The next Birds & Beers is on Friday April 14. We meet at the Horton Road Legion in Calgary starting at 6 pm. Everyone is welcome, and there is good food and drink available. The Legion is located at 9202 Horton Road SW. We have the rooms starting at 6 pm, and you can eat and socailize for about an hour and a quarter before we have our presentation. This month will feature Gordon Sick again, with part two of his trip to central America: The Birds of the Galapogos Islands. Just as in last month’s talk about the birds of the Ecudorean Cloud Forest, there will be many great photographs of birds, and there is no overlap in the species shown in the two talks at all!
Waved Albatrosses. Photo by Gordon Sick.
Birds of the Galapagos Islands: This presentation covers migratory birds (Waved Albatrosses, Boobies, Magnificent and Great Frigatebirds, for example), as well as endemic birds (Darwin Finches and Mockingbirds, for example). We will cover some of the 51 species that were photographed. Some non-avian flora and fauna will also be included.
See you there! We will ask for a donation of $1 per person to go to the Legion to cover the cost of the room.
Birds & Beers is on again this Friday. We will have a presentation by Gordon Sick on Birds of Ecuador’s Andean Cloud Forest.
Andean Cock-of-the-rock. Photo by Gordon Sick
We meet at the Horton Road Legion beginning at 6 pm:
Royal Canadian Legion, Centennial Calgary Branch #285,
9202 Horton Road SW.
Friday March 10, 2023, 6:00-9:00 pm
We start at 6 pm, and there will be time for socializing, eating, and drinking before the presentation begins after 7 pm. Here are the details of the talk.
Birds of Ecuador’s Andean Cloud Forest
This presentation involves photographs taken at altitudes over 8000 feet in the Andean Highlands to the East and West of Quito. Colourful birds include Cotingas (like Andean Cock-of-the-rock) and a variety of Hummingbirds. We will cover some of the 145 species that were photographed.
Everyone is welcome to attend. We will ask for a donation of $1 per person to go to the Legion to cover the cost of the room. See you there!
Planning for the May Species Counts is already under way. There are two southern Alberta counts besides the Calgary one that many Calgarians take part in – Brooks/Lake Newell, and Milk River/Writing-on-Stone. The Brooks count is in its 24th year and MR/WOS is in its 22nd. The organizers would like to get more people participating in both counts. Since birders from the city have to arrange accomodation for these, you have to start your planning now. (Note that the Calgary count is May 27-28, the same weekend as Writing-on-Stone, so you will have a choice to make.)
Below is the information about the counts and booking camping. There is more information in the attached brochures. If you have questions, please contact the count organizers.
Lark Sparrow. Photo by Bob Lefebvre, May 31, 2020.
_____________________________________________
Hello Alberta Bird Counters! We are pleased to announce that the 2023 Brooks and Writing-on-Stone Bird Counts will take place on the following dates:
· Brooks-Lake Newell Bird Count: Sat. May 20 and Sun. May 21
· Milk River – Writing-on-Stone Bird Count: Sat. May 27 and Sun. May 28
If you plan on camping we highly recommend booking early!
Tillebrook Provincial Park: general reservations for May 19-21 will open at 9 am on Saturday February 18. www.reserve.albertaparks.ca or 1-877-537-2757
Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park: general reservations for May 26-28 will open at 9 am on Saturday February 25. www.reserve.albertaparks.ca or
1-877-537-2757
Note: a small non-refundable fee of $12 per person will be charged to all Brooks participants to help cover the rental of the Brooks Legion meeting room.
Please indicate interest in participating to Debra Hornsby in advance of registration. Registration forms will be emailed by March 27. The 2023 count brochure provides further information and a draft count schedule.
We look forward to seeing all of you — and thousands of migrating birds — at the end of May!
To indicate interest contact: debra.hornsby.banff*@*gmail.com
More information: Donna Wieckowski astolat*@*shaw.ca
The next Calgary Birds & Beers meeting will be this coming Friday at the the Horton Road Legion. There will be a presentation by Bob and Dianne Leonhardt about their 2022 trip to Elk Island and Cold Lake parks.
Royal Canadian Legion, Centennial Calgary Branch #285,
9202 Horton Road SW.
Friday February 10, 2023, 6:00-9:00 pm
We start at 6 pm, and there will be time for socializing, eating, and drinking before the presentation begins after 7 pm. Here are the details of the talk.
Sunset at Elk Island Park
Gas Yaki Walk 2022: A camping trip to Elk Island National Park and Cold Lake Provincial Park by Bob and Dianne Leonhardt
In 2017 a group of us hiked across Southern Alberta with our friend and outstanding naturalist, Gus Yaki. Since that time some of the group, and anyone else who was interested, has been conducting an annual trip involving exploring some of the beautiful scenery and wildlife in Alberta and Saskatachewan. In 2022 we traveled north to visit Elk Island National Park and Cold Lake Provincial Park. Elk Island, only about 35 kilometres east of Edmonton, is a wonderful location for seeing wildlife and doing some hiking. Cold Lake, about 250 kilometres north east of Elk Island, is one of the premiere places in Alberta to witness the spring migration of warblers.
