Sunday Showcase: Superb Owl Sunday!

Posted by Dan Arndt

Have a safe and happy Superb Owl Sunday, folks. Here are some of the superb owls that live in and around our amazing city.

Long-eared Owl
North Calgary, 2013

Great Gray Owl
Grand Valley Road
March 2013

Short-eared Owl
Frank Lake
March 2013

Northern Hawk Owl
November 2012
Exshaw

Northern Saw-whet Owl
Carburn Park
January 2012

Northern Pygmy Owl
Winchell Lake
July 2013

Burrowing Owl
west of Brooks
August 2012

Barred Owl
South Glenmore Park
March 2012

Great Horned Owl
north of Blackie
February 1, 2014

Snowy Owl
north of Blackie
February 1, 2014

Watching Waterfowl at Beaverdam Flats

Jan27

Posted by Dan Arndt

After a nearly complete washout last week, with only a handful of species and no real photo opportunities, this week was only slightly better. The lack of large numbers of waterfowl on the Bow River at Beaverdam Flats, the dropping temperatures, and the constant wind seemed to keep the birds away. The icy conditions of the main pathways also put a damper on things, and even gave me a bit of a start, leaving me with a broken lens hood and a bit of a sore hip early on in the walk. Not to worry though, my camera, lens, and body are all A-OK!

Beaverdam Flats – January 26, 2014

The morning began with some fairly diffuse light and a bitterly cold wind out of the north, but not bitter or cold enough to keep us from scanning a group of waterfowl at the water treatment plant outfall. Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t pick out the Redhead, American Wigeon, or even the domestic or leucistic Mallards that had been seen by other groups this week. Maybe they had decided it was a little too cold for them and stayed home! We did get some good looks at a few Canada Geese in flight, some of which were missing some flight feathers, and others were just showing off.

Canada Geese and Mallards
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1600

Canada Geese
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1000

I had hoped to get some Bald Eagle shots for the blog while we were here, as there were as many as 12 Bald Eagles seen at one time throughout the week, but they too were noticeably absent. We did get more than a few Common Ravens, and I find it interesting how it’s nearly impossible to get the two-toned appearance of the raven’s flight feathers to show up in anything but the most diffuse light. I also found it interesting to note just how worn the feathers of this particular bird are, which I only really took note of after downloading my shots this afternoon.

Common Raven
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1600

As the morning progressed, our luck seemed to improve, and we headed away from the river into the stands of tall poplar and aspens. We did manage to find a pair of Northern Flickers, a Hairy Woodpecker, and a few Downy Woodpeckers, along with an assortment of White-breasted Nuthatches and a few Black-capped Chickadees, but all in all, it was even quieter away from the water.

Northern Flicker
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1600

male Downy Woodpecker
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/800sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1250

As we returned to the water’s edge, the light was progressively improving, and allowed some higher speed flight shots of the always gorgeous Common Goldeneye.

Common Goldeneye
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/800sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1600

While we were able to watch a particularly fun interaction between a 4th-year Bald Eagle and a flock of about seven Common Ravens and a pair of Black-billed Magpies, they were a little too far off and amongst some challenging terrain to get any usable shots. It was quite nice though, to get a small flock of Black-capped Chickadees fluttering about the pathway on our return to the parking lot, posing quite nicely as we snapped away with our cameras.

Black-capped Chickadee
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1250sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 800

Have a great week, keep safe, and good birding!

Birding Competition: How It Works

Jan21

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Last Friday’s post announced the upcoming 2015 Calgary Birding Competition. Today I will give details about how it will work and how you can get involved now.

Bohemian Waxwing, photographed by Matthew Sim during the 2010 competition

The main difference between this competition and the previous ones that Nature Calgary has held is that the recording of all bird sightings will be done using eBird, the online bird listing database. Previously birders could submit their sightings on spreadsheets or paper printouts, and the organizers of the competition would compile the results. Using eBird makes this process automatic, and the ongoing status of the competition will be visible to anyone.

