No Costume Needed: Meet the Northern Shrike, the Bird of Halloween

By Catherine Warwick

The most “Halloween” bird around is the Northern Shrike, aka, the “butcher bird”. Although it is a Passerine, which is a perching songbird, it has rejected the usual cutesy song-bird personality and instead is a merciless hunter. Not only does it hunt other birds, but it is known to rip its kill to shreds and impale pieces of the body on barb wire fences and tree branches. I don’t think a bird can get more grisly than that, it would even make a Crow shudder. It needs no costume to strike fear in a little bird’s heart, however it does sport a small black mask and a heavy hooked beak.

The Northern Shrike will scout out a nest or mouse hole and wait to strike. If it’s after a flying bird it may force it to the ground with its feet. Then it makes the kill with its hooked beak. In its upper bill (at the front) it has a vampirish toothlike spike, called a tomial tooth, that it uses to break the necks of its prey.

The Shrike spends its summer in the far north and just comes to Calgary for the winter, that’s how tough it is. Apparently, it finds our “balmy” -20°C days pleasant.

Ron saw the pictured Northern Shrike at Carburn Park last winter. Shrikes are known to return to the same winter territory year after year, so keep an eye out; you might see this tiny terror perched high atop a tree, scanning for its next victim.

In the summer they will head back to the far north to nest. One sweet fact about this bird – their nest is a deep cup that, when the female is in it, only her tail can be seen.

This winter get your binoculars ready to see a real horror icon: the Northern Shrike.

-Cathy

Note: The Northern Shrike has a summertime lookalike, the Loggerhead Shrike. Northern Shrikes are in our area from early October to late April. Loggerheads arrive in mid-May and can sometimes be seen into September. There is the possibility of a little overlap in May and September. Loggerhead Shrikes are a little smaller than Northerns, and have a clear breast without the barring of the Northern. They have a smaller bill with a tip that is less hooked, but they share the feeding habits of the Northern Shrike. -Bob

Birds & Beers, October 9, 2025

Oct2

Featuring a presentation by Stephen Boucher called “The Roughly Right Guide to Botswana”

Next Thursday, October 9th, the Calgary Birds & Beers group will meet for our monthly social get-together and presentation. We are at the Legion at 9202 Horton Road SW in Calgary. We meet in the big ballroom, starting at 5 pm. Stephen’s presentation will begin at about 7 pm.

African Lion — All photos by Stephen Boucher.

I am Stephen Boucher, retired from a long career in medicine and professional people watching as a psychiatrist. In retirement I help with the Monday morning Friends of Fish Creek birding group and generally enjoy the outdoors and travel.

I have been asked to talk about my trip last year to Botswana. In retirement travel decisions lie at the nexus of interest, health, finances and at best, the opportunity to travel with great friends.

Botswana in September 2024 met all of the criteria. But why a Safari?

I grew up in the United Kingdom close to Chester Zoo and during my childhood, I remember clearly hearing the calls of the Sea-lions at 3pm feeding time and roar of the lions at dusk in the warm summer evenings. I have always enjoyed visiting Zoos. But the animals, though well cared for, are captive and some show abnormal repetitive behaviours. It had been a lifelong dream to go on Safari and see the animals and birds of Africa in their wild habitat. In the era of Mass Tourism and “Selfie sticks”, I wondered if it was still possible to go on Safari and have a Robert Redford and Meryl Streep moment, like in the 1985 movie “Out of Africa”

The word Safari comes from the Arabic word “to journey”. And along with my two Calgary friends Karen and Ed, plus John (a vet friend from the UK who is called “Mr. Safety”, by his hiking group) we had an amazing journey.

Tonight, I want you to sit back and come on Safari with me……

Everyone is welcome to join us at Birds & Beers. The cost is about a dollar per person to cover the charge for the room. See you there!

Ghosted By A Sora

Sep8

By Catherine Warwick

One of the birds leaving Calgary this September is the Sora. Were you one of the lucky few who saw it at the North Glenmore storm pond?

A few years ago I saw one of these charismatic birds at Inglewood, I was with my sister who is not really a birder. The conversation went like this:

(a Sora just casually standing in a pond in full view)

Me: Holy Cow! A Sora! Wow I can’t believe it, look at it! Wow! We are so lucky, how rare!

Sister: That’s nice.

Me: We are so lucky! This is amazing!

Sister: Uh huh (starts walking).

And yet if she became a birder and started looking for a Sora it would probably take years to see one. I trolled that North Glenmore Storm pond so many times this summer and nothing! The Sora is one of those birds only birders know about. Even though they are common they are really good at hiding in the reeds.

