Many Calgary birders are familiar with the book Treasures Of The Trail, a beautifully illustrated nature guide to Edworthy Park, Lawry Gardens, and the Douglas Fir Trail. It was published in 2002 by the Edworthy Park Heritage Society. Now the society is planning to publish a new history of the area with much previously unpublished information. You can pre-order a copy, and once enough people have ordered it, publication will go ahead and you will then be contacted for payment. It is $30 for the new book and a copy of Treasures Of The Trail will be also be included! A great value, especially for those of you who do not have a copy of the older book.
Here is the information about this from the society:
Shaganappi Point and Edworthy Park: A New History by the Edworthy Park Heritage Society.
The Society has written an extensive history of the park area with much previously unpublished information gathered from historic newspapers, diaries, and archives across Canada.
Part I discusses Indigenous and Métis culture and history of the area, including the three Blackfoot names for this ancient territory, plus whether there was a Métis settlement at Shaganappi. Was there an indigenous trail in the area? And much more…
Part II discusses settlement, colonization history including unpublished information about the Government of Canada quarries at Shaganappi Point (Quarry Road Trail), and the C.P.R. quarries (next to the Douglas Fir Trail), the Thomas Edworthy quarries and the four brick plants of the park, the struggle between William Pearce vs. John Lawrey, the “old lime kiln”. It has many fine black and white photos and a few hand-tinted vintage postcard photos.
Very few copies of the book will be published and we expect to almost sell out through pre-orders. In order to raise the money to print it, we are taking pre-orders. The book is only available in a package with the Society’s nature guide, Treasures of the Trail, included as a bonus, free of charge. It is $30 per copy plus postage where applicable. To pre-order, please send us an email at: eparkhs[at]gmail.com We will acknowledge your pre-order. If we have enough funds to print it, we will then contact you for payment. (P.S. The book will not be put on the internet). Please support the Society and its new book!
We had a very successful Christmas Bird Count in Calgary on Sunday December 20th. The weather was mild with virtually no snow on the ground, although it was a little windy. Despite Covid precautions, the field routes were all covered, and we had a record number of Feeder Watchers counting birds in their yards (thanks largely to the efforts of Matthew Wallace).
Northern Saw-whet Owl. This one was seen by a Feeder Watcher a few days before the count, but we did get another one on count day in another part of the city. Photo by Janet Gill.
Preliminary results, provided by compiler Phil Cram, show that there were 70 species counted, which is one of the higher totals we’ve had in the 69 years of the count. Most significantly, there were three new species never before seen on the CBC: Anna’s Hummingbird, Swainson’s Thrush and Mountain Bluebird, bringing our cumulative species count to 142.
Here are the results with the total number of each species seen:
Besides the three new species, there were other notable results:
Unusual Species: Green-winged Teal and Evening Grosbeak.
Record High Counts: Northern Flicker (328) and Black-billed Magpie (3063) – probably due to increased coverage.
Also High Count: White-throated Sparrow (10).
Low Counts: Gray Partridge, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Northern Goshawk, Rough-legged Hawk, Bohemian Waxwing, Common Redpoll, Red Crossbill, White-winged Crossbill and Pine Siskin (see sheet for numbers).
Noteworthy Missed Species: American Wigeon, Ruffed Grouse, Killdeer, Red-tailed Hawk, Prairie Falcon, Snow Bunting and American Tree Sparrow.
Count-week (not seen on count day, but in the period three days prior or three days after): Snow Goose and Hoary Redpoll.
It seems that during the pandemic there has been a really big increase in the number of people taking up birding, and many more people are watching birds in their yards. We had 154 observers in 128 households counting birds. Feeder Watchers counted 35 species, including the only Northern Saw-whet Owl, the only Anna’s Hummingbird, and the only Purple Finch seen.
Feeder-Watcher Results:
Canada Goose
658
Mallard
193
Rock Pigeon
96
Sharp-shinned Hawk
3
Downy Woodpecker
81
Hairy Woodpecker
6
Northern Flicker
113
Merlin
5
Blue Jay
58
Black-billed Magpie
471
Common Raven
38
Black-capped Chickadee
275
Red-breasted Nuthatch
147
White-breasted Nuthatch
18
European Starling
2
American Robin
4
Bohemian Waxwing
6
House Sparrow
1037
House Finch
400
Dark-eyed Junco
34
White-throated Sparrow
7
White-winged Crossbill
4
Pine Siskin
21
American Crow
20
Anna’s Hummingbird
1
Mountain Chickadee
2
Northern Saw-whet Owl
1
Bald Eagle
2
Purple Finch
1
Common Merganser
4
Great Horned Owl
1
Gray Partridge
10
Common Redpoll
3
Ring-necked Pheasant
7
Total Bird Species:
35
Total Bird Count:
3712
Total Observers:
154
Next post: Sign up to get involved in next year’s Christmas Bird Count, and other Citizen Science Projects.