There are many other advantages to using eBird, for both the birder and for anyone who wants to learn about the birds of the Calgary area:

eBird is a permanent, publicly available record of bird sightings
eBird is a searchable database
anyone, whether an eBird user or not, can access the database
it includes sightings from around the world
it includes historical sightings
sighting locations are shown on maps
birders can request to be alerted by email of rare bird sightings, or sightings of any bird they need for own list

As eBird use has increased, it has become a valuable tool for researchers studying the status and distribution of bird species. We feel that its importance for the birding community will continue to grow over time. The value and accuracy of eBird’s data will also increase as more birders use it.

Therefore, two of the main goals of holding this competition will be:

To train a new generation of birders to use eBird
To encourage veteran birders to begin using eBird, and to enter their bird lists from previous years into the database.

The Calgary area is already among the top three locations in Canada in terms of the number of sightings submitted to eBird, but we would like to see that increase dramatically from 2015 on.

It is quite easy to set up an eBird account and get started. Here is the sign-in page. We will offer help to anyone who needs it; more on that below.

To take part in the 2015 competition, you will need to:

register with us (we will set this up soon)
have an eBird account
set up a Patch list on eBird for the 80-km circle

After that it is just a matter of entering your sightings into eBird as you make them, and making sure that any locations where you recorded birds inside the 80-km circle are included in that patch.

Red-breasted Nuthatch, photographed by Ken Johnson during the 2010 competition

Getting Started Now

We hope that many of you will get started using eBird and setting up your competition patch soon, so that we can use 2014 as a trial run to work out any problems. This way you will also be able to familiarize yourself with the process and learn more about using eBird, and see how many species you can find inside the circle this year. I will give details on how to register and how to set up a competition patch in an upcoming post.

If You Need Help

Although eBird is fairly easy to use, if you feel you need help we will offer it to anyone who wants to get started. If you have set up your eBird account but just have a few questions, you can contact us by email. Our email address is ebirdyyc(at)gmail.com.

For those of you who would prefer it, we will be holding in-person training sessions. These will take place in a state-of-the-art computer lab, where you can go through the whole process of setting up an eBird account and entering bird sightings. For anyone who uses other bird-listing software, we will also teach you how to import that data into your eBird account. The first training session is already full (it was advertised in the Nature Calgary newsletter) but we will hold more sessions as needed. If you want to take part in this, please register at birdstudy(at)naturecalgary.com.

Griffith Woods: Lots of potential, but not much realized

Jan20

Posted by Dan Arndt

After a week of great sightings at Griffith Woods, our walk on Sunday morning was greeted with a beautiful blue sky, above zero temperatures, and a whole lot of great birders out to see what we could see. Unfortunately, there weren’t too many birds around overall, and even fewer gave us any real photo opportunities.

As a bit of a filler, I thought I’d highlight my most recent post that was put up on Bird Canada on Sunday morning, recollecting my experiences over the Christmas holidays on Vancouver Island. I do hope you enjoy reading it, and look forward to providing many more photos of our local Calgary birds very soon!

Read my Bird Canada post here: Christmas Birding in the Comox Valley.

Calgary Birding Competition

Jan17

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Do you enjoy keeping track of the bird species you see? Do you want to find more species and explore new birding locations in the Calgary area? If so, you may want to take part in a birding competition which will be held throughout the year 2015.

This competition will be similar to those that Nature Calgary has sponsored in the past. In the year 2000, a competition was held to see who could identify the most species of birds within the Calgary city limits. In 2005, the area used was the 80-km (radius) circle which is traditionally used for the May Species Count. In 2010 we again used the city limits as the competition area (you can read all about the 2010 event on the Birds Calgary 2010 blog).

Willet, photographed by Brian Elder during the 2010 competition.

Following this pattern, the 2015 competition will be a year-long event to see who can find the most species inside the 80-km circle centred on the Centre Street Bridge. Many of the details are still to be worked out, but there will be different categories of competitors based on age or experience, with prizes awarded to the winners.

