Posted by Bob Lefebvre
I recently found a Red Fox den in the city of Calgary. There are five kits, and although I didn’t have my camera when I found them, I returned later and was able to get a couple of photos before the adult spotted me. The den is in a very exposed and quite busy spot, so I didn’t want to stay and disturb them.
Adult Red Fox with one kit at den.
Red Fox kit.
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
I’ve started to see some newly fledged House Finches around my yard recently, so I thought I’d post this video from last year, taken by Sandy and David Currie. I’ve never seen where the House Finches nest in my area, but the Curries had House Finches nesting inside a Christmas wreath hanging in their window for four of the five years to 2014. This gave them a great opportunity to photograph the birds from egg to hatching. They took time-lapse photos about eight hours a day to give a thirty-minute video of each days’ events. It was eleven days from the female beginning to brood to the first egg hatching. Here is the edited result:
House Finches nesting. Photos/video by David and Sandy Currie.
An update for the 2015 nesting season: Five eggs were laid and four hatched, but then magpies found the nest and ate the hatchlings and destroyed the nest. The adult House Finches keep returning and may try to nest again, but will probably have to find a new site if they want to raise a brood.
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
I have often seen Merlins chasing Rock Pigeons, but it seems to be a very hard bird to catch. On April 10, 2015, near 19 Street NE and the Trans-Canada Highway, Chris Johnson got this excellent shot a Merlin with its Rock Pigeon prey.
Merlin with Rock Pigeon. Photo by Chris Johnson.
Taken with a Canon 6D 70-200 2.8 lens. At 200mm, f/4.5 1/400 and ISO 100.
Posted by Dan Arndt
Last Sunday was a great day for birding along the Bow River. The weather had been a little iffy for a couple days before, and overnight had cleared up enough to allow a whole lot of birds to begin moving through, and boy did we see and hear a lot of migrants!
Bankside to Mallard Point – May 17, 2015
We walked around at Mallard Point for a bit early on, and found a whole lot of Swainson’s Thrushes in the underbrush (say that five times fast) and hearing a number of Yellow and Yellow-rumped Warblers singing in the bushes. From there, we drove down to the ponds at Burnsmead to look for the Wood Ducks we had there earlier in the year, but dipped on those. We did hear a couple of Western Tanagers in the saplings on the north side of the road, one of which posed nicely for us.
Western Tanager
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 320
From there we headed over to Bankside, in search of sapsuckers and maybe a few other warblers, but aside from hearing a couple here and there, none of them popped up into view. We headed north along the river and one of our keen-eyed participants noticed this Say’s Phoebe across the river, which was quickly harassed and scared off by a newly arrived Eastern Kingbird, but eventually the two of them worked out their differences.
Say’s Phoebe
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1600
Moments after we spotted this fellow, a pair of American White Pelicans gave us a very close flyover, enough to tell this male by the large crest present on the bill.
American White Pelican
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1600sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 400
The morning continued with us finding Song Sparrows, Lincoln’s Sparrows, and Swainson’s Thrushes absolutely everywhere, but none of them really allowed us to get too close, and despite our efforts, we couldn’t quite pick out a Hermit Thrush or a Veery from the pack. We did hear a few of these beautiful male Baltimore Orioles singing in the poplar trees across the river!
Baltimore Oriole
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1600
Upstream in a section of the bank that had been carved out in the 2013 flood we found a colony of Bank Swallows setting up shop. It’s always fun to watch them dip and weave over the river and in and out of their tiny homes.
Bank Swallows
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/2000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 2000
We continued upstream to find a grove where we’ve found nesting American Kestrels in one of the large hollowed out trees, but unfortunately came up empty in the trees. On the river though, we found a lifer for most of our group, great looks at a usually hard to spot warbler, and yet another great look at one of the Swainson’s Thrushes along our path.
Northern Waterthrush
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1600sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 3200
We noticed this Northern Waterthrush darting along the bottom of the logs and accumulated debris, but popped out a couple of times for us to take photos. We also had some of our best looks at a couple of Swainson’s Thrushes bobbing up and down along the brush pile.
Swainson’s Thrush
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1600sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1000
Our best bird of the day, and arguably of the entire course so far, was this Gray-cheeked Thrush. They’re a rare migrant in southern Alberta, and it seems that a few of them might have been included in the overnight thrush fallout, as they also banded 5 of them at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary bird banding station that morning.
Gray-cheeked Thrush
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1000
Gray-cheeked Thrush
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1000
We spent some time with the thrushes before heading back upstream, to find our first goslings of the season, and remarked at just how big they were already!