The Sora is a plump little chicken-like bird that belongs to the Rail family. They frequent ponds and wetlands. The Sora has very long toes that help them walk on floating mats of vegetation. They are grey and brown with an impossibly yellow triangle beak. The first time I saw one at the storm pond I thought it was floating because it was standing in water that came up to its undercarriage. I was flipping through my Sibleys looking for a duck with a yellow triangle beak. The most obvious identifier is their call, a descending laughing sound. Although lately I feel like the Red Winged Blackbirds around the storm pond are mimicking it which has caused me a lot of disappointment. Birding – what a roller coaster!

When a Sora walks it puts its head forward with each step as it looks for aquatic plant seeds or bugs to eat. It’s been known to use its long toes to rake the vegetation. Their long legs are great for running away really quickly, often you will just get a glimpse of them. A brown blur with a yellow streak.

Now that it’s September our little storm pond Sora will be departing on a very long journey, possibly as far as South America. They fly further than any other Rail despite their circular form and long legs. Hopefully it is back next year and I can have another season of attempting to spot the beguiling Sora.

Birds & Beers Returns September 11, 2025!

Sep4

With a Presentation on “Birding in Belize” by Daniel Arndt.

The fall season of Birds & Beers begins next Thursday, September 11th. As usual, we meet from 5-9 pm in the ballroom at the Royal Canadian Legion at 9202 Horton Road SW. Everyone is welcome!

Come early if you can, but be sure to be there by 7 pm, when Dan Arndt will present “Birding in Belize: An Introduction to Birding the Tropics.”

Ocellated Turkeys. Photo by Dan Arndt, Belize, 2020.

Dan has travelled Belize extensively, and visited some of the best birding locations the country has to offer. In March 2026, Dan will be leading a tour to Belize along with local guide, Roni Martinez, to La Milpa Biological Station, Blue Creek, Mountain Pine Ridge, Caracol, Chiquibul Forest Reserve, La Milpa Archaeological Site, and Crooked Tree Lagoon. Some of the most sought after birds in Belize include Ornate Hawk-Eagle, Ocellated Turkey, King Vulture, Jabiru Stork, and Agami Heron.

Belize is an excellent introductory tour for folks new to birding the tropics, with many familiar species that breed in North America on full display and preparing for their northern migration, and travel throughout the relatively small country allows for quick access to a variety of habitats. The archaeological history of the Mayan people, and the great birding found at these archaeological sites is a unique blend of human history and ecological conservation that is rarely found elsewhere in the world.

Here is a link to Dan’s 2026 Belize Birding Tour on the Meadowlark Birding Tours website.

This will be a great start to the Birds & Beers season. Upcoming meeting dates are Thursday October 9, and Thursday November 13 (all are on the second Thursday of the month). We take the month of December off, and then resume again in January.

One change this year is that we are being charged a little more for the use of the room. (It is still very reasonable at $100.) So we will again ask that people make a small donation, if they wish, to help cover this. We usually get anywhere from 50 to 100 attendees, so if you give a dollar or two, that will be plenty. Paying is optional, though, so please don’t feel you have to contribute! Attendees have been very generous with this, and we have always received more than was needed to cover the room cost, and we just donated the extra money to the Legion. We will continue to do this.

See you there!

Wood Ducks: A Living Work of Art

Jun1

By Cathy Warwick

Calgary is lucky to have Wood Ducks within our city limits. In June eBird checklists have about a 5% chance of including a Wood Duck, compare this with Edmonton with only a 0.1% chance! Virtually zero! Something to keep in your back pocket next time the subject of hockey comes up. “Well we have Wood Ducks!”.

If you have seen a Wood Duck you will know why this is a brag. They are like a beautiful sculpture come to life. If you want to see one for the first time (or again) head to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, a Wood Duck hotspot. This waterfowl has a beautiful shimmery green pompadour swept back to the nape of its neck and bright red eyes. No boring modern minimalism for this guy, it has speckles, stripes, shimmers and all kinds of colour: burgundy, blue, a bit of beige. Its latin name is “Aix Sponsa”, which can be loosely translated to “bridal duck”, it’s all dressed up for a fancy wedding. (Audubon). The female has plainer plumage, she makes do with some speckles on her front and a large white eye ring.

Its name comes from its close relationship to trees. The Wood Duck has claws on its duck feet that allow it to climb up trees. This is necessary since it nests in trees. The female will have two broods a year, which apparently is very rare for ducks. When the chicks are ready they will jump out of the tree, up to 50 feet! You have probably seen a video on the internet of ducklings jumping from trees in slow motion, landing like little puff balls on leaf litter. Their mom calls them out, encouraging them to jump, but doesn’t help otherwise. Then they follow her to the pond.

