Birds & Beers this month will feature a talk and photo presentation by Calgary birder Diane Stinson, about a recent trip that she and her husband Rob took to Antarctica.
Diane says, “Rob and I went on a trip in January to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. As there are not enough superlatives to describe what we experienced, I hope that this photographic presentation will provide a journey in spirit. While the focus will be birds (including 7 species of penguins and the South Georgia Pipit – the southern-most song bird in the world), there will also be images of whales, seals, icebergs and even some flowers. One of the highlights of the trip was standing on the edge of a colony of an estimated 500,000 King Penguins in St. Andrew’s Bay, South Georgia.”
Everyone is welcome at Birds & Beers, including children if accompanied by an adult. It is an informal social get-together, with food and drinks available. For the first hour or so you can visit with your fellow birders, and the presentation will start after 7 pm. If you can’t be there at 6 come any time until 7.
Upcoming Birds & Beers dates, all at the same time and place: Thursday May 24, Thursday June 21.
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.
Common Goldeneye (male, mating display). Weaselhead, April 9, 2017. Photo by Tony LePrieur.
No speaker is scheduled for this month but come out and have a chat about (hopefully!) spring birding. Everyone is welcome. Food and drinks are available.
Upcoming Birds & Beers dates, all at the same time and place: Thursday April 26, Thursday May 24, Thursday June 21.
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.
This winter, local birders have been treated to the sight of Trumpeter Swans overwintering on the Bow River. Low numbers of Trumpeters will occasionally spend the winter on the open water here, but not every year. (Tundra Swans overwinter here even less often.) This year there were four Trumpeters reported at Carburn Park, and another group of five at Mallard Point in Fish Creek Park. The Carburn group is now down to three birds. The somewhat brownish birds pictured here are immature.
All photos by Tony LePrieur.
Visit Tony’s Flickr page to see more wildlife photos, including photos from other parts of the world.
Carburn Park has been a good place to bird all winter, and it is one the best places to visit in the spring as well. Tony LePrieur photographed these birds in the first half of March, as we began to transition to spring birding. All photos by Tony LePrieur.
Merlin. These small falcons overwinter here in good numbers.
Merlin bathing.
Great Horned Owl. These birds are early nesters, and are on the nest by mid-February. Disturbingly, there have not yet been any reports of nesting Great Horned Owls in the city. It appears that the local Meadow Vole population has undergone one of its periodic crashes, and the owls may not have enough food to raise a brood. If they don’t start soon there won’t be time to teach the young how to hunt before next winter, so they may forego breeding altogether this year.
Bohemian Waxwing. They will soon be leaving the city for higher elevations or more northerly breeding locations. Most are gone by mid-April, with occasional sightings into the first week of May.
Northern Flicker. This male may be starting a nest cavity soon. They have been very vocally claiming their territories in the past three weeks or so (and drumming too). The red malar mark or mustache indicates a male. Females lack a mark there. This bird is an intergrade between the two subspecies, the Red-shafted which has a red malar mark and lacks a mark on the nape, and the Yellow-shafted which has a black malar mark and a red mark on the nape. The majority of flickers in the Calgary area are intergrades.
Downy Woodpecker (male). Like the Northern Flickers, males and females of this species are paired up and are beginning nesting behavior.
Northern Shoveler (male). This bird, and the female below, was not reported this winter, so is likely an early migrant. An early Northern Pintail has also been reported on the river.
Richardson’s Ground Squirrels are beginning to come out of hibernation, right on schedule. But with the record snowfalls we’ve had, and more on the way, it must be a nasty shock for them. All photos were taken by Tony LePrieur just outside Calgary in early March.
