Tag Archive | birds calgary blog

Q & A: Odd-looking Birds on the Light Standards

Sep15

By Bob Lefebvre

Here at the Birds Calgary blog, we receive a lot of questions from bird-friendly folks throughout the province. We are sharing some of them with our readers as just another way to spread bird knowledge. 

If you have a question, email us at birdscalgary@gmail.com.  We may post your question and our answer.  We won’t print your name or email address without permission.

Here’s a question we received last September, but which is relevant again this year.

Q:  Hi.  There are birds that sit on the light standards on 16th Ave NE over the tracks alongside Deerfoot Trail.  They appear to be sleeping when I drive by at 8 AM, I am curious to know what they are.  There have been 2 or 3 on the westbound side and usually one on the eastbound side.  Thanks.

A: It’s hard to say what they are without some idea of the size, shape, or colour of the birds.  But I’m familiar with the area, and I think you might be referring to the “odd” birds that are sometimes seen there, which look long, slim, long-necked, and black.  If so, those are Double-crested Cormorants.  Their silhouette looks like this (photo taken in Fish Creek Park last week [September 2011]):

In better light they look like this, also taken last week [September 2011]:

Double-crested Cormorants are waterbirds that dive for fish and crustaceans.  They are often seen holding their wings out to dry off after a dive.  There are quite a few in the area of the weir on the Bow River, but they will soon be heading south.

Q: It’s definitely the Cormorants – last year there was just one, but now there are 2 or 3 on the westbound side and one on the eastbound side of 16th. They are always there in the morning but not always on my way home at 4:30. It’s quite high up so I can’t see much details from the car but definitely have the yellow beak and dark feathers.

(Note: In the past three weeks I have been seeing up to 35 cormorants in the area of Harvie Passage (the old weir on the Bow River) often perched in trees or on light standards along Deerfoot Trail.)

Migration at Hull’s Wood

Aug25

Posted by Matthew Sim

Last week I rode my bike down to Hull’s Wood in Fish Creek P.P. twice to see how migration was coming along; I was not disappointed! As I rode through the woods both times, the chips of warblers and sparrows emanated from the trees and shrubs along the river. The woods were full of Yellow Warblers, Chipping Sparrows, House Wrens, Least Flycatchers and Warbling Vireos (not all of these were migrants) while several American Redstarts, Tennessee Warblers, Northern Waterthrushes and Baltimore Orioles were also present. There was also a single male Wilson’s Warbler, a single Yellow-rumped Warbler and a single Connecticut Warbler.

Least Flycatcher

Connecticut Warbler

Tennessee Warbler

This was all quite exciting but by 10:30 a.m. both days things quieted down for warblers so I went to Lafarge Meadows to check out shorebirds. Both days I found 6 species of shorebirds in Lafarge Meadows along the Bow River; Solitary and Spotted Sandpipers, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Killdeer and Wilson’s Snipe.

Lesser Yellowlegs

Greater Yellowlegs

Migration is coming along well, so if you have the opportunity, get out there! There are lots of great spots in and around Calgary for migrating birds whether it be Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, Confederation Park, Weed Lake, Fish Creek P.P. or your own yard, find your favorite spot for migration and sit back and enjoy the show!

Beyond the reflection: the dangers of windows

Aug24

Posted by Matthew Sim

As the fall migration starts to heat up and southbound warblers, vireos, flycatchers, sparrows and more pass through Calgary, birding can become quite exciting. While for us, this is a great time to be out and about, for the birds, it is dangerous; very dangerous. Migrating passerines (perching birds), for example, have to travel long distances all while on the lookout for predators such as hawks and cats, try to get food themselves and hope they don’t get caught in an early cold-snap which could potentially kill them. And this is just the beginning, there are even more dangers; one of them which is the most lethal of them all.

According to Sibley Guides Bird Mortalities, window strikes (when a bird hits a window) kill between 97 and 976 million birds each year, more than any other cause of bird deaths. (http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/).  I was in my neighbor’s yard when I noticed one of these fatalities on his patio. While I had been there, a migrating Ovenbird had struck his window and had died. Though birds can crash into  windows at any time of the year, window strikes tend to happen more frequently during migration as an influx of migrants come through unfamiliar territory, passing from tree to tree. As you can see in the photo below, it is quite easy for a bird to see its habitat reflected in a window and believe that it is simply another tree they are heading to; I’m sure most don’t know what hit them.

