Tony LePrieur photographed a nice variety of wildlife in the park on October 5.
Pileated Woodpecker.
Greater Yellowlegs.
American Three-toed Woodpecker (male).
Boreal Chickadee.
White-breasted Nuthatch.
Yellow-rumped Warbler.
Red-breasted Nuthatch.
American Robin (immature).
Downy Woodpecker.
Muskrat.
White-tailed Deer.
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
The irrigation canal that begins by the Max Bell arena and runs through SE calgary had the water diversion shut off yesterday. As the water slowly recedes over the next week or so, a number of species of waterfowl and shorebirds will converge there to feed in the shallow pools left behind, and on the exposed weed beds and mud flats. Expect to see large numbers of common species like Canada Geese, Mallards, and Ring-billed Gulls, but you might also see quite a few Greater Yellowlegs, American Wigeon, Green-winged Teal, and Hooded Mergansers.
The canal near Gosling Way, October 2011.
I have also seen Killdeer, Double-crested Cormorants, Long-billed Dowitchers, and the occasional Pied-billed Grebe and even some Rusty Blackbirds here. You can also see migrating sparrows and late Warblers in the trees and bushes along the canal.
Birds on the canal between Gosling Way and 50 Avenue SE, October 2011.
Here is a link to a post by Dan Arndt from one of our FFCPP outings last fall, which includes a map of the area. I have found that the section from Gosling Way (the road to the Inglewood Golf Club) to 50 Avenue SE is the most productive, but you might also try going north from there towards the Canoe Club at 17 Avenue SE, or Park at the Max Bell Arena and walk south. There is a paved path all along the canal so it is also a good area to explore by bike.
Here is another old post about birding the canal.
Most of our local Ospreys have now departed, although one was reported here yesterday, still sitting on its nest platform at MacLeod Trail and Hwy 22X. Several pairs (about thirteen) nest in Calgary every summer. People enjoy watching them build the nest, raise their young, and hunt for fish over the river and reservoir. The Calgary Zoo Osprey nest camera is very popular.
Here is an amazing video showing the incredible hunting skill of these birds. Thanks to Dick and Lenora Flynn, and Gus Yaki, for bringing it to our attention. We’re already looking forward to the return of the Ospreys next spring!
ARKive is a not-for-profit initiative of the charity Wildscreen. Their mission: “With the help of the world’s best wildlife filmmakers and photographers, conservationists and scientists, we are creating an awe-inspiring record of life on Earth. Freely accessible to everyone and preserved for the benefit of future generations, ARKive is a truly invaluable resource for conservation, education and public awareness.”
To see more wildlife photos and videos, go to arkive.org and explore and share. There is detailed information, photos, and video about many of the bird species we have here.
We don’t often re-post material but we don’t often make two identification mistakes in the same post (I hope). Reid Barclay has pointed out that the bird I labelled “Swainson’s Thrush” is actually an Ovenbird, and Ron Kube says that the “Swainson’s Hawk” is a Broad-winged Hawk. I think they are both correct. In each case, I didn’t consider these less-common migrants here, and tried to fit the photos to my expectations. Sorry for the errors. We always welcome comments from our readers. – Bob Lefebvre
Tony LePrieur has another set of beautiful bird and mammal photos, taken on September 14, 2014. He says it is getting harder to find the birds, but there is still a good variety of species around.
From Carburn Park:
Orange-crowned Warbler.
Orange-crowned Warbler, actually showing the seldom-seen orange crown.
Red-eyed Vireo.
American Goldfinch.
Cedar Waxwing (juvenile).
Ovenbird.
Yellow-rumped Warbler.
Tennessee Warbler.
From Fish Creek Park:
Broad-winged Hawk (juvenile).
Belted Kingfisher (female).
American Mink.
Photo by Diane Dahlin, Eagle Lake, September 21, 2014.
It’s been a really good fall for warblers in Calgary. Here are some warblers and other birds that Tony LePrieur captured in Carburn Park on the weekend of August 29-30.
Rose-breasted Grosbeak (female)
Least Flycatcher
Tennessee Warbler
Warbling Vireo
Townsend’s Warbler
Gray Catbird
American Redstart
Wilson’s Warbler
Solitary Sandpiper
Do you have some bird photographs from the Calgary area that you’d like to share here? Send them to us at birdscalgary@gmail.com and we may post them on our Sunday Showcase.
This summer Tony LePrieur found a Cedar Waxwing nest in Fish Creek Park, and he managed to capture this amazing sequence of photos showing the young birds from hatching to fledging, over a period of sixteen days.
The nest was about three feet off the ground, in the Votier’s Flats area of Fish Creek Provincial Park. Tony was careful not to be intrusive, making four very short visits over a period of just over three weeks. Initially there were four eggs in the nest. Photos were taken with a Canon 60d and a 18-135 mm lens.
As a bonus, I will post a photo of a slightly older juvenile Cedar Waxwing. It was spotted by Cicely Schoen hunkering down under a lawn chair in the Woodlands neighbourhood in SW Calgary during last week’s snowstorm. She calls it “The Original Angry Bird”.
