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

Willet (or won’t it)

Sep24

As colder weather begins to descend upon Calgary, it can be nice to reflect a little bit on some birds that we were familiar with during the summer months.

Many species of birds vary greatly from region to region. The Willet is one of these birds that are highly variable with two distinct subspecies, the eastern semipalmata darker, browner and thicker-billed than the western subspecies inornata that we see both in Calgary, and down here on the Gulf Coast.

A western inornata Willet

A large shorebird with a flashy black-and-white wing pattern seen in flight,  the willet was given its name thanks to its territorial call: pill-will-willet. A very vocal bird, the Willet, as biologist William Vogt wrote many years ago, has another call, a ringing kaaaty. When William Vogt studied a breeding pair of Willets back in 1938  he couldn’t help but call them Will and Kate, thanks to their calls.

Another western Willet

Several years ago, before I was a big birder, I traveled out east for vacation. I observed my first Willet out there and now I have the chance to compare photographs of eastern and western Willets.

While the shots of the Western Willets are winter plumaged birds, you can still see the smaller size, darker color and stouter bill in the eastern Willet pictured above.

I always find regional variations in birds intriguing and the Willet is a bird with an easily visible difference, making it a good subject to view and compare from the east to the west.

Posted by Matthew Sim

Rare Bird Alert Calgary: Sept 23

Sep23

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 Thursday September 22.

September 18
— BLACK-NECKED STILT (20), Weed Lake, Terry Korolyk

September 21
— COOPER’S HAWK, Hull’s Woods, Fish Creek Provincial Park, TK

–AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVER, Weed Lake, Ilya Povalyaev

The next scheduled update of the Bird Alert is on Monday September 27.

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.

Bio-Blitz: Volunteers Needed

Sep21

If you’re free this Friday, September 23, you couldn’t find a better way to spend the day than to help Andrew Stiles of the Nature Conservancy of Canada conduct a bio-blitz in the Bragg Creek area.  A bio-blitz is an intense biological survey that attempts to record all the species of flora and fauna in a designated area.  Naturalists and volunteers will try to identify all the birds, animals, insects, and plants on the Connop Estate.  Volunteers are needed to help with this, and no particular experience is needed.  It’s enough to be able to point out a bird or mammal, or a plant species that hasn’t yet been recorded.

The last time the area was studied, many raptors were observed, as well as Elk and wild horses.

Typical forest scene in the Bragg Creek area – in this case, in Brown-Lowery Provincial Park, not at the Connop Estate.

How many species?

If you’d like to take part, or to get more information, please call Gus Yaki at 403-243-2248.  The group will carpool from the south side of the Canadian Tire parking lot on Richmond Road SW in Calgary (just east of  Sarcee Trail) at 8am, or meet at the Cinnamon Spoon, at the south end of the shopping centre in Bragg Creek at 8:30am, on Friday, 23 September 2011.  But please call Gus first so he knows who to expect, and in case there is a change of plans due to rain.

Bring suitable clothing for the season, as well as a lunch and drinks.

American Three-toed Woodpecker in the Bragg Creek area.

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Rare Bird Alert Calgary: Sept 19

Sep20

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 Sep 19, 2011.

SEP 17

BROAD-WINGED HAWK – over North Haven subdivision, by Steve Kassai
VARIED THRUSH – north end of Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, Bill Wilson
YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER – numerous over weekend, seen by many observers
WILSON’S WARBLER – as above
ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER – as above
COMMON LOON – immature reported by TK at Chestermere Lake
WHITE-FACED IBIS – 19 at 338 Ave and Hwy 799, TK
BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER – 8 at Weed Lake, TK

SEP 18

NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL – seen in Weaselhead by Steve Kassai. For more details, phone Steve at 403-289-1351
COOPER’S HAWK – as above
SWAMP SPARROW – Bill Wilson saw one in Confederation Park by the creek
BLUE-HEADED VIREO – as above
BLACKPOLL WARBLER – 2, as above
HERRING GULL – 1st – 2nd year, seen by TK at Weed Lake
SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER – 12 at Namaka Lake, seen by David Pugh

The next scheduled update of the bird alert is on Thu Sep 22.

Sunday Showcase: Osprey With Lunch

Sep18

Rob English has sent us this absolutely stunning sequence of photographs he took at Bankside in Fish Creek Park. (Click to enlarge.)

Shepard Slough Survey

Sep17

Alberta Environment is conducting an online survey to help determine the future development or preservation of the Shepard Slough and surrounding wetlands, including the new Ralph Klein Park, in SE Calgary. These wetlands are important stopover points for migrating shorebirds and waterfowl. Shepard Slough is the best shorebird habitat within the city of Calgary, and it is vitally important that we birders make our voices heard if we want to preserve it. Please fill out the survey form and have your say in conserving these valuable resources.

Below is the introductory article from the Alberta Environment site.

Why Study Ecosystem Services

As part of its Ecosystem Services (ES) Program, Alberta Environment has undertaken an ecosystem services approach pilot project on wetlands in the greater Shepard Slough area of east Calgary/Rocky View County. This region provides many recreation and education opportunities to people such as birding, nature walking, and field trips to the region. The Ecosystem Services Pilot project in will provide tool(s) to enhance decision making in order to:

  • Test and determine how the approach can be used to help inform tradeoffs between development and the benefits provided by wetlands;
  • Explore ways to provide a broader suite of social, economic and environmental perspectives to information land-use decision making; and
  • Examine the largely unrecognized but important benefits that society receives from nature.

The study is part of a larger transition to a cumulative effects management system and will help ensure informed and robust decision-making.

Once the pilot is complete, we will have a better understanding of how to use the ecosystem services approach and where the approach could be applied to support Alberta Environment priorities.

To better understand the recreation and education benefits enjoyed in the Shepard Slough area, a survey of recreation participation is being conducted. Through this survey, valuable information will be collected including travel distances, costs of travel, and types of activities preferred by users. Anyone that enjoys visiting wetlands in the Shepard Slough, including Ralph Klein Park, for recreation and education purposes is encouraged to complete the survey.

Information brochures about the study are available at Ralph Klein Park, or via the attached PDF below. The survey can be completed by selecting the survey link below.

Thank you to all participants. Your contribution is greatly appreciated

To go to the site, click here.

To go to the survey, click here.

Posted by Bob Lefebvre