird of the year would be something more interesting than last year’s House Sparrow.  Sure enough as I drove over to Banff for some morning birding a pair of Common Ravens flew over the Highway, the first of many for the day.

A rooftop Raven, Corvus corax, in Banff

Driving through Banff, which was relatively deserted except for groups of skiers waiting for shuttle buses, I picked up Black-billed Magpie on my way to Cave Avenue.  More excitingly, as soon as I stepped out of the car, there was a group of Mountain Chickadees making trips between a large pine tree and a feeder - a target bird both for the day and for the year.  I had great views, although with the sun still not up above the mountains my efforts at photography were, umm, impressionistic!

Oddly enough, given the terrible photo, this shows the critical field mark for Mountain Chickadee,  Poecile gambeli - it looked better through binoculars!

I took a walk down the Cave and Basin boardwalk where there were Red-breasted Nuthatches and a flock of White-winged Crossbills dropping cones on to the path.  The crossbills were so quiet and diligent in their feeding that I first thought I was being targeted by a squirrel with a sense of humour.  Suddenly the tree erupted with a flock of a dozen birds which settled into a tree that afforded better views.  Down at the hot springs I was hoping for dippers but found only a small group of Mallards paddling around in the steaming water. 

Click to enlarge and see how many White-winged Crossbills, Loxia leucoptera, you can spot

After this walk I headed over to Vermillion Lakes Drive, a flock of Rock Pigeons flying overhead.  Alongside the road at Vermillion Lakes there are several patches of water kept ice-free by underground springs.  In one I found a muskrat keeping company with a rather forlorn female Bufflehead.  A Townsend’s Solitaire perched overhead – the second year I've found this bird on my first day of birding.  More surprisingly was a group of Green-winged Teal at the limit of their winter range.  They were huddled together in a tiny open stretch of water and I wonder how they will make out when we finally have a real cold snap.

Green-winged Teal, Anas crecca, Alberta's smallest duck on the smallest remaining part of Vermillion Lakes 

On my way back to Canmore I stopped at Exshaw hoping for Gray-crowned Rosy-finch but found only Black-capped Chickadee and House Sparrow to add to my list.  As a footnote to this trip report, I should add that we skied in to Boom Lake today where Gray Jay’s made their usual begging appearance.  All in all a good start to the year’s birding.

A convenient perch for a hopeful Gray Jay, Perisoreus canadensis

A Nice End to the Birding Year (and Reflections for the New One!)

We took a family trip to Drumheller to visit the dinosaurs at Royal Tyrrell Museum - never a bad destination with a 4 year old boy!  As we drove, we kept our eyes out for Snowy Owls as there have been several reports immediately east of Beiseker (click above for a map).  We were not disappointed and saw 7 in total, including possible "repeats" on the way back.

Snowy Owl, Bubo scandiacus, click to enlarge

same Snowy Owl in flight, ditto

It was a nice way to end off the year's birding and quite the year it has been.  If 2010 was the year I started organized birding then 2011 is the year that I started to somewhat have a clue what I was doing.  Consistently paying attention to birds is tremendously rewarding in several ways, the least of which is numbers, but as that's the easiest to put into a blog here they are: my Alberta list had exactly doubled from 85 to 170, starting with Blue Jay on New Year's Day in Fish Creek Park and ending with Northern Goshawk and Hoary Redpoll on the Christmas Bird Count.

My life list has grown even more, thanks to trips to Ontario and Vancouver Island bringing in birds like Caspian Tern, Bewick's Wren and Red-throated Loon.  On my first West Coast trip of the year I managed arguably my greatest ornithological feat thus far: getting Grade 9 students interested in birding. Apparently all it takes is scope-filling views of Bald Eagles mating!

I'll wrap up this little bit of self-indulgence with some goals for 2012:

1. Improve my birding by ear,
2. 200 birds for the year (or approximately matching 2011's 202 species),
3. Review a book a month for this blog, and,
4. Find the following ten species in Alberta:

• Eurasian Wigeon, Harlequin Duck, Red-breasted Merganser, and White-winged Scoter - the four more common Alberta duck species I haven't seen in the province (or anywhere in the case of the wigeon and the scoter)
• Golden Eagle - which will mean at long last taking a trip to the Mt. Lorette count next fall
• Peregrine Falcon - they nest ten minutes from my house every year so how hard can it be
• Pileated Woodpecker - seen in Ontario before I was a birder, becoming something of a nemesis bird for me
• Mountain Chickadee - given the amount of time we spend in the mountains you would think this would have made an appearance by now and it's my only remaining western chickadee
• Canada Warbler - I just think they're pretty
• Chestnut-collared Longspur (or any other variety of Longspur would be nice) - a classic prairie bird

Well that's it for 2011 - we'll see in 365 days how wildly optimistic that little list is!

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays to all of you from Calgary!

"The earth never tires;
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first—Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first;
Be not discouraged—keep on—there are divine things, well envelop’d;
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell."          - "Song of the Open Road", Walt Whitman

Another year of birds is just a few days away....

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")

Christmas Bird Count

I joined 5 other birders for the 60th Annual Calgary Area Christmas Bird Count today.  We had a terrific day out exploring South Glenmore Park and the Weaselhead in lovely warm winter weather.  This year continues to be a great one for finches with dozens and dozens of Pine Grosbeaks.  We also found a few pleasant surprises such as Northern Goshawk, Hoary Redpoll, Ruffed Grouse, and Boreal Chickadee.  Here are a few photos with comments as necessary - I'll post some more later in the week.  I have also uploaded some to my Flickr account and Dan Arndt said he would be doing likewise in the next day or two.

If the day had a "theme" bird, I think this was it.  I forget the final tally but we certainly saw a lot more than the 6 Pine Grosbeaks of last year's count!

A single Boreal Chickadee tagging along with half a dozen Black-capped gave me best ever views of this species.

A pair of Ruffed Grouse flushed up into the trees as we walked along a trail beside the reservoir.  The intricate pattern of this bird's feathers is remarkable.

We engaged in what John Acorn refers to as "the Great Redpoll Debate" but remain confident that this is a Hoary Redpoll (in front of a Common) based on the white tail coverts, broad white band on the wing, and overall "frostier" appearance.

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!