Next Friday will be the first Birds & Beers meeting of the new year. We meet at 6 pm at the Horton Road Legion. Everyone is welcome to come.
Royal Canadian Legion, Centennial Calgary Branch#285,
9202 Horton Road SW.
Friday January 13, 2023, 6:00-9:00 pm
Nesting Red-necked Grebes at the Bridlewood Wetland, Calgary, May Species Count 2021. Photo by Bob Lefebvre.
Aftere an hour or so of socializing, eating, and drinking, there will be a presentation by Andrew Hart and Lara Fitzpatrick on the Calgary May Species Count. They will present the history of the count and how it has evolved since its inception in 1976. They will discuss the areas that are covered, how the count is organized, and how and why they have migrated to eBird for data collection. Then the actual 2022 results will be shown, as well as a look ahead to how things may evolve for 2023.
A monument to Gus will be erected in Fish Creek Park in 2023 by the Alberta Champions Society.
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
The Alberta Champions Society in Recognition of Community Enrichment was formed to commemorate, recognize and honour those Albertans that have made a significant contribution to the community in the city of Calgary and area. The Society has so far erected six “Fields of Fame” around the city as tributes to men and women of the past who contributed to the Calgary of today. The seventh set of monuments will be erected in Fish Creek Park in 2023.
Gus Yaki with an injured Ring-billed Gull found while leading a field trip in Fish Creek Provincial Park. Photo by Bob Lefebvre
The Fields of Fame are groupings of structural steel, architecturally designed which are placed at prominent locations throughout the city to commemorate the accomplishments of those Calgarians who have made a lasting contribution to Calgary.
Each Field of Fame includes six steel “sheaves of wheat”, thirteen feet high, symbolic of the prairies and the farm and ranching culture that formed the early backbone of the Calgary area.
Each sheaf of wheat includes a brief history on the individual being honoured, with a photograph and wording designed to highlight the import and significant contribution made by the particular individual to the fabric of the Calgary community.
The Field of Fame at Spruce Meadows. (Photo from the Alberta Champions Society website; used by permission.)
Gus Yaki was a lifelong birder, naturalist, and conservationist who had an enormous impact on Calgary from the time he arrived in 1993 until his passing in 2020 at the age of 87. (See this for more about Gus’s life and work.)
Those of us who were fortunate enough to know Gus and to learn from him are very pleased to see him being honoured in this way, and to have the monument erected in a place that was special to him. Gus passed away in August 2020, and due to Covid, a memorial service could not be held. Gus’s son David Yaki then planned a memorial for 2021, but again Covid forced a cancellation of the event. So it is very gratifying that there will be an event to honour Gus when the Fish Creek Field of Fame is completed in late 2023.
The future site of Field of Fame #7 in Fish Creek Park, near the Visitor’s Centre at Bow Valley Ranch. (Photo from the Alberta Champions Society website; used by permission.)
The other six people being honoured along with Gus are Virnetta Anderson, Peter Prince, Charles (Chuck) Mawer, Roderick (Roddy) Mah, Michael Green, and Narcisse Blood. The seven monuments will be erected near the visitor’s centre in the Bow Valley Ranch area of Fish Creek Park. It is expected to be completed in late 2023.
The Alberta Champions Society appreciates all financial donations from the community. Donations help to cover the costs of the monument and its installation. See the Donations page here. For more information on supporting this project, contact Pat Christie, the Executive Director of the Champions Society, at pat.christie[at]telus.net. Donors will be recognized either at the installation or on the Champions Society website, and a receipt will be issued. I know the Christmas season brings a lot of appeals for donations, so save the link and perhaps consider donating later in 2023 if you can.
I will give further updates on this project and its completion date in the coming months.
I’d like to acknowledge the efforts of Champions Society Board Member John Currie, who knew Gus and had birded with him. John nominated Gus for this honour and spearheaded the effort to include him in Field Of Fame #7. Sadly, Mr. Currie, himself a pillar of the community, passed away in October 2022.
Gus’s son David has been spreading the word about this project and sees it as fitting, and permanent, tribute to his father.
Nic Blanchet, the Executive Director of the Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society, was instrumental in getting approval for erecting the monument in the park, which was a challenging process.
Thanks also to Champions Society President Gordon Hoffman who gave permission to use photos and other material from the Champions website.
We now have the Birds & Beers social events scheduled for the first half of 2023. All the meetings will be held on the second Friday of each month, from 6 to 9 pm, at the Horton Road Legion (9202 Horton Road SW). Everyone is welconme to attend! We will try to have a presentation at each event. The January meeting, on Friday January 13th, will feature Andrew Hart and Lara Fitpatrick speaking about the Calgary May Species Count, with results from 2022 and a look ahead to the 2023 