The main goal of having such a competition is to encourage more people, especially youths, to get involved in the Calgary birding community. Participants can also expect to learn a lot about the birds of the Calgary area and the many great locations to go birding here.

If this is of interest to you, follow this blog to see how you can get started this year. We will be setting up a registration process soon.

Winter Birding Begins anew

Jan13

Posted by Dan Arndt

This week’s walk begins the 13-week Friends of Fish Creek Winter Birding Course, and as with each course, we begin at the Fish Creek Provincial Park Headquarters building, and introduced our attendees to the resident owls. It’s the charisma of these owls that we hope to bring back our students week after week, to hopefully see a number of other owl species, and educate them on the ins and outs of both birding, and avian behaviour. Both the male and female owl were a little bit shy today, but are still great subjects to shoot.

female Great Horned Owl
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/250sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 3200

male Great Horned Owl
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/250sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1600

The day was all about contrasts. Contrasts between good light and poor, between warm weather and icy pathways, and between similar looking species. The first nice contrast that we got to see were the differences between the Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers. The longer bill, larger overall size, and lack of striping on the undertail coverts are a dead giveaway for the Hairy Woodpecker, while the male and female Downy Woodpecker have shorter bills, smaller sizes, and of course the banded undertail coverts.

female Downy Woodpecker
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1600

male Downy Woodpecker
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1600

male Hairy Woodpecker
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1600

Another wonderful contrast, helped out by the clearing clouds and peeking sunlight as we neared the end of our walk for the day, were the differences between the Barrow’s and Common Goldeneye. While I’ve written about them both many times before, one thing that I have never really captured well is the iridescent quality of their heads in good light. The Common Goldeneye reflects a greenish iridescence from its head feathers, and the Barrow’s flashes a deep purple in the sunlight.

Common Goldeneye
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/500sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1600

male Barrow’s Goldeneye
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1600

And as we closed out the day, I felt it would only be appropriate to try to get another look at our first bird of the day, the male Great Horned Owl back at the headquarters. Doesn’t he look happy to see us again?

male Great Horned Owl
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/800sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 1600

Have a great week, and as always, good birding!

Furry Friday: Winter Badger

Jan10

Moe Zaleshuk saw this American Badger on Hwy 561 not far from the junction with Hwy 1, in the Standard area, on December 16. Note how long their fur is in the winter!

Sunday Showcase: Goshawk Feeding

Jan5

Karen and Roger Bolton had the unusual experience of seeing a Northern Goshawk eat a Blue Jay in their yard in Glamorgan, SW Calgary, on December 7, 2013. These powerful raptors are scarce in winter in the Calgary area. They feed on game birds like pheasants and partridge; rabbits, and rodents, as well as songbirds. (Click on the photos to enlarge them.)

My 2013 Birding Year in Review

Jan1

Posted by Dan Arndt

First and foremost, Happy New Year, and I wish you all the best in 2014.

Aside from all of the personal challenges 2013 brought me, I blew past my personal record in my first year of serious listing (and serious birding, for what it’s worth) of 236 bird species found within 80km of Calgary. 2013 netted me a total of 248 species in the Calgary region, and a whole lot more experience birding both in the Calgary area, in Alberta as a whole, and even in some more remote places.

My year started off in Mexico, after a night of some hearty ringing in of the new year, and a hangover that I haven’t experienced in a very long time. Some say that your first bird of the year has some significant meaning for how the rest of your year will go. Mine started off with the ubiquitous calls and chatter of a Hooded Oriole outside my room on the resort. I think it was one of only a few birds I managed to see that day, due to my very sorry state!

Hooded Oriole
Yucatan Peninsula
January 2013

A couple highlights from my trip down south, which I hope to repeat in the future, included the incredible sights at Ria Lagartos on the Gulf of Mexico, a birding trip with a local guide, Rene, from Green Birding Tours out of Tulum, and being woken up a few mornings by a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl right outside my room!