So make a trip to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary and you might get lucky and see the famous Wood Duck. They will be in the pond looking for weeds to eat. They also love perching on the logs in there, firmly in place with their claws, making it easier for you to get a picture of their finery.

2025 City Nature Challenge Events

Apr21

Take part from Friday April 25th to Monday April 28th.

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

White-crowned Sparrow. Photo by Bob Lefebvre.

This coming weekend is the 7th annual City Nature Challenge in the Calgary area, organized by Matt Wallace. During this four-day event, particpants will document urban biodiversity on the iNaturalist app and website. Anyone can take part anywhere within the competition area:

City Nature Challenge Map — The Calgary CNC area.

Although this is a fun and educational activity, and a friendly competition between hundreds of cities around the world, recording our biodiversity is critically important to the cause of conservation. As birders, many of us record our sightings on eBird, which is great for research into bird populations. But when it comes to governments and industry making changes to the environment, iNaturalist is the database that is most often used, as it provides a critical understanding of our complete biodiversity so that we can make responsible development decisions. In the first six years of the Calgary CNC, over 40,000 observations have been made. This is a great start, but we can do much more to fully document our species and to fill in the map with observations. Go to the Calgary CNC website for more information, and watch the video below:

Anyone can use the iNaturalist app on their smart phone or the iNaturalist website on their computer at any time of year to contribute to our biological knowledge. But the CNC is a great time to learn how to do this. There are many resources on the CNC website about how to use iNaturalist, how to take good identifiable photos, and how to upload your observations (you have until May 4th to upload your observations for this project, so you can use this weekend to just make as many observations as possible, and upload them later). See the detailed page about iNaturalist too.

There are many events planned for the upcoming weekend as well:

Friday April 25 – Frank Lake Bird Walk, Nose Creek Bioblitz Walk.

Saturday April 26 – Nature Walk at North Glenmore Park, Guided Photo Walk in the Weaselhead, Bragg Creek Bioblitz, Documenting Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park.

Sunday April 27 – St. Patrick’s Island Nature Walk, Nose Hill Community Pollinator Walk.

Monday April 28 – The Plants of Britannia Slopes.

Please see the CNC Events page here for more information and to register for any of these events. Bring your camera and phone, learn about our natural areas, and help us reach our goal of 15,000 observations this weekend.

Birds & Beers, February 13, 2025.

Feb7

Featuring a talk on the Birds of Indonesia.

Thursday, February 13, is the next Birds & Beers in Calgary. Join us from 5 to 9 pm at the Royal Canadian Legion, 9202 Horton Road SW. Everyone is welcome.

At 7 pm there will be a presentation by Dianne and Bob Leonhardt on The Birds of Indonesia.

Critically endangered Bali Mynas in West Bali National Park. Photo by Bob Leonhardt.

Note: This is a repeat of the talk given in January 2024, with some changes. If you missed it, make sure to attend this time!

Indonesia is the fourteenth largest country in the world by area. It consists of over 17,000 islands. By population it is the fourth largest country in the world with approximately 279 million people. This may seem like an odd choice for a birding tour; however, Indonesia also contains approximately 1800 species of birds, including 786 endemics. So in September of 2023 we flew from Calgary to Vancouver to Tokyo and on to Jakarta to participate in a 20 day birding tour with Naturalist Journeys. On this tour we visited five islands, including Sumatra, Java, Bali, Flores and Komodo. We experienced several different types of environments and ended up seeing approximately 270 species of birds, the majority of which were lifers for us. Some of the most notable species were the Javan Trogon, the Javan Banded Pitta, the Bali Myna, Red and Green Jungle Fowl, and Milky Storks. There were many more, some of which will be shown in this presentation. A final highlight of the tour was a trip to Komodo National Park on Komodo Island to see the infamous Komodo Dragons.

Birds & Beers Reminder and Update

Nov27

Kenya Birds Presentation, Christmas Bird Count, Calendars for sale, Bird Book Exchange – Thursday November 28

Tomorrow night (Thursday the 28th) at the Legion, 9202 Horton Road SW, is our last Birds & Beers of the fall. I wrote about this before but here is an update on some of what you can expect tomorrow evening.

The main presentation, after 7 pm, will be on Birding in Kenya in the summer of 2024, presented by Gavin McKinnon. His presentation will feature many photos of Kenyan birds and mammals, plus information on future tours that he will be leading through his company Meadowlark Birding Tours.

Before the main presentation, Matthew Wallace will speak about the upcoming Calgary Christmas Bird Count (on Sunday December 15). Find out how you can take part in this long-running Citizen Science project! Read more about the CBC here.

