Posted by Bob Lefebvre
On Monday I was in north Glenmore Park, and there was a pair of Swainson’s Hawks there. There was a stiff wind from the south, so I was able to get pictures as they soared almost motionless over my head. One of the birds is an intermediate to dark adult, and the other is a light hawk that looks like it is just coming into its adult plumage.
There was a little corvid harrassment…
The two hawks together.
Posted by Dan Arndt
Once again the Friends of Fish Creek Birding course made its way to Carburn Park, without the lure of the Northern Saw-whet Owl back in January. Since then, the weather has warmed, the birds have begun preparations to nest, and while most have chosen their mates, others are still in the process of defining their territory and competing with their rivals for the few mates still unspoken for. We were gifted with a few wonderful displays of an incredible number of Northern Flickers all throughout the park, as well as the beautifully crimson male House Finch, and huge numbers of Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye, Mallards, and Canada Geese.
Carburn Park Route
This time around, we headed south from the parking lot to the bridge over the Bow River, which is one of the best places in the city to get good views, and good photos, of birds in flight. Both Canada Geese and the juvenile Bald Eagles came low over the bridge, almost posing as they flew by.
View from the bridge at Carburn Park
Canada Geese
Canada Geese
Juvenile Bald Eagle
Juvenile Bald Eagle
From there, we headed further south along the river to get views of the duck species present, and were allowed particularly good views of Buffleheads, Mallards, Common Goldeneye, and even my first female Common Merganser of the year.
Buffleheads & Mallard
Common Goldeneye
Common Merganser
We headed east about a hundred meters before heading north along the back fences of the community adjacent to the park. Here we were greeted by the melodious sounds of House Finches and Black-capped Chickadees at the feeders.
House Finch
Black-capped Chickadee
Cutting back over to the river bank, the overcast skies opened up to let the blue shine through, and the light was absolutely incredible for the better part of an hour. Along this stretch of river, we were constantly hearing the drumming and calling of the Northern Flickers, and across the river, a family of Bald Eagles was down on the ice. Overhead, the Canada Geese continued their flyovers before heading eastward to the outlying fields for the day.
Canada Geese
Canada Geese
Northern Flicker
Northern Flicker
Bald Eagles
From there, we headed along the shoreline in a clockwise direction. While the light remained good, we came across a curious Black-billed Magpie, and a group of Common Mergansers also swam in close, the males showing off their beautiful green head plumage.
Black-billed Magpie
Common Merganser
Common Mergansers
While the number of ducks and geese was incredibly high, the evidence of their predation by the ever present Bald Eagles was apparent.
Juvenile Bald Eagles
Mallard Carcass
We continued to trek onwards, and in our search for the Northern Saw-whet Owl seen here in January that came up empty, we almost literally stumbled upon a herd of twenty or so White-tailed Deer, spread out along the trails in the northwest section of the park.
White-tailed Deer
While the remainder of the walk was a little rushed, it remained relatively relaxing, as the birds had quieted down quite a lot, and none really seemed to pay us any mind as we strolled the interior of the park along the pond, back to our vehicles, and then home.
See you next week!
If you’ve taken any pictures of interesting birds in the Calgary region, you can share them with us by emailing birdscalgary@gmail.com and we may post them on the blog.
We received these amazing photos of Horned Larks from Joe Harley. Horned larks have been returning to the area for the past few weeks and can be seen along rural roads. They can be very hard to photograph but Joe got a few great shots.
Joe writes:
We’d like to compliment the writers of the blog; we enjoy all the articles (and photos). Thought I’d share the Lark family, photographed on Family day [February 20], not far from Kinbrook Marsh. That’s all I was able to get of the Larks. We were in the midst of photographing Pronghorns when the Lark opportunity occurred.
(click photos to enlarge)
Posted by Matthew Sim
As spring approaches once again, I like to reminisce about the previous year and all of its most exciting moments.
For the past several years, flickers have nested in my neighbor’s tree. I had never really observed this nest closely before; however, last year, I did just that. Flickers usually excavate nest holes in dead or dying tree trunks or large branches. These nest holes are most often found at 6-15 feet off the ground and will often be reused. By late May/ early June in Calgary most flickers have laid their 5-8 white eggs. I started to notice that the flickers were more active around the nest in early June and it is my belief that on around the 3rd or 4th of June, “my” pair laid their eggs.
Incubation of the eggs ranges from 14-16 days and I had been closely following all the bird’s actions in attempt to discover when the eggs would hatch. On June 24, I heard the first sounds coming from the hole. The flickers had been born! I think that we can assume that there is a possibility that the young flickers were born a day or two earlier and I had not heard them until then.