Canada Goose goslings
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1600sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 400
As we wrapped up for the day at Mallard Point, we heard the Least Flycatchers calling from the bushes again and I decided I had to at least try to get a picture. All I was able to snap was this record shot before it flew off. I’m sure I’ll get better ones later on this year!
Least Flycatcher
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1000
Posted by Dan Arndt
Our outing on May 3 took us to South Glenmore Park. Following our second week at Carburn Park, I headed over to the Glenmore Reservoir to try to find some water birds, and was able to get a couple photos of a distant female Red-breasted Merganser and White-winged Scoter, spurring on the visits for the following week. While we didn’t get either of them on our official outing, we did get a whole bunch of other great spring migrants, and had an amazing time finding all the new birds.
Red-breasted Merganser
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 640
White-winged Scoter
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 640
South Glenmore Park
May 3, 2015
For the past few years, a family of Common Ravens has nested right near the parking lot. Apparently this adult Raven has decided that peanut butter is a perfect breakfast treat. I like his thinking.
Common Raven
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/800sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 3200
As we walked around the point, we found Red-necked, Western, and Horned Grebes but sadly we couldn’t pick out a single Clark’s among over 75 Western Grebes. At least we had a couple Horned Grebes that were willing to let us get close.
Horned Grebe
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 800
The view from the top of the hill above the main pathway allowed us to get even better looks at some of the Western Grebes out on the reservoir.
Western Grebes
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/800sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 400
In the trees along the ridge there were Tree Swallows and Northern Rough-winged Swallows hawking for insects above the canopy, but the most numerous songbird of the day was the Yellow-rumped Warbler. Along this stretch, there must have been at least 20 of them!
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 800
Another new bird of the season was the Savannah Sparrow. This one seems to have a little less yellow in the lores than I’m used to, but his song was unmistakable!
Savannah Sparrow
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/800sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 800
We then circled out to the west through the boreal and aspen parkland areas on the west end of the park, but came up with very little. We didn’t even see a single Common Loon on the entire reservoir that day, I think mostly because of how open the water was, and how many water bodies outside of the city were open after such a mild winter.
On our way back to the parking lot, we did have a close fly-by of this Swainson’s Hawk, one of our first ones of the season for the Sunday morning group!
Swainson’s Hawk
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/7.1, ISO 500
As we returned to the parking lot, I decided that we hadn’t really had much luck with the sparrows on the pond, so sat in the grass and waited for them to pop out. I was welcomed very shortly after by both a White-crowned Sparrow as well as a Lincoln’s Sparrow. Well worth the effort!
Lincoln’s Sparrow
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/2000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1600
White-crowned Sparrow
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1000
Have a great week, and good birding!
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
I saw this healthy-looking Coyote on Bearspaw Dam Road on April 19.
Posted by Dan Arndt
Our second week at Carburn Park took us to the north end, usually a good spot for us to find migrating swallows, blackbirds, and usually warblers. This week was no exception though the usual numbers that we expect were a little low, I suspect because of the rather warm spring we’ve had and the significant amount of open water elsewhere in the foothills.
Carburn Park – April 26, 2015
From the parking lot, we again headed south to the bridge, where we heard the ongoing and always happy sounding song of Ruby-crowned Kinglet. This happy little fellow and his kin are always hard to get out in the open, but today we managed a few moments with him out at the edge of a bush, and with his ruby crown raised too!
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 3200
We followed the edge of the Bow River in search of the usual swallows and warblers, and while we didn’t manage to get very good or long looks at many of them, we did spot a number of Tree Swallows and a lone Violet-green Swallow in among them. Even better was this rather handsome male Common Merganser, his iridescence shining in the sunlight as he floated past.
male Common Merganser
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1250
As we headed up-river, we heard many migrating Song Sparrows on the near and far banks, and even had a lone Yellow-rumped Warbler in the dense shrubs west of the second pond, though none of us managed to see it, his song was heard loud and clear. And while we didn’t find the Wood Ducks again that week, we did get really good looks at a pair of American Wigeon sunning themselves on the far shore.
American Wigeons
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 500
Further and further north we headed, passing what was obviously a few nesting Black-capped Chickadees, a White-breasted Nuthatch gathering food to take back to its own nest, and of course there was this Canada Goose nesting in one of the oldest trees in the park.
Canada Goose nesting in her tree
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/2000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1250
At the furthest point north in the park we did find a solitary American White Pelican, resting on the furthest north point of a large gravel bar, totally oblivious to the dozens of Franklin’s Gulls swirling around him.
American White Pelican
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1600sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 400
On our way back south, we heard, and saw a pair of Cooper’s Hawks, I suspect ones that were either courting, or at least actively paired up and searching for a suitable place to nest in the area. We got many good looks at them both perched and in flight.