If I were a bird, I would probably fly towards these trees too.

Many bird populations are declining already due to a number of reasons and we don’t need to help them along with  reflective windows when we could easily prevent window strikes occurring.

This Ovenbird had struck my neighbor’s window while I was in his yard.

A closer look at the detail on the Ovenbird’s feathers

Probably the worst part of all this is that window strikes are senseless; it’s not like natural selection where it was meant to happen, window strikes are part of our devastating side effects on nature; however, they can also be easily prevented.

There are many ways to prevent birds from striking windows. If you are having birds fly from your feeders or bird baths into windows, you can either move these bird attracting features further away (25-30 feet) from the window or closer (1-3 feet) to the window so that if the birds do hit the window at just 1-3 feet they will not be going fast enough to do any harm to themselves.

Apparently, there is also a material called CollidEscape which can reduce reflectivity and transparency on the outside but still leave the windows transparent from the inside. You can check it out here.

Here are a few more options:

  • plant shade trees outside windows to break down reflections
  • install snap-on window dividers
  • put a hanging plant outside of the window

These are just a few of the ways you can avoid window strikes and help reduce the number of avian mortalities each year. Often, preventing window strikes can be as simple as closing the curtains or blinds when not using the windows. You can see even more solutions here.

If you have birds hitting your windows, there are many ways to stop it; help out bird populations!

Something old, something new

Aug23

Posted by Matthew Sim

For the third straight year, on a camping trip to southeastern British Columbia, I watched a family of Common Loons as they went about their lives despite living on a very busy lake and getting quite a bit of disturbance from vacationing families. As we watched the parents (something old as I have seen them before) tending to their young (something new) I couldn’t quite help but be amazed at how they can continue call the lake home despite the popularity of the lake among campers.

This year, there were two young loons. You may remember from last year’s post that there was only one chick last year (last year’s post can be seen here). It was quite remarkable to watch how the adult loons worked together this year with two chicks instead of one; sometimes each parent would take care of one of the chicks while at other times, one parent would give the other a break and watch over both chicks for a while before the parents eventually switched.

Though loons can be very sensitive to disturbance, these loons seem to have adapted well to human presence. Also, there is no motorized boat traffic on their lake, so maybe they are fine with kayakers, canoes and swimmers.

Off to feed its young

Common Loons nest on small islands, muskrat lodges and sometimes on the shores of their lake if these shores are forested and undisturbed. They lay one or two (sometimes three) eggs and take turns incubating these eggs for 28-30 days before the black, downy chicks are hatched.  These chicks can swim  immediately and they leave the nest with their parents within 24 hours of hatching. Though they can swim, for the first 2 weeks they will often ride on their parents backs perhaps to stay warm and avoid predators. Within six to eight weeks the young will be the size of the adults but until about eight weeks, they will continue to be fed by their parents. I noticed that of the 2 chicks, one seemed to be very independent already while the other one stayed close to at least one adult. Perhaps they had hatched several days apart?

The more dependent of the two chicks being fed; or maybe it just enjoyed free food?!

By three months, mountain lakes such as this one start to get colder and eventually the loons will have to leave; by three months the young can fly. During the 4 days that I was there,  the young loons attempted flying a few times, though judging by all the splashing and flopping around, they still need some more practice.

Learning to fly

I found it quite interesting to observe the loons. Often, when I would watch them from a distance, patience would pay off and they would eventually swim quite close to me, within a few feet. The young ones seemed to be especially curious and would often linger around my raft. I had a great time watching the loons and spent many hours with them up close, learning different aspects of their lives. I got plenty of photos and as these seem to tell a story better than words I will leave it at that.

The Scientific names of Birds

Aug2

Recently, some birding friends and I were in the mountains listening to the strange song of the Varied Thrush. While its song may not always be described as beautiful, its plumage is definitely gorgeous and we thought its name did not do justice to its beauty. One topic brought us onto the next and soon we were discussing Latin names. While many birders tend to overlook the scientific names of birds, these titles can be quite interesting though I know I certainly had trouble digesting all the taxonomy and etymology! If you enjoy wrapping your heads around this, read on! If you’re like me though, it may seem simply too much!