Pelicans, Gulls and a few shorebirds at Ria Lagartos
January 2013

Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl
Gran Bahia Principe Coba, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
January 2014

February came in with a bang, and while the birding was fairly typical of an Alberta winter, a locally rare Northern Mockingbird showed up in Vulcan, prompting a trip with local wildlife and landscape photographer, Jeff Bingham.

Northern Mockingbird
Vulcan, Alberta
February 2013

March’s highlights included a chance encounter with a pair of Short-eared Owls near Frank Lake, a second trip to Frank Lake later in the month heralded the beginning of spring migration, with tens of thousands of ducks, geese, and swans on the slowly thawing lake, and an incredible encounter on Grand Valley Road with a very accommodating Great Grey Owl the very next day, and my lifer Long-eared Owl a few days after that!

Great Grey Owl
Grand Valley Road
March 2013

migration flock at Frank Lake
March 2013

Long-eared Owl
north Calgary
March 2013

Short-eared Owl
Frank Lake entrance
March 2013

In April I was able to photograph a family of White-winged Crossbills at my feeders, who had successfully fledged a winter brood in my neighbors spruce tree in their back yard. And then the Swarovski came, and along with it, a fallout of Mountain Bluebirds at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, and along with them, an assortment of other usual spring migrants and great chances to shoot them, including my two favourites, this Red-necked Grebe and Northern Shoveler.

immature White-winged Crossbill
Hillhurst, Calgary
April 2013

immature male White-winged Crossbill
Hillhurst, Calgary
April 2013

Mountain Bluebirds
Inglewood Bird Sanctuary
April 2013

Red-necked Grebe
Frank Lake
April 2013

Northern Shoveler
Weed Lake
April 2013

The highlights for May were another pair of lifers that I was incredibly happy to find. First, early in May, the first Alberta record of Purple Sandpiper showed up at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, and one afternoon after work I stopped by to take some shots of it at the exact same spot I was at a month before with the bluebirds. The second was this adorable little Piping Plover I discovered north of Hanna, while on my way home from a work trip.

Purple Sandpiper
Inglewood Bird Sanctuary
May 2013

Piping Plover
north of Hanna
May 2013

June was a blur, but for a whole number of reasons. Evening Grosbeaks were a highlight early in the month, but by mid-June I was laid off, making the rest of the birding year a bit more of a challenge. I still went ahead with the Big Day I had planned with David Pugh, writer of the “A Calgary Birder” blog, which involved a whole lot of terrible weather, but remained an incredible experience, and one that I would definitely repeat, even with the close call we had near the end of our trip with this very curious Black Bear at the Waterton townsite. The now famous flooding of southern Alberta came less than a week later, forcing me from my home for a weekend, but also allowing an impromptu visit to Kinbrook Island Provincial Park and a thorough exploration of the region surrounding Brooks. On my return home, another trip up Grand Valley Road turned up both a Northern Pygmy-Owl and a nesting pair of Sandhill Cranes, both species I’ve never had a chance to photograph.

Evening Grosbeak
Priddis, Alberta
June 2013

curious Black Bear
Waterton Lakes National Park
June 2013

Dinosaur Provincial Park
north of Brooks, Alberta
June 2014

Sandhill Crane
Grand Valley Road
June 2013

Northern Pygmy-Owl
Grand Valley Road
June 2013

July was a matter of flood recovery for many of us in Calgary and the rest of southern Alberta, and while I spent a few days here and there out in the field, I spent others helping family and strangers with their own struggles. I did have time to check in on a family of Loggerhead Shrikes near Calgary that were found by our very own Matthew Sim last year, and as hoped, they had returned to the area and fledged a good number of young! The end of July allowed a brief trip down to the Birds of Prey Centre in Coaldale, and on the way down we checked out a side road that Alan Plumb and Marg Matheson reported finding Lark Buntings and Grasshopper Sparrows a few days before, and sure enough, there they were!

