Just a reminder that the Bird Studies Group of Nature Calgary will be meeting tonight, Wednesday January 9 (instead of the first Wednesday of the month). The presentation will consist of the results of various Christmas Bird Counts held in the Calgary region. Â Phil Cram will present the results of the Calgary Count.
The meeting is at 7:30 pm in Room 211 of the Biological Sciences Building at the U of C. Doors open at 7:00. Â See this page for a map and more information.
The highlight of the 2013 New Year’s Day Bird Count in Fish Creek Park was the rediscovery of a Black-backed Woodpecker, first reported in the area on December 19, 2012. These birds are seldom seen in the Calgary region – I believe it is at least five years since the last one was seen inside the city. On the afternoon of January 1st, I went to the Marshall Springs area to look for it. Luckily for me, Ursula Krol, who had found it in the morning , had returned and found it again.
Photos by Bob Lefebvre
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
Once again I participated in the Fish Creek Park half-day bird count on New Year’s Day. Though not an official Christmas Bird Count, it is now in its 20th year. Â Six teams spent the morning counting birds in different parts of this huge park, and then we met at noon to compile the results.
This year I joined Phil Cram’s team in the east end of the park.  We covered the Bow Valley Ranch, Sikome, LaFarge Meadows, and Hull’s Wood areas.
It was a beautiful mild sunny day, but we found it pretty quiet when we started at Bow Valley Ranch. We did have six White-tailed Deer pass through before sunrise.
The first mammal of the day – and year.
We failed to find any roosting Great Horned Owls in the row of spruces, and it took a while before we heard even a chickadee. Eventually we heard some White-winged Crossbills in the tall spruces.
Yes, there are crossbills in this photo.
Next we heard the high-pitched call of the Brown Creeper, and found four of them in the area.
Brown Creeper.
Heading over to Sikome, we quickly found the two Great Horned Owls that roost there every winter in the trees behind the buildings.
There are two owls here – one of them is doing its spruce-bark impersonation.
Again, the area was pretty quiet.  We did get a flicker and this Downy Woodpecker (but failed to find a Hairy Woodpecker or White-breasted Nuthatch, which are often seen there).
Downy Woodpecker.
Over at the Boat Launch we had four White-breasted Nuthatches, and a flyover of a young Bald Eagle.
Immature Bald Eagle.
On the river we failed to find anything besides Canada Geese, Mallards, Common Goldeneyes, Buffleheads, and Common Mergansers. We had hoped for Killdeer, Barrow’s Goldeneyes, and perhaps some other species of ducks.
Mallards on the ice.
Canada Goose flying over.
At the highway 22X bridge we checked for Rock Pigeons – in these bird counts every new species is important. You never know if any of the other groups will see one or not.
Rock Pigeon, with colours that match the rust on the bridge.
Our final stop of the morning was at Hull’s Wood, where we saw a staggering number of Mallards – about 8000 (some of them were outside our territory and were counted by another group of birders). Again, there were few other species except the usual.
Our best bird of the day was the last, a Northern Goshawk that was being harassed by magpies on the hillside. Â We didn’t get great looks (and no photos) before it departed.
In the end we had 19 species of birds (and four mammals – Coyote, Eastern Gray Squirrel, and White-tailed Jackrabbit in addition to the deer). A good start to the new year.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 160,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
This Song Sparrow has been overwintering in Votier’s Flats, Fish Creek Park. Â It spends quite a bit of time feeding in the open water of the creek. Photos by Bob Lefebvre.
The creek at Votier’s Flats.
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
Note: You don’t have to be an eBird user or have an eBird account to do this. Anyone with an internet connection can use eBird as a resource, so please read on.
eBird, the online database of bird sightings, has many useful features that birders can use to study patterns of bird movements in time and space. The one I use the most is the Interactive Range and Point Maps. This shows a map of all sightings reported for a particular species for any place and time specified. You can set the time period to be as long or as short as you like, and thus see the distribution of the bird.
By setting a short time period of the most recent month or two, you can find out what is being seen in your birding area right now. I will run through an example of the process to show how you can easily find out exactly where your target bird has been seen.
Step 1: Go to the eBird Website home page. (In the example it is eBird Canada, but you could also use the US site.) Your screen will look something like this:
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Step 2: Click the “Explore Data” tab. There will be three choices: Range and Point Maps, Bar Charts, and Line Graphs.
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Step 3: Select “Range and Point Maps” to bring up the world map.
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Step 4: Specify the date range for your search.  Click the “Date” tab (which is defaulted to “Year-Round, All Years) to select a time period. In the example, I set it to December only of the current year. It was early December when I did this example, so only sightings from the previous few days would be shown. Then click “Set Date Range” in the green box.
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Step 5: Select the target species. A new screen has come up with the date range set to “Dec-Dec, Current Year”. Go to the “Species” box and type in the bird. I used “Snowy Owl” in the example. As you type, various species possibilities that fit what you have typed so far will show in the blue box below. Once the correct species name appears in the blue box, click it to select the species.
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Step 6: Zoom in on the map to see sightings in your area. You could also at this point set the location (to Calgary, for example) in the upper right-hand box, but it is just as easy to zoom in on the Calgary area by double-clicking your mouse or scrolling your mouse wheel until you get close. Any area that is purple on the map will have at least one Snowy Owl sighting.
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Below, I have zoomed in to the Calgary area. Paydirt! Snowy Owls have been reported inside the two purple rectangles. Now I just have to zoom in a little closer on them to see the exact locations.