I was looking in the Federation of Alberta Naturalists ‘Field Guide to Alberta Birds’ (1998) when I noticed that the authors had the etymology (study of the origin of names) of the birds scientific names translated. However, before we get to etymology, let’s look at taxonomy (the classification of species).

All birds are in the Animal Kingdom (Animalia), the Chordata Phylum (with a backbone), and the Class Aves (birds). This is where the similarities stop though and the birds separate into their respective Orders such as Falconiformes (hawks and eagles) and Passeriformes (Passerines). Then, species are divided down into Families for example Parulidae (Wood-Warblers.) After the Families come the subdivisions of Genus and Species. These last two are used in the bird’s scientific name as binomial nomenclature, which describes the species of living organism.  For example, a Red-breasted Nuthatch is Sitta canadensis. The word ‘Sitta‘ is the nuthatches genus and ‘canadensis’ is the name that specifically describes the Red-breasted Nuthatch. With the name Sitta canadensis, scientists everywhere know that you are talking about the Red-breasted Nuthatch. This is where the classification of species ends and we can look at the origin of the species’ binomial nomenclature and the etymology of the name.

The Red-breasted Nuthatch’s scientific name is Sitta candensis

Etymology, the origin of words can be fascinating. I found that some of the scientific names of birds were quite interesting, for example the Red-necked Grebe. This grebe’s genus name is Podiceps which is Latin and means “rump foot”, referring to the posterior position of the grebe’s feet. Its species name, grisegena, is also Latin and can be translated to “gray cheek”. Thus when we look at the whole scientific name and try to make sense of it, we might come out with something like “gray-cheeked rump foot”, which in itself, can be quite descriptive of the Red-necked Grebe.

Yep, the Red-necked Grebe definitely has a gray cheek!

Here are a few more bird names and their meanings.

Black-crowned Night Heron- Nycticorax nycticorax– nyctos: “night” and corax: “a crow”. Basically, a night crow!

Gadwall- Anas strepera– Anas: “a duck” and strepera: “noisy”.  A noisy duck? Names like this really make me look at the species again as I never really thought of the Gadwall as a noisy duck.

Barrow’s Goldeneye- Bucephala islandica– Bous: “bull”, kephale: “head” and islandica: “of Iceland”. Giving us… “Bull-head of Iceland”. Interesting.

Bald Eagle- Haliaeetus leucocephalus– halos: “the sea”, aetos: “eagle”, leucocephalus- leukos: “white” and cephalus: “head”. White-headed Sea Eagle sounds descriptive!

Least Sandpiper- Calidris minutilla– Calidris: ” a gray speckled sandpiper”, minutilla: “very small”. Very small gray speckled sandpiper is right- these guys only weigh 24 grams.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher- Empidonax flaviventris– Empidonax: “King of the gnats”, flaviventris: “yellow-bellied”. What a name! Yellow-bellied King of the gnats!

Tennessee Warbler- Vermivora peregrina– Vermivora- vermis: “worm”, voro: “eater”, peregrina: “to wander”. Wandering worm-eater perhaps?

Lark Sparrow- Chondestes grammacus– Chondestes: “grain eater”, grammacus: “striped”. Striped grain eater.

Lots of cool names in this book to look at though I must admit that some don’t seem to make much sense. I also find that I learn a lot about species when I know their Latin names as then it might tell me more, for example how Gadwall’s Latin name means noisy duck. Then you’ve got the neat names such as Empidonax meaning ‘King of the gnats’! Very interesting and worthwhile to know the scientific names!

Sunday Showcase: Spotless Spotted Sandpiper

Jul29

Posted by Matthew Sim

Okay, try saying that 10 times fast. Spotted Sandpipers, while spotted in their breeding plumage, do not have spots in winter or when they are juveniles.  Juveniles can be separated from winter plumaged birds by the scaling and barring on their upperparts, which nonbreeding adults do not have. Right around now, we start to see juveniles so look out for them; I recently found this juvenile in Votier’s Flats in Fish Creek Provincial Park.