Grasshopper Sparrow
south-east of Vulcan, Alberta
July 2013

immature Loggerhead Shrike
north-east of Calgary
July 2013

In August, I joined a trip with Nature Calgary down to south-east Alberta, and a stop at Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park turned up a great experience with an inquisitive Rock Wren, and more Common Nighthawks than I’ve ever seen in my life, with as many as 60 seen in one evening at our campsite in Foremost. It was also a month I spent many mornings up at Confederation Park, and had my first Canadian sightings of a few Black-and-White Warblers.

Rock Wren
Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park
August 2013

Common Nighthawk
Manyberries, Alberta
August 2013

Black-and-White Warbler
Confederation Park, Calgary
August 2013

As fall migration continued into September, the standouts were a great opportunity to shoot this Say’s Phoebe, and a fairly uncommon American Golden Plover out at Weed Lake, east of Calgary. Mid-September I took a visit to Ucluelet, British Columbia to take part in a pelagic birding trip put on by Wild Research. Needless to say, this was another highlight of my year overall, and the best sighting by far was the Black-footed Albatross. On another note, who would have thought I’d get my lifer Chestnut-sided Warbler while I was 40km out to sea?

Black-footed Albatross and Buller’s Shearwater
Wildresearch Pelagic trip out of Ucluelet, B.C.
September 2013

Chestnut-sided Warbler
Wildresearch Pelagic trip out of Ucluelet, B.C.
September 2013

American Golden Plover
Weed Lake, east of Calgary
September 2013

Say’s Phoebe
Weed Lake, east of Calgary
September 2013

As the fall wore on, and the new and remarkable birds began to wane in number, it was a surprise year for Anna’s Hummingbirds in southern Alberta. With at least seven different individuals being reported in the Calgary area, it seemed to be a major invasion of these late little birds. A few days later, by complete surprise, this Sabine’s Gull (also a locally uncommon bird) turned up on the Glenmore Reservoir.

Sabine’s Gull
Glenmore Reservoir, Calgary
October 2013

Anna’s Hummingbird
Northwest Calgary
October 2013

As autumn wore on into November, it felt like the depths of winter here in Calgary. Extreme low temperatures and massive amounts of snow led to a paucity of good weather days to go out birding, but still we all trudged on, in hopes of finding one of the incredibly rare winter finches that decided to stay up north this winter. A trip down to Lake McGregor before the worst of the weather came in turned up the last of the really huge numbers of Snow Geese on their way south.

Snow Goose flock
Lake McGregor, east of Vulcan
November 2013

December was marked early on with a trip out to the northeast of Calgary in search of Snowy Owls, and also gave me some great opportunities to get very close to one brave little Snow Bunting. Following the Christmas Bird Counts in Calgary and Canmore, my Christmas holidays took me out to the Comox Valley to visit the family of my better half, but also gave me a great opportunity to see some great winter birds on the coast before the year was through. No spoilers there though, because that will be the subject of my post for Bird Canada coming up on January 19th, 2014!

Snowy Owl
northeast of Calgary
December 2013

Snow Bunting
northeast of Calgary
December 2013

Thanks as always for reading, and best wishes for birding in 2014!

Sunday Showcase: Northern Saw-Whet Owl

Dec29

Posted by Dan Arndt

Earlier this year, we were informed of what appeared to be a female Northern Saw-whet Owl sitting on a nest in a Edworthy Park. To make sure the owl successfully nested and fledged its young, we kept the location pretty quiet, and both Bob Lefebvre and myself visited the nest a few times just to check in on her and make sure she was still there. The area where the nest was located was a fairly low-traffic area, so we suspected chances were very good that she would successfully fledge a full nest of owlets. As the weeks progressed, things seemed to be going quite well, until one day she was simply gone. Here are a few photos of her checking me out as I checked her out:

female Northern Saw-whet Owl giving me the evil eye
May 2013

female Northern Saw-whet Owl checking me out from inside the nest
May 2013

Nobody’s home. Go away.
May 2013

I see you seeing me!
May 2013

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