Cooper’s Hawk
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1600sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1600
Cooper’s Hawk
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 640
Cooper’s Hawk
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1600sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 250
Cooper’s Hawk
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1600sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1250
Along the way back south we also saw a lone Western Alpine butterfly. Probably not the first one of them I’ve ever seen, but the first one I’ve managed to actually figure out and identify on my own, so that was a treat!
Western Alpine
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/2000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 200
Another of the birds that others were seeing all week was this Northern Flicker working on a nest cavity. Looks ready to move right in!
Northern Flicker
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/2000sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 3200
Just as I was packing up and getting ready to head home, this Red-tailed Hawk that we’d been seeing all morning began being harassed by a few American Crows, flying right over head. I’m always amazed that they don’t just bank around and snatch the harassers out of the air for a quick meal.
Red-tailed Hawk and American Crow
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 800
Have a great week, and good birding!
Birds and Beers, Saturday May 23, 6:00 – 9:00 pm.
Royal Canadian Legion, 9202 Horton Road SW Calgary.
The next Birds & Beers social get-together for Calgary birders will be held on May 23. Drop in to the Horton Road Legion anytime after 6 pm and have an informal chat about birds. Everyone of all ages is welcome. Food and drinks are available.
See the Facebook Event Page here.
Mountain Bluebird, male. Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park, April 21, 2015. Photo by Bob Lefebvre
Posted by Dan Arndt
Our walk last week took us to Carburn Park once again. We actually headed there this week as well, so I’ll cover the birds we found on the south end of the park this week, and the north end in next week’s post.
Carburn Park – April 19, 2015
The Sue Higgins Bridge south of the parking lot in Carburn Park is a regular roost (and nesting location) for any number of Rock Pigeons, and you can usually find at least a few here. It was really nice to find this rather beautifully colored bird, and in great light to show off some of the iridescence on the neck.
Rock Pigeon
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1600
On the gravel bar just south of the bridge were over a hundred Franklin’s Gulls, and also a few Ring-billed Gulls flying by eating the freshly hatched insects flying up from the river. One of the advantages of being out so early is that the insects aren’t too high up, and neither are the gulls and swallows yet either.
Ring-billed Gull
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 500
Did I say swallows? Yes indeed, the Tree Swallows have really started showing up in big numbers too, and we had flocks overhead almost the whole time, wheeling and darting around and getting their fill of hatching mayflies and midges.
Tree Swallow
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 320
We followed the river edge south and came across some interesting sights, as well as the real first returning migrant Song Sparrows. We also found lots of American Robins foraging about, posing, and searching for nesting materials in preparation of the coming breeding season.
American Robin
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 640
Song Sparrow
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 400
One of the most amazing finds last week was a group of four Wood Ducks perched high up in a tree, set exactly at the wrong angle for our approach. By the time I got around to have the light in at least a little bit of a helpful angle, three of them had moved into hiding, but at least I got this lone female! Yes, Wood Ducks are tree nesting ducks. How crazy is that? They’re one of the few ducks that have strong feet and claws capable of gripping branches and bark.
Wood Duck
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 1250
At the far south end of our walk we found another large group of Franklin’s Gulls, many showing quite a bit of pink in the breast and bright red bills typical of fresh breeding plumage. Their raucous cacophony followed us all throughout the park these past two weeks, often drowning out some of the more subtle songs and chip notes of other returning birds, but it is really great to have these birds back!
Franklin’s Gull
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1600sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 400
On our way back we came across a couple of active nests as well, one containing a pair of Northern Flickers (and presumably their eggs), as well as a Black-billed Magpie nest, with either mom or dad standing guard and keeping a sharp eye on us.
Black-billed Magpie
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1600sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 800
So that was another week with the Friends of Fish Creek. Next week we’ll see how the north end of the park treated us!
Have a great week, and good birding!
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
Ospreys are now back in the city, and Peregrine Falcons have been back for a few weeks. The regular nesting Peregrines returned to the University of Calgary a month ago, and as of yesterday, four eggs were in the nest. That should be it for egg-laying, so now you can watch until they hatch and the young fledge.
Watch live here, and there is a link where you can view the nest on YouTube, and comment on what you see.
Meanwhile, both the male and female Osprey were back at the Calgary Zoo nesting platform by April 16. You can watch live here.
Links to both cameras will be at the top of our right-hand sidebar until the birds have left, so you can always come to Birds Calgary for a quick link to the nest cams.
We have now removed the Snowy Owl sightings link for the season. You can check eBird for all this year’s Snowy sightings here.