Once again this year, Daniel Arndt has produced a beautiful 2025 wall calendar featuring some of his best bird photos of 2024. He will have calendars available at Birds & Beers for $20 (cash or eTransfer). For those of you who are interested in purchasing a calendar but can’t make it to Birds & Beers, they are available at the Wild Bird Store in Calgary, or you can email us here at birdscalgary@gmail.com and we will put you in touch with Dan. (There is a $5 shipping charge for mail orders.)

Finally, we have talked about having a birding book exchange at Birds & Beers, and thanks to a generous donation by a long-time Calgary birder, we will have several books available to kick it off tomorrow! Feel free to bring a few books if you’d like to exchange them. We don’t want to take any books home after, so please help yourself until they are all gone!

Books — Just a few of the books that will be available tomorrow night..

Just a few of the books that will be available tomorrow night..

If you haven’t been to Birds & Beers before, Thursday would be a great time to start!

Birds & Beers, November 28, 2024

Nov21

Gavin McKinnon will have a presentation on his recent birding trip to Kenya.

Everyone is welcome to join us for the last Birds & Beers meeting of 2024 next Thursday, November 28, from 5 to 9 pm at the Royal Canadian Legion, 9202 Horton Road SW.

At about 7 pm, Gavin McKinnon will present a talk with many photos from his trip to Kenya in the summer of 2024. The presentation will focus on birding in Kenya, and an overview of the route he took this past summer that resulted in seeing 450 species of birds and nearly 50 mammal species in 14 days. He will also have information on future opportunities to visit Kenya.

See Gavin’s web page for Meadowlark Birding Tours here.

Variable Sunbird. Photo by Dominic Sherony from **Wikimedia Commons** (**Licencse here**).

See you there!

Birds & Beers, Thursday September 12, 2024

Sep5

With a presentation on Birding in Northern Tanzania and the Serengeti, by Gordon Sick.

Grey Crowned-Crane, photographed at night by Gordon Sick.

Our monthly Birds & Beers meetings resume next Thursday, September 12. All meetings take place in the big ballroom at the Horton Road Legion, 9202 Horton Road SW. Everyone is welcome to attend these free meetings (we have to collect a small fee for the room, but this amounts to less than a dollar per person and it is optional to contribute). The Legion has food and drinks available for reasonable prices, so you can come early, anytime after 5 pm, if you want to eat or just to spend more time socializing. It is a completely informal social gathering for birders.

We will have a presentation at each meeting on a birding or nature topic. These begin just after 7 pm, so it is fine to arrive at 7 if you can’t make it earlier. This month, Gordon Sick will present on birding in northern Tanzania and the Serengeti.

Here is Gordon’s summary of the talk:

In February, 2024, a group of us took a 12 day Safari in Northern Tanzania. The group included two photographers, whose pictures we will present. We had two 4×4 safari vehicles, each with an African guide who was knowledgeable about birds (most African guides aren’t), and a Canadian naturalist, who was also knowledgeable about birds. We photographed 186 bird species, and 37 mammal species. People who go to this area to see the famous mammals have a lot of quiet time when they see nothing, so looking for birds makes the safari much more interesting. The trip started at the town of Arusha and proceeded to Arusha National Park, Tarangire National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, the Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, and finally using the Ndutu Lodge as a base to visit Serengeti National Park.

Saddle-billed Stork (female). Photo by Gordon Sick.

Please join us for another fun and informative year of Birds & Beers!

Upcoming Meetings:

Thursday October 24: A presentation by Myrna Pearman.

Thursday November 28: John Gapp will present on Trees in Fish Creek Provincial Park.

After the December break, we resume with meetings from January through June. The dates have not yet been set.

Birds Calgary

A birding blog for Calgary, Alberta and area

Archives

No Costume Needed: Meet the Northern Shrike, the Bird of Halloween

By Catherine Warwick

Ghosted By A Sora

By Catherine Warwick

Wood Ducks: A Living Work of Art

By Cathy Warwick

2025 City Nature Challenge Events

Take part from Friday April 25th to Monday April 28th.

By Catherine Warwick

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Featuring a presentation by Stephen Boucher called “The Roughly Right Guide to Botswana”

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By Catherine Warwick

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With a Presentation on “Birding in Belize” by Daniel Arndt.

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By Cathy Warwick

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Take part from Friday April 25th to Monday April 28th.

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Featuring a talk on the Birds of Indonesia.

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Kenya Birds Presentation, Christmas Bird Count, Calendars for sale, Bird Book Exchange – Thursday November 28

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Gavin McKinnon will have a presentation on his recent birding trip to Kenya.

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With a presentation on Birding in Northern Tanzania and the Serengeti, by Gordon Sick.

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