The 69th annual Calgary Christmas Bird Count will take place this year on Sunday December 20th. This is one of over 2,000 counts that will take place in the Western Hemisphere this year. Teams spread out within a predetermined count circle and count every bird they see or hear on count day. The information gathered by thousands of volunteers over the years has been an invaluable source of information about population trends in the bird world.
A Bald Eagle seen on the count in 2014. Photo by Bob Lefebvre.
There are two ways to participate in the count: By joining a team in the field, or by watching and counting birds at the feeders in your yard. Covid restrictions will apply to the field counters.
Counting waterfowl on the river for CBC 2019. Photo by Kathleen Johnson.
The Calgary CBC was started in 1952 and the Feeder Watchers were added in 1984. The Feeder Watch is the component of the CBC that gets those involved that either don’t want to go out in the field, or are unable to. There is a wealth of bird life to be found regularly at feeders and these feeder counts are added to the counts from in the field. Birds may be counted at your residence within the count circle – a circle 24 kilometers in diameter centred on the Louise Bridge. In the 2019 CBC over 49,000 birds were counted in Calgary, of sixty-three different species. Feeder watchers recorded thirty-five species. The feeder watcher role is an important one.
We are no longer taking registrations for the 2020 count, but if you are interested in participating next year, or if you want more information, email me at birdscalgary[at]gmail.com. Next year’s Calgary Christmas Bird Count is on Sunday December 19, 2021.
A Varied Thrush that overwintered in my yard in 2011-12. It’s a possibility for Feeder Watchers on the Christmas Bird Count. Photo by Bob Lefebvre.Mammals are counted too. A porcupine found on the 2012 count. Photo by Troy Bourque.
Free Zoom meeting this Wednesday December 9 includes a presentation about the upcoming Calgary Christmas Bird Count.
Common Redpoll, Weaselhead, January 8, 2017. Photo by Tony LePrieur.
The Weaselhead/Glenmore Park Preservation Society is dedicated to preserving, protecting, and restoring the ecosystems of the Weaselhead Nature Area and surrounding parks, as well as providing educational programs for the public. (See their webpage here).
This Wednesday, December 9, will be the Annual General Meeting of the Society, from 6:50 to 8:30 pm. Everyone, whether a member or not, is welcome to attend this online Zoom meeting. It will feature a presentation about the Christmas Bird Count program by Yousif Attia, the Bird Canada national CBC Coordinator, and Phil Cram, who coordinates the Calgary CBC. The Calgary CBC will be held on Sunday December 20 this year, so if you are interested in this annual event, sign up for this presentation.
The event is free but you do have to register so you will be sent the sign-up code for the meeting. See this page to register.
After hearing about the great work that the Society does, you may want to become a member. It is only $25 for a lifetime membership! Join here.
The Winter session of the Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society (FFCPPS) Birding Course begins on January 11, 2021. They are now taking registrations for this 11-week series of once-weekly field trips to parks throughout Calgary.
Bohemian Waxwing. Photo by Dan Arndt.
This course is a great way to learn about the birds and the natural areas of Calgary. In winter, many birds are in large flocks, and are easier to find in the bare trees.
Some of the sessions are beginning to fill up but there are still many options. Here is more information from the FFCPP website:
Winter is one of the best seasons for getting outside to learn about birds and other wildlife. Brave the cooler weather and explore the world of birds in Fish Creek Provincial Park. The 11 week Winter Birding Course is perfect for anyone who wants to see and learn about birds in their natural habitat, and it provides an amazing opportunity for families to get together and experience nature here in Fish Creek.
The number of course participants will be limited and health and safety precautions will be in place. (Note: The participants are split into two or three smaller groups each day.)
Monday – Thursday course, limit of 27 participants – Please Note that the Tuesday class is now full to capacity
Saturday and Sunday mornings, limit of 25 participants
Sunday afternoon, limit of 20 participants
Each session lasts approximately 2.5 hours and participants can sign up for 1 or 2 outings per week.
Start times Monday – Thursday: 9:15 am. Saturdays: 9:00 am, Sundays: 9:00 am and 1:15 pm Fee: Once a week outing, Friends of Fish Creek Members: $60.00, Non-members: $100.00 Twice a week outings, Friends Members: $100.00, Non-members: $150.00
Back in April, Calgarians participated for the second time in the City Nature Challenge. This year, with better weather and the addition of participants in Cochrane, Airdie, Okotoks, and Chestermere, we exceeded all of the 2019 results. This was despite the inability, due to Covid-19, of having organized field trips with many observers. Participants were more or less on their own, but nevetheless 248 observers submitted 5,557 observations, from which 759 species have so far been identified.
