Rare Bird Alert Calgary: Oct 6

Oct7

Have you seen an unusual bird in Calgary? If it is on this Reportable_Birds (PDF), please report it to the Nature Calgary Rare Bird Alert line at 403 221-4519 and leave a message after the beep at the end of the recording. If you would like some help with species identification, us email us at zoxox@shaw.ca  To report injured wildlife call the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society at 403 239-2488, or the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation at 403 946-2361.

This Bird Alert was recorded on Thursday Oct 6 at 9:50 am.

Bird Sightings:

Oct 2:
HERMIT THRUSH west side of Nose Hill Park, Steve Kassai.

Oct 3:
HERMIT THRUSH (3), FOX SPARROW (red), several large flocks of GRACKLES, and a raft of 143 COMMON MERGANSERS at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, Greg Meyer.

Oct 4:
AMERICAN TREE SPARROW, YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS (2) at Mallard Pt, FCPP, Terry Korolyk.

Oct 5:
ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER rescued after a window hit at Uof C, Eileen Cora.
WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILLS (15) in Bebo Grove, west FCPP, Al Borgardt.

The next scheduled update of the Bird Alert is on Monday Oct 10.

Rare Bird Alert Calgary: Oct 3

Oct4

Have you seen an unusual bird in Calgary? If it is on this Reportable_Birds (PDF), please report it to the Nature Calgary Rare Bird Alert line at 403 221-4519 and leave a message after the beep at the end of the recording. If you would like some help with species identification, us email us at zoxox@shaw.ca  To report injured wildlife call the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society at 403 239-2488, or the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation at 403 946-2361.

This Bird Albert was recorded on Oct 3, 2011.

SEP 25

SHARP-SHINNED HAWK – 5 seen on a Nature Calgary Field Trip to Plateau Mountain, led by Peter Roxborough
GOLDEN EAGLE – 2 seen on the same field trip

SEP 26

LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL – reported by Gus Yaki who saw it at the Yacht Club on the south shore of Glenmore Reservoir

SEP 30

GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE – 2000 reported by Cedric Hitchon and Ian Halladay at Stobart Lake southeast of Strathmore, seen by scope from a location off Hwy 901 which goes east of the south end of the lake. They also had 40 at the Cattleland Feedlots Slough.
BONAPARTE’S GULL – more than 100 at the south end of Eagle Lake – CH and IH
PEREGRINE FALCON – Thomas Glen saw one around the Bow Building in downtown Calgary

OCT 1

SURF SCOTER – 4 reported on Glenmore Reservoir by Youssif Attia
GREATER SCAUP – a female seen as above

OCT 2

AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER – 5 juveniles seen by Tony Timmons in the southwest corner of Langdon Reservoir on Hwy 22X
GRAY-CROWNED ROSY-FINCH – 32 reported by Bill Wilson off the Mount Nakiska access road. For details call Bill at 403-230-0054
SWAMP SPARROW – at the Mount Lorette raptor watch off Hwy 40 in Kananaskis Country

*BLACK VULTURE – no further reports on this bird reportedly photographed on top of the City Hall building in Raymond, AB on Thu Sept 22

The next scheduled update of the bird alert is on Thu Oct 6.

BIRD STUDY GROUP:

Bird Study Group meets 1st Wednesday of the month, Room 211, BioSciences Building, U of C.  October meeting is Wednesday, October 5. Topic is “Birds of Prey”
presented by Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation. Meeting time is 7:30pm.

Movie Monday: Nose Hill Crow Roost

Oct4

There is a large nighttime roost of hundreds of American Crows on Nose Hill again this year.  Last week I took a short video as they were arriving at about 7:30 pm.  The location is near the Brisebois Drive parking lot.  Sorry for the poor quality of the video, but it gives you an idea of what it is like.  If you want to see this roost yourself, go within the next two weeks before the crows head south.

For an explanation of this behavior, see the previous post, Crows by the Thousands.

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Rare Bird Alert Calgary: Sept 30

Oct1

Have you seen an unusual bird in Calgary? If it is on this Reportable_Birds (PDF), please report it to the Nature Calgary Rare Bird Alert line at 403 221-4519 and leave a message after the beep at the end of the recording. If you would like some help with species identification, us email us at zoxox@shaw.ca  To report injured wildlife call the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society at 403 239-2488, or the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation at 403 946-2361.