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Step 7: Get the sighting data from a point location. The two red teardrops show the exact locations reported for Snowy Owls. By clicking on them, you bring up the sighting information. In the example, I clicked the westernmost teardrop and discovered that it was Daniel Arndt who reported one owl on December 1. You could now scroll in some more to see a close-up map of the area with the names of the roads. But you can also get more information from Dan’s checklist.
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Step 8: See the checklist from the reported sighting. Â Click “Checklist” next to the name of the observer, to bring up all the particulars of the sighting. If there had been other species seen at that location, they would have been listed there.
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Step 8: See the location on a Google map. On the above screen, click “Map” at the end of the location line to get a Google map with the precise location and GPS coordinates. You can now drive to the exact spot where Dan saw this owl, where, if you’re lucky, it will be still be sitting on the same pole.
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Give this a try to see how easy it is to find out what’s being seen in your area. Of course, the only sightings you’ll find are those submitted by eBird users, so the more people using eBird, the better!
Links:
Two of the resident male Wood Ducks at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. Â Photos taken in summer 2012 by Laurie Rutter.
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
Last Sunday was a great day to be out counting birds. The weather was pleasant for the most part, and the sun came out, allowing for a few good photographs. I was covering the Inglewood Golf Course, Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, Pearce Estate, and adjacent areas with Ian Neilson and Troy Bourque (both excellent photographers). At the end of the day I checked out the zoo grounds by myself – counting only wild birds.
We started the day walking the golf course and spent about two and a half hours checking the Bow River and looking for passerines. (We had permission from the club to be on their grounds for the count – you don’t need permission to walk the riverbank, but it is a very difficult walk in spots.) There were plenty of Canada Geese and Mallards on the river, plus a few Common Goldeneyes, but nothing else.
Mallards on the river. Â Photo by Troy Bourque
On the golf course itself we did find one mixed flock of several Black-capped Chickadees, three White-breasted Nuthatches, a Golden-crowned Kinglet, and a Brown Creeper. A Rough-legged Hawk made a low flyover – the first RLHA I recall seeing in this part of the city. Across the river we spotted an adult Bald Eagle, which then flew over us, and was joined by its mate. The pair settled in the same tree on the golf course where they have nested for the past few years (they always overwinter and spend a lot of time near this tree).
Bald Eagle on the Inglewood Golf Course. Â Photo by Troy Bourque
One of the adult eagles. Photo by Ian Neilson
Eagle on takeoff. Â Photo by Ian Neilson
A little farther along we came upon a porcupine perched in a Water Birch at eye level, feeding. The porcupine didn’t mind us at all, so the photographers got some very close shots!
You don’t see these every day! Â Photo by Ian Neilson
Don’t you just want to give him a big hug? Â Photo by Troy Bourque
Photo by Ian Neilson
Our best mammal of the day. Â Photo by Troy Bourque
It was some pretty tough walking through the snow and brush along the river, so we stopped for a rest and a hearty breakfast at the clubhouse. Then we were off to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary across the river.  It was the middle of the day and pretty quiet. The chickadees were aggressively looking for handouts of seeds as usual, but we offered only to take their portraits.
Can you please hold still for 1/500 of a second? Â Photo by Troy Bourque
Photo by Bob Lefebvre
We had an unusually low number of woodpeckers for the day – no Downies, only one Northern Flicker, and this bird.
Hairy Woodpecker at IBS. Â Photo by Bob Lefebvre
After the sanctuary Ian had to depart, and Troy and I had a quick walk around Pearce Estates, which was even quieter than IBS. Then Troy had to leave, and I rushed over to cover the zoo before it got dark. The zoo grounds attract quite a few wild birds because there is a lot of food scattered around for the zoo animals, and lots of cover. It was a little strange to be rushing past Snow Leopards and Siberian Tigers with hardly a glance, but taking note of every House Sparrow.
Mallards. Â Photo by Bob Lefebvre
Over half of the European Starlings reported on the count were at the zoo – 56 out of 109, which is a fairly low number for starlings on the Calgary count.
European Starlings in winter plumage. Â Photo by Bob Lefebvre
As the light started to fade, I heard a Golden-crowned Kinglet in a stand of Spruces, but couldn’t see the bird. I remembered something that Dan Arndt had told me – kinglets will respond strongly to a playback of their call even in winter – so I played the call on my smart phone app. Within a fraction of a second, three aggressive little kinglets materialized right in front of me, flitting about, vocalizing, and flaring their crown feathers.
Golden-crowned Kinglet. Â Photo by Bob Lefebvre
Here you can even see some of the red in the centre of the golden crown. Â Photo by Bob Lefebvre
Then it was off to Arthur and Donna Wieckowski’s to compile the data and enjoy a great chili dinner. For a while it looked like we were going to have a low number of species for the count, but as the last few routes reported, we ended up with 65 species, exactly on our average for the last twenty years.
It was a very long day of birding but also very enjoyable, as always!
Posted by Matthew Sim
As I’m sure many of you know, there can be some very busy points in our lives; right now I’m preparing for semester finals at school, keeping up with sports, preparing for a return to Calgary over Christmas and trying to keep up with the birding. While I can’t always get out, there is always time to notice the birds in my backyard. Here are some of the regulars.
Yellow-rumped Warbler; showing off that characteristic yellow rump!
Orange-crowned Warbler; is it just me or can anybody else see a faint orange streak just above his eye?
Chipping Sparrow
Mourning Dove
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
By the time you see this I will be back in Calgary for 2 weeks; I’m looking forward to some good northern birding again!
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
Red Squirrels always seem to strike interesting poses.