A Downy Woodpecker I photographed on April 24, 2020 for the City Nature Challenge. Calgary, photo by Bob Lefebvre
You can view the Project Page on iNaturalist to see all the local observations. Some highlights include a bobcat with prey, a raccoon seen downtown, and a moose in Fish Creek Park. There were 110 bird species reported, including uncommon species like Steller’s Jay, Turkey Vulture, and Wild Turkey (the local celebrity Ramsay Turkey).
Calgary was one of eleven Canadian Cities that took part in the Challenge, and led them all in number of particpants, number of species reported, and number of observations made.
There were 244 cities worldwide which took part in 2020. See the Project Page on iNaturalist to view all the results. The most observations made was 34,474 in Cape Town, South Africa. San Francisco had the most people making observations with 2,678. The highest number of species reported was 2,937 in Houston-Galveston. In all, over 33,000 species were reported.
Congratulations to Matthew Wallace for his efforts in organizing and promoting the Calgary City Nature Challenge. I look forward to next year’s event!
Here are some birds seen recently by local birders in their yards. Lots of great birds can still been seen while staying at home! Some of these are migrating and won’t be seen in the summer, but others are year-round residents.
Mountain Bluebird, Calgary, April 2020. Photo by Patrice O’Brien.Black-capped Chickadee, Calgary, April 2020. Photo by Patrice O’Brien.Blue Jay, Calgary, April 2020. Photo by Patrice O’Brien.American Robin, Okotoks, April 2020. Photo by Lloyd Bligh.Downy Woodpecker, Calgary, April 2020. Photo by Jane Potter.Northern Flicker, Calgary, April 2020. Photo by Jane Potter.Red-breasted Nuthatch, Calgary, April 2020. Photo by Jane Potter.House Finches, Calgary, April 2020. Photo by Jane Potter.
Finally, here is a photo of a Varied Thrush that Karen Bout photographed in her yard in April. I have heard of three or four reports of Varied Thrushes passing through the city this spring, and there were at least three that overwintered here this year.
Varied Thrush, Calgary, April 2020. Photo by Karen Bout.
May can be even better for migrants passing through city yards, so if you are isolating at home, keep an eye open!
I mentioned before that a smartphone is the best tool for taking photos of insects and getting close-ups of plants, but not great for birds since they are usually too far away. But many of you birders carry cameras these days, and you can submit your bird photos for the City Nature Challenge. They can easily be uploaded to the iNaturalist website on your desktop computer.
So if you are out this weekend (anytime until Monday at midnight), take lots of bird photos to upload later. You have until May 3rd to upload them, and if they are taken in the city, in Airdrie, Chestermere, or Cochrane, they will be added to the Calgary Challenge.
If you’re lucky you might find an unusual species. Last year I found a Fox Sparrow at Carburn Park.
Fox Sparrow, Carburn Park, Calgary, April 28, 2019. Photo by Bob Lefebvre
But remember, iNaturalist and the City nature Challenge is about documenting all living things, so don’t neglect common species, and get them in multiple locations too. You may also see some mammals, trees, and other things you can photograph. You can also photograph evidence of life, such as feathers, nests, spider webs, hare forms, and so on.
Check out this page to see how many species and observations have been submitted so far in Calgary. We are at over 1000 observations and 300 species reported already by 10 am Saturday morning!
The second annual Calgary City Nature Challenge will go ahead on April 24-27, 2020. Once again, Matthew Wallace is doing a great job of organizing and promoting this valuable citizen science project.
This year, an expanded Calgary metropolitan area will include Airdrie, Cochrane, Okotoks, and Chestermere. Calgary will be competing with over 200 other cities around the world to try to identify as many species of wildlife as possible.
Last year there were many organized group activities in the CNC, but due to Covid-19 these will not be taking place this year. However, people can easily participate by themselves by taking photos of any living thing and uploading it to the iNaturalist website or app.
Download the iNaturalist app or sign up on the webpage. Then start taking pictures of wildlife and uploading them. There is no need to wait until April 24 to get started, but please try to help out on that weekend!
With spring finally in the air and migrants starting to arrive in numbers, this is the time of year that birders anticipate the most. This year was especially exciting for Calgary birders who were involved in the 2020 Challenge, a year-long effort to see as many species as one could within the city limits.
Harlequin Ducks, seen by many birders in the city this winter. Photo by Andrew Hart.
However, the Covid-19 crisis has made it impossible to continue group outings, and we really want to encourage people to stay home as much as possible. As you may know, Nature Calgary outings and the Friends of Fish Creek birding course have also been suspended. Reluctantly, the Challenge has been suspended. We have a few ideas as to how, if, or when to resume, which I’ll address at the end.