This report was prepared on Friday September 30.

September 24
— SHARP-SHINNED HAWK (4), Rocky Mountain Eagle Research Foundation site near Mount Lorette, Bill Wilson
— NORTHERN GOSHAWK, Mt. Lorette, BW
— GOLDEN EAGLE, (4) Mt. Lorette, BW

September 25
— SHARP-SHINNED HAWK (5), Plateau Mountain, CFNS Excursion led by Peter Roxburgh
— SHARP-SHINNED HAWK (2), Plateau Mountain, CFNS Excursion

The next scheduled update of the Bird Alert is on Monday October 3.
BIRD STUDY GROUP:

Bird Study Group meets 1st Wednesday of the month, Room 211, BioSciences Building, U of C.

October meeting is Wednesday, October 5. Birds of Prey – presented by Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation. Meeting time is 7:30pm.

Famous birders

Sep30

There are many famous birders, some renowned for their birding accomplishments, others simply because of their non-birding accomplishments. Todays famous birder is Phoebe Snetsinger, a birder who had a remarkable story; and a strong will.

Phoebe Snetsinger was born June 9, 1931 in Lake Zurich, Illinois. One of three children of Naomi Geddes and the powerful advertising baron, Leo Burnett, she inherited a small fortune, thanks to her father. Upon seeing a Blackburnian Warbler in 1965 at her home in Webster Groves, Missouri, Phoebe was inspired to start birding. Birding remained a hobby for Phoebe until the moment in 1981 that would reshape her life; a doctor diagnosed her with terminal melanoma and told her she didn’t have long to live.

File:Dendroica-fusca-001.jpg

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

This news motivated Phoebe to observe birds; as many species as she could. It all started with one trip to Alaska. Phoebe returned home after the trip to Alaska and from then on, traveled the world seeing as many species as she could. Phoebe lived much longer than doctors thought she would and, in 1999, 18 years after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Phoebe was still going strong. Unfortunately, Phoebe’s travels were brought to an abrupt end. While in Madagascar looking for a Red-shouldered Vanga, a species discovered by science only two years earlier, the van Phoebe and her group were traveling in, overturned on the decrepit roads, killing Phoebe instantly.

This remarkable woman was very dedicated and persevering in her travels and still has one of the biggest life lists ever recorded. Phoebe’s last lifer on a list that totaled more than 8,400 species of birds, was the Red-shouldered Vanga.

Posted by Matthew Sim

Whooping Cranes at the Zoo Ranch

Sep29

Whooping Cranes are so rare that most of us have never seen one in the wild.  But there is an opportunity to see captive ones right here in Calgary.  The Calgary Zoo maintains a Whooping Crane breeding program at their Zoo Ranch facility just south of the city.  On Saturday October 8, there will be a field trip to see these magnificent birds, as well as other rare birds and animals.  Crane Keeper Dwight Knapik will guide the group on a tour of the facility and explain their breeding programs.

Whooping Crane pair.  All photos from 2008.

There will be a limit of 25 participants accepted for this free trip, so if you have never been to the Zoo Ranch, you should take this opportunity.  Call Gus Yaki at 403-243-2248 to register (the best time to reach him is between 6 and 7 pm).  In the past this trip has always been fully booked.

Up close and personal with a Whooping Crane!

The group will meet at the Anderson LRT Station next to McLeod Trail, 109 Ave SW, south of the pedestrian overpass, at 1:30 pm to carpool to the site.  (If it is raining the date may be changed to Sunday October 9.)

Are you looking at me?

Desmoiselle Cranes

Sandhill Crane

Przewalski’s Horse

Grevy’s Zebra.  Unfortunately this animal has since passed away.

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Fish Creek Park Birding

Sep28

I had a very slow birding summer, with a knee problem that kept me out of the field and off my bike for three months.  But now my knee is better and I am back birding with Gus Yaki and the Friends of Fish Creek Society.  I went out twice with this group to the Hull’s Wood/Sikome/Lafarge Meadows area in mid-September.  Here are some pictures from those trips (click on the pictures to enlarge them).

Two Double-crested Cormorants, and on the right, an Osprey, silhouetted against the rising sun.

A cormorant dries its wings.

Double-crested Cormorant, this time with the light on the right side of the bird.

The Osprey perched in a tree.

Red-tailed Hawk in flight.

Northern Flickers.

