How many bird species could you see in Alberta in a Calendar year? The answer is that an average of about 330 species have been reported in the province on eBird in recent years. Of course no one birder sees or hears them all, so only a very few birders, if any, get to a total of 300 species in any year.
It takes a special effort to see or hear that many species. You have to make sure you get all the regular birds, regardless of where in the province their normal range or migration route is, and still you have to chase some rarities to get to 300.
In 2019, Gavin McKinnon, a fifteen-year-old Calgary-based birder, is going to try to get to 300 species. He is already a very accomplished birder, who leads field trips for the Friends of Fish Creek and the Wild Bird Store. Last year he recorded 273 species in Alberta, so he knows what a challenge it will be. Gavin will also be travelling outside the province quite a bit, and you can miss some good birds when you are away.
Throughout the year we will be posting photos of some some of the birds that Gavin has seen and photographed. Here are the highlights from the first two months of the year, during which Gavin had about 75 species.
Long-eared OwlCommon MerganserRed-bellied Woodpecker, a rarity seen in Magrath, near the US border.Horned LarkNorthern Pygmy-OwlEvening GrosbeakShort-eared OwlSnowy OwlAmerican Three-toed WoodpeckerRusty BlackbirdTundra Bean-Goose, an extreme rarity seen in Lethbridge.Harlequin DuckPine SiskinCommon GoldeneyeBuffleheadBlack-capped ChickadeeTrumpeter Swan
Here is a great set of photographs of birds taken in the SW corner of the province, by Raymond Toal. Raymond took all of these photos in the spring of 2018.
Tony LePrieur has spent a few evenings at Frank Lake recently and he took these wonderful photos.
White-faced Ibis.
American Avocet.
Wilson’s Phalaropes.
Marbled Godwit.
Willet.
Wilson’s Phalarope.
Killdeer.
California Gull with egg.
American Golden-Plover. (Originally identified as a Black-bellied Plover. Misidentifications are the fault of the poster, in this case Bob Lefebvre, not the photographer.)
Wilson’s Phalarope.
Willet.
Willet.
Tony in action, with Wilson’s Phalaropes. Frank Lake, May 27, 2018.
Tony LePrieur saw a flock of ten Migrating Mountain Bluebirds in the Weaselhead Nature Area in SW Calgary on April 1, 2018. All photos by Tony LePrieur.
Male Mountain Bluebird.
Six males together.
A female. Most of the earliest-arriving birds are males, eager to get on territory.
Mountain Bluebirds arrive back in the Calgary area every spring just about right on the equinox. The extended snowy and cold weather we are having this spring will make it tough on them. They eat mostly insects during the breeding season, but will also eat berries to survive the cold weather.
Mountain Bluebirds are a cavity-nesting species, and they are now often out-competed for nesting sites by non-native House Sparrows and European Starlings. In an effort to increase the nesting opportunities for Bluebirds, volunteers have erected hundreds of nest boxes in rural Alberta.
Short-eared Owls are scarce in the Calgary area in the winter, but sometimes a few can be found hunting meadow voles around fields that have not been cultivated for a few years. Ron Chiasson photographed these owls near Calgary this winter. Short-eared Owls are a sensitive species so we won’t give the location. They have declined in the Calgary area over the decades as native prairie has disappeared, but they have an almost worldwide distribution and their conservation status is “Least Concern.”
You can see more of Ron’s photos at Ron Chiasson Photography.
White-throated Sparrows are a common summer bird of the boreal forest, and in Calgary you can see them and hear their beautiful song in places like the Weaselhead and the west end of Fish Creek Park, where they breed. Their wintering grounds are in the eastern and southern United States and on the west coast from Washington to California, a long way from Calgary. Nevertheless, it isn’t unusual for a few to overwinter here, and if you feed birds in your yard they will come looking for seeds. I have had one coming to my yard all winter. Gus Yaki has also had one in his yard all winter, and a couple of others have been reported around the city.
White-throated Sparrow (left) and a Slate-colored Dark-eyed Junco (right), Calgary, January 2018.
I first saw this bird in November 2017, feeding with a small flock of Dark-eyed Juncos. I have seen it periodically up to as recently as March 2018. It is always with Dark-eyed Juncos, another native sparrow species (the two sometimes interbreed and produce infertile offspring). These native sparrows prefer to feed on a flat surface like a tray, or on the ground.
White-throated Sparrow (left) and Dark-eyed Junco (right).
The distinguishing features of the White-throated Sparrow include the white throat which has a sharply defined lower border, the yellow lores (the spot in front of the eye), and the alternating dark and light head stripes. In this individual, an adult, the stripes are black and white. First-year birds have tan and brown head stripes, and there is also another adult colour morph which has tan and brown head stripes. The two adult colour morphs occur in roughly equal numbers. Interestingly, each adult almost always mates with the opposite colour morph, so both traits persist.
White-throated Sparrow (left) and Dark-eyed Junco (right).
White-throated Sparrow (right). The other bird is a male House Sparrow.
In the above photo you can see the rufous colour in the wing of the White-throated Sparrow and the blurry streaks on the sides of the breast.
Sometimes a White-throated Sparrow will be feeding on the ground with a flock of House Sparrows. Even without binoculars you can usually pick them out by their feeding behavior. Like other native sparrows (the Dark-eyed Juncos and Lincoln’s Sparrows, for example) they tend to scratch for seeds with both feet simultaneously, jumping quickly ahead and back. House Sparrows (which are not native sparrows but an introduced European species) never do this. The White-throated Sparrow also has a longer tail than the House Sparrow.
White-throated Sparrow foraging for seeds in the snow.
Gavin McKinnon took this close-up of a male Sharp-tailed Grouse in mating display this spring in southern Alberta. The bird has his yellow eyebrows flared and his purple neck air-sacs exposed.
Sharp-tailed Grouse (male), Southern Alberta, spring 2017. Photo by Gavin McKinnon.
Here’s something you don’t see very often: a Sandhill Crane flying over the city.
Sandhill Crane, South Glenmore Park, April 29, 2017. Photo by Max Ortiz Aguilar.
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Sandhill Cranes can be seen in huge numbers on their northward migration if you go well east of the city on the prairies. Dan Arndt photographed huge flocks in the Castor area on April 4th. See his Flickr page here. These birds do nest in the Calgary area, near Bragg Creek and in the Water Valley area, so you can see a few in those areas even in mid-summer. But they are not often seen in Calgary.