It’s too bad, because we were lucky enough to find quite a few great birds in the city for the winter months, and several birders had recorded over 60 species already. The WhatsApp Rare bird Alert (which has been suspended) enabled participants to rapidly re-find rarities as they were reported. One example is Gyrfalcon, a very unusual bird to get in the city limits. But many participants were able to find one that was feeding on Mallards inside the city, after it was reported on the app. (There may have been as many as three Gyrfalcons in the area over the course of a week a couple of months ago.)
Gyrfalcon, near Maycroft in SW Alberta, January 30, 2020. Photo by Raymond Toal.
Here is the statementfrom Howard Hefflerabout suspending the Challenge:
The BirdYYC2020 began as idea to repeat, taking advantage of modern online tools, the big year birding competitions previously held in Calgary in 2000 and 2010. Andrew Hart, Bob Lefebvre, and – later, gratefully, joined by Gavin McKinnon – agreed we would organize and promote the event.
We hoped to create enthusiasm in the Calgary birding community to “get out there and go birding”. AND, to share your sightings with others. We also hoped to collect the data to allow comparison with what had be done 10 and 20 years previously.
Modern digital tools, eBird being the main one, but also smart phones and a variety of in-the-field tools to assist birders of all levels, have changed the landscape. What fun to compare the new with the old. The best example is Gavin setting up the WhatsApp Rare Bird alert that allows anyone to instantly receive notification of a rare bird reported by other participants.
But the fun is over. For the foreseeable future at least.
The four of us have come to the unhappy decision that what we are doing is promoting unnecessary and unwarranted social contact at a time when the entire society is relying on each other to act responsibility.
We have decided to stop supporting any BirdYYC2020 initiatives. The first step has been to shut down the WhatsApp Rare Bird Group.
I sincerely hope that the actions being taken by our federal and provincial governments will slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This is a threat to our global culture and economy that we are only just beginning to understand.
The best – and honestly ONLY – defense against community spread at this time is to minimize infection by strict social distancing and, where warranted, self-isolation.
A couple of days ago I “chased” a reported sighting of a Eurasian Wigeon at Carburn Park. When I arrived, I walked briskly to the likely observation spot. I interacted with other people, some were birders, and some were not. Some I knew. And some I did not. I set up my scope. Within minutes there was a small group of interested passersby. To the best of my knowledge I am not infected. I expect everyone else in that small group also felt the same way. I, and they, would hate to think that we are contributing to the spread of the virus.
But we are. So, I for one, am going to stop. The other three (Andrew, Bob, and Gavin) feel the same.
We are not going to participate in a forum that promotes unnecessary social contact.
At this time, there is no government directive to not go outdoors for a walk etc. That may change. For me, the potential public health risk resulting from random, unnecessary excursions from your home is best described in an article by a very reputable medical reporter, Andre Picard. See: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-to-tackle-coronavirus-walk-and-act-this-way/
This is really unfortunate. The BirdYYC challenge was generating a lot of interest. There are over 60 people registered and a similar number who have established the BirdYYC2020 patch. I feel we were headed toward a truly “big year”.
What shall we do? Here is one idea. We could select a date, such as March 31st , and declare the end of this birding year. Then, next April 1st, 2021, we all start again. A bit unorthodox, I know. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
We will immediately stop promoting BirdYYC2020. We have shut down the WhatsApp group.
Stay tuned. Over the next weeks things may change.
Personally, I am still in a quandary if and how to continue birding this year. I have decided, it will not be in a group.
As Howard mentioned, eBird is of course still operational, and any Patch Lists are still valid, so you can add to your lists. I added one in my yard yesterday. Some people are still (very carefully) going out birding, although many parks are now closed.
So how do we continue the Challenge? Howard made one suggestion, and I’ll add a few. If you are a Challenge participant please email me at birdscalgary(at)gmail.com, or Howard at hheffler(at)shaw.ca.
Suspend the current Patch Lists on March 31, and resume the Challenge on April 1 of 2021. This presents some logistical difficulties, since eBird won’t be tracking the totals for a split year. It would take a little more work on the part of the organizers. I also think that birders are pretty attached to one-year lists and may not like a split year either.
When safe, resume the Challenge in 2020. For example, we could resume on July 1 and continue to December 31. This would mean that the entire spring migration would be missed (individual birders can of course still add species in the spring but there would be no group outings and much would be missed by most participants). Many species missed in the spring can be found again in the fall, but not all.
Cancel the Challenge for this year, but start over from scratch in 2021. Our experiences this year would be a sort of trial run. This would mean there is an 11-year gap between this Challenge and the 2010 one, and (presumably) a 9-year gap until the next one, instead of the intended 10 years. A minor point in my opinion.
Cancel the Challenge. The next City Challenge would be in 2030.
Of these, I favour re-starting the Challenge from scratch in 2021. If you have an opinion, or any other ideas on how to resume, please let us know.