Greater Yellowlegs, in one of the ponds by highway 22X.

We found a single Wood Duck (centre) hanging out with the Mallards.

Great Blue Heron on its usual rock.

Juvenile Bald Eagle.

This Cedar Waxwing was picking insects out of a spider web high in a tree.

American Kestrel.

Killdeer on the pond.

Killdeer on the river.

Common Raven calling near where they nested in Lafarge Meadows.

Finally, there is this bird, which we found sitting on a path that runs from the Sikome boat launch parking lot to the river.  I’ll tell its story next week.

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Rare Bird Alert Calgary: Sept 26

Sep27

Have you seen an unusual bird in Calgary? If it is on this Reportable_Birds (PDF), please report it to the Nature Calgary Rare Bird Alert line at 403 221-4519 and leave a message after the beep at the end of the recording. If you would like some help with species identification, us email us at zoxox@shaw.ca  To report injured wildlife call the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society at 403 239-2488, or the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation at 403 946-2361.

This report was prepared on Monday September 26.

September 22:
–BLACK VULTURE, Raymond, AB. Reported by Jocelyn Hudon. First confirmed record for Alberta. Photographed perched on top of the town hall.

September 23:
–AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVER, S.end Weed Lk, by Andrew Slater
–SANDERLING(13), same as above.
–TOWNSEND’S WARBLER(1), Confederation Park, by Bill Wilson and Ilya Povalyaev.

September 24:
–WESTERN SANDPIPER(Juv.) S.end Weed Lk, by IP et al.
–ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK(1), along Hwy.#22,just S. of the Water Valley turnoff, by Tim Allison.
–SNOW GOOSE(1), a pond along Hwy.#22x, just S. of Calgary, by Terry Korolyk.

The next scheduled update of the Bird Alert is on Thursday September 29.

BIRD STUDY GROUP:

Bird Study Group meets 1st Wednesday of the month, Room 211, BioSciences Building, U of C . October meeting is Wednesday, October 5. Birds of Prey – presented by
Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation. Meeting time is 7:30pm.

Digiscoping

Sep26

Digiscoping is the activity of combining a digital camera with a spotting scope to record images through the scope.  Anyone who has ever looked through a good scope knows how impressive they are at turning distant specks that can’t be identified, even with binoculars, into sharply defined birds.  The combination of big lenses and up to 60X magnification really brings faraway objects into close focus.  Scopes are especially useful for waterfowl far out on lakes, and shorebirds on distant shorelines.

Today’s post features some wonderful photographs taken using digiscoping by local birder and photographer Daniel Arndt.

Eared Grebe and juvenile, by Dan Arndt

Digiscoping can be done with any point-and-shoot or SLR camera (or even a camera phone) coupled with any scope or binocular, but it can very tricky to get to good quality pictures by just holding the two together.  Here is a White-crowned Sparrow I photographed in my yard this week, using my camera phone held up to my 8X42 binoculars:

It’s very hard to tell when you have the shot in focus.  It’s even hard to get on the bird!  You get a better shot with just a good camera:

The same bird, from the same distance, taken with an SLR and 400 mm lens.  Note the leg band.

Here is another shot I took (in the winter) of a House Finch, using a point-and-shoot camera held up to my spotting scope.

However, the birds in these examples were only about twenty feet away.  I could identify them with the naked eye.  If you are dealing with distant waterfowl and shorebirds, the thing to do to get good photographs is to get an adapter that fixes your camera to the scope.  Dan Arndt’s outfit, pictured below, consists of :

Pentax K-5 camera with T-mount adapter
Meade ETX-90EC 90mm Matsukov-Cassegrain Telescope
Meade #844 Advanced Field Tripod
Meade Electronic Focuser
Meade MT-64 Camera Adapter
Pentax 39892 Waterproof Remote Shutter Release

Photo by Dan Arndt

Here are some of the amazing photos Dan took this summer at Frank Lake using his digiscoping rig.

White-faced Ibis with juvenile, and American Golden-Plover, by Dan Arndt

Lesser Yellowlegs by Dan Arndt

American Avocet by Dan Arndt

Black Tern by Dan Arndt

Black-crowned Night-Herons by Dan Arndt

American Golden-Plovers by Dan Arndt

You can see all of Dan’s digiscoping pictures on his Flickr page here, and while you’re there, explore all of his other excellent photographs as well.

Posted by Bob Lefebvre