“The Original Angry Bird” – Juvenile Cedar Waxwing. Photo by Cicely Schoen
Nikon 5100 with Nikkor lens 55-200mm.
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
Last week’s late summer snowstorm in southern Alberta flattened crops and gardens, caused power outages, and damaged or destroyed trees numbering in the hundreds of thousands. It must also have been devastating for many migrating birds. A storm like this, lasting for several days, blanketing the ground with snow throughout the southern half of the province, and accompanied by temperatures as low as -7 degrees Celsius, must surely have caused high mortality among warblers and other neotropical migrants.
Here are some photos taken on September 10 of a hummingbird caught in the snow. I believe this is a Rufous Hummingbird, the last of which usually move through Calgary in early September. Fortunately there are still plenty of flowers around so perhaps it was able to find enough food to continue on its southern migration.
All photos by Debbie Reynolds.
The last few weeks, Tony LePrieur has been sending us some outstanding photos of birds at Carburn Park. We had some technical difficulties with the blog and have been unable to post, but we’re back to full speed now. Here is Tony’s great collection of photos from the last three weekends in Carburn.
This is a good year for wood warblers, and there should be several species around until Sept 20 or so. Carburn Park has been a great place to see them, or anywhere along the river. Confederation Park is another warbler hot spot in the city.
Some of these fall birds can be tricky to ID, so please comment if you think we’ve got any wrong. There are two we weren’t at all sure about, the recently fledged one and the orange one, both captioned “???” – give us your thoughts on those!
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Canada Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Red-eyed Vireo
female Tennessee Warbler
Wilson’s Warbler
Warbling Vireo
Magnolia Warbler
American Redstart
Townsend’s Warbler
Warbling Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Northern Waterthrush
Canada Warbler
female/immature Tennessee Warbler
Orange-crowned Warbler
???
immature Baltimore Oriole
House Wren
Sora
???
Solitary Sandpiper
Eastern Kingbird
American Goldfinch
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
We’re back! After a busy July away from from blogging, we had technical issues in August which prevented us from posting photos. We could have posted text, but as you know, a birding blog without photos is like a bowling ball without a liquid centre.
Despite the snow on the ground right now, I am going to catch up on some things from late spring. Those of you who follow Dan Arndt’s weekly posts about his Friends of Fish Creek outings will have wondered where the group went birding in June. Dan’s job took him out of town for the entire month, so he was unable to post. I was away for some of June as well, but I arranged for one of my group’s members, George Best, to send some photos from our outings.
Dan’s posts will resume this week and will found here most Mondays.
If you are interested in signing up for the course this fall, there are still a few spots available at the following times: Mondays at 8:30 am, Tuesdays at 8:30 and 9 am, Wednesdays at 9 am, Thursdays at 8:30 am, Saturdays at 8:30 am, and Sundays at 8:30 am, 9 am, 9:30 am and 1:15 pm. We have completed two weeks of the 14-week course so there are still 12 weeks of great birding to go. Go to the Friends of Fish Creek site to sign up.
On June 1 our excursion was to the Pine Creek Water Treatment Plant area, along the river south of 194 Avenue. For one of Dan’s previous posts from this area, complete with maps of the walk, see this post from April 2014.
Our June 1 walk featured some late-arriving spring migrants. One of the first birds we saw, as we car-pooled from the parking lot at 194 Avenue to the treatment plant, was this Western Kingbird hawking insects from a fence. All photos by George Best.
These birds are not common in Calgary, even on migration. I believe the only place within the city limits that they have been known to nest is in the Lafarge Meadows area of Fish Creek Park, about 1.5 km north of our sighting. But no nesting Western Kingbirds were reported there in the last three years, so I was hopeful that this bird might be heading there to nest. I didn’t hear any more reports of this species in that area over the summer, so this was probably just a passing migrant.
We got really good looks at some Song Sparrows and recorded a dozen on the day, several of them singing.
We saw at least nine Swainson’s Hawks, but the closest views were of Red-tails.
A Gray Catbird which emerged from the brush on the river bank:
An Eastern Kingbird, one of nine sighted on the day.
Another just-arrived migrant, and our first of the year – Baltimore Oriole.
Finally, we had a close fly-over by a group of five American White Pelicans.
We have only been taking groups to this area for a year or so, and it is a great addition to our repertoire of birding walks.
On June 8 we headed to Griffith Woods Park on the west edge of the city, along the Elbow River. (See this post for a map – one of Dan’s many posts about this park.) We spent a lot of time in the east end of the park, in the mixed woods along the river, before heading to the spruce forest farther west. Here are a few of the 37 species we saw that day.
Blue Jay.
Female Brown-headed Cowbird.
Gray Catbird.
House Wren.
Least Flycatcher.
Lesser Scaup.
Ruby-crowned Kinglet.
White-throated Sparrow.
Yellow Warbler.
On June 15 we went to the Weaselhead Natural Area. Our goal was to find two species of hummingbird. We were successful, and had 39 species for the day.
Calliope Hummingbird.
Eastern Phoebe.
Eastern Phoebe.
Rufous Hummingbird.
White-throated Sparrow.
Spotted Towhee.