If you compare this shot with the photo above, you can see that the leaves around the hole grew a lot as the summer progessed, adding even more security and privacy to the flicker residence.
The first visible evidence of the young flickers was the clean-up crew. As all parents can attest to, there is a lot of cleaning up involved with kids. The adult flickers, both male (pictured in photo above) and female, had to work constantly to ensure that their young were well-fed, safe from predators and, perhaps most importantly, in a clean home.
July 1st came around and I had still not seen the young flickers, though I had definitely heard them. Each and every day they were getting louder and louder and soon I could hear them from across the alley, in my yard, maybe 35 feet away. The young flickers cry is often described as a hissing noise and is uttered for two weeks, day and night, growing stronger as the birds grow older. I was not worried about not having seen the flickers yet as their eyes do not open until they are ten days old, so wouldn’t be seeing them until then. July 3, I was up in Banff, where I happened upon a flicker nest with two young already poking their heads out of their hole. At that point, I couldn’t help but wonder how my flickers were doing.
July 5th, marked a special day for my monitoring project. That day, I got my first glimpse of the young flickers. I took my first photos of the young flickers on July 9th, and they were looking healthy and fit; all 3 of them!
But that’s where it went all wrong. The nest holes of flickers (and often of many other species of birds) are the scenes of very fierce battles. Three young birds with very sharp bills, duking it out for supremacy and the right to remain looking out of the nest hole, therefore receiving the most food. The stronger birds almost invariably end up on top, and maintain their authority by jabbing the others with vicious pecks of their beak. The opening is only big enough for two heads and the third one gets pushed to the bottom. There, the young flicker receives very little food and consequently, it perishes. July 9th, I took the photo above, showing 3 young flickers. By the next day, July 10th, I was only seeing 2 young flickers.
Disappointed though I was, I realized that sometimes, this is the way nature must work. I continued to watch the flickers for several days, amazed at the rate at which they grew. After about 4 weeks, the flickers would fledge and would begin to leave the nest; my flickers started appearing out of the nest around July 16th. The two young birds started hopping about and practicing flying, getting ready for the day when they would leave the nest altogether.
Than one day, I did not see the flickers. Nor did I see them the next day. Or the day after that. It would seem that the two young flickers that I had watched for a nearly a month had successfully fledged. I don’t think I ever saw these two again, though I was seeing flickers in the neighborhood, which might just have been one of the young. From time to time, I did hear the distant call of several Northern Flickers and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the fledgelings, calling away.
Posted by Matthew Sim
This past weekend, I took a trip out to Galveston, Texas, about an hour south of Houston on the gulf of Mexico. Galveston has many world-reknowned birding spots in and around it and is a great spot to observe birds year-round. This weekend was rainy and cool, but that didn’t stop the birds! On a short ferry ride to Bolivar peninsula, home of the famous Bolivar Flats shorebird sanctuary, we saw many birds, including both species of pelicans and Common Loons and Red-breasted Mergansers, the latter two which winter down here.
Brown Pelican
Upon arriving on Bolivar, we stopped at a small pond and got great looks at many birds, including an American Avocet in winter plumage (a little different than what I am used to seeing up at Frank Lake in Alberta in the summer!) and a Texas specialty; the very bright Roseate Spoonbill.
Roseate Spoonbill
From a distance, the spoonbill is gorgeous, and even from close up its amazing plumage is simply stunning, yet I found that its head was somewhat unnerving. Its face looks almost extraterrestrial, I find!
From the pond, we went to the Bolivar Flats shorebird Sanctuary where we saw some Black-bellied Plovers, Ruddy Turnstones and… All I could say to myself was, “What the heck are those little shorebirds?” Why did I ask myself this? Because these little guys ran and ran and ran. They did not quit running! I soon got closer and identified them as Sanderlings, which I had seen before, yet never acting quite as comical. Never had I seen a bird run so much!
Running Sanderling
Ruddy Turnstone
We birded Bolivar for a while longer before returning to the ferry and heading back to Galveston. On the ferry back, we were treated to views of 4 species of Gulls (Herring, Laughing, Ring-billed and Bonaparte’s) and 3 species of tern (Forster’s, Common and Royal).
Bonaparte's Gull
Royal Tern
Birds weren’t the only wildlife seen from the ferry however, as a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins made an appearance towards the end.
It was an exciting trip with close to 70 species seen; this excursion really got me excited for spring migration here, which is absolutely fantastic, from what I’ve heard!
Marg Matheson and Alan Plumb are new to the hobby of photographing birds, and sent us some juvenile Bald Eagle pictures. They are quite proud of these shots, and have every right to be! Click to enlarge.
While I was in Calgary over the holidays I took some photographs of feeding nuthatches and I thought I would share them with you so as to illustrate some of the effort that these little guys put into this common daily activity!
Cornell Lab of Ornithology describes the way nuthatches feed perfectly, ” an intense ball of energy “, is exactly what they are!
When they start hacking away, usually their legs are the only part of their bodies not moving!
Posted by Matthew Sim
When large metropolis’ coincide with wildlife and nature, there is invariably accidents. These accidents usually end up with nature coming out on the losing end. Nature sometimes benefits as well though. Sometimes, nature can adapt to the hustle and bustle of human living and actually benefit and thrive from this. Such is the way with vultures.
The other day, I was walking along a bayou here in Houston when I spotted a black clump in the grass not too far ahead.
This clump was a group of black vultures, 6 in total, with 9 more hanging around in the surrounding area. This meant that they must have found a dead animal and that they were feasting on it. This animal was roadkill, an unfortunate victim of our hustling and bustling. As mentioned before though, some creatures, such as vultures, benefit from this. The black vultures didn’t stick around very long and as soon as they saw me they flew away.
The black vulture does not have as good scent as the Turkey Vulture and tends, therefore, to follow Turkey vultures to carcasses where they proceed to drive the Turkey Vultures away from the meal. As soon as the Black Vultures saw me and flew away, the Turkey Vultures came in for their share.
When they came in, I started to creep closer and closer, not only for a better look, but also out of curiosity of what roadkill they were eating. While I moved somewhat stealthily closer, one vulture unfurled it’s wings and gave me good looks at it’s impressive 1.8 meter wingspan.
That wingspan is roughly 5 feet, 11 inches, which is well over half a foot taller than I am! I continued to crawl in closer until I was incredibly close.
I then found out what it was the vultures were eating…
And it was…
An opossum, as you might be able to tell by the foot in this photo. I feel bad for the poor guy… Some interesting bird behavior to see though, especially the hierarchy of vultures, where Black Vultures are not as skilled but are instead big bullies, chasing away Turkey Vultures from the food that the latter found. I also took a photo in which I really saw why Turkey Vultures are called what they are
Doesn’t he just look like a turkey!?!
Posted by Matthew Sim
Last weekend on the Christmas Bird Count, I came across a very photogenic Killdeer. These abundant shorebirds, usually only stay the summer in Calgary, several birds, however, also stay the winter.
Despite our frigid winters, these hardy Killdeer seem to manage all right, we see them throughout the winter which must mean that they are surviving. They are definitely finding food, as can be seen in the photo below.
This Killdeer seemed to be finding enough food
At one point, I even saw this particular bird with a small morsel of food clenched in its beak.
This Killdeer was fearless and approached me; which is quite a nice change as a photographer! It also engaged in the species peculiar method of moving; they run for a few feet, stop, look around, flick their tail up, bob their head up and down a couple times, and then repeat this cycle over again.
Just finished a short run, the Killdeer stops, looks around and...
Bobs it's head out of the photo, leaving the photographer with an unusual result; but a good story!
Each year, Killdeer are seen wintering in Calgary, somewhere on the Bow River. Though it may seem like a daft idea to many of us, this species obviously are doing just fine!
A Merry Christmas to you from all of us here at the blog!
Posted by Matthew Sim
I think it is safe to say that most of us here have an interest in birdwatching. Some of us are also interested in photographing birds, documenting what we see and also enabling others to enjoy these sightings . Bird photography can be very tricky though and doesn’t always come out the way we want it to. Through trial and error as well as tips from other nature photographers, I have slowly learned different tricks of the trade and am still learning. Here is one trick that I have found helps me a lot.
Take a look at the picture above. Probably doesn’t do much for you, right? Just a killdeer photograph, nothing exciting about the shot itself. What could have been done to make this a better photograph? I have found that getting low can often drastically improve the photo. Get down at eye level with the bird, you can often create better eye contact with the bird, bringing the viewer into a connection with the photo. The Killdeer will then seem more interesting, not only because of the lower angle, but because of the change in the depth of field of the shot.
Depth of field (also known as DOF), is the term for the amount of distance between the closest and farthest objects that appear sharp in the photograph. In the second picture above, a shallower depth of field (meaning a blurry background) makes the photo less distracting and more pleasing to the eye. In the photo pictured below, I took it one step further, instead of simply kneeling, I lay on my stomach, creating a very shallow depth of field and therefore, a picture that is more likely to catch your eye than the first photo.
Changing the depth of field is a remarkably simple technique but incredibly powerful in the way a photo comes out. By getting low, chances are you can improve your bird photography.
Posted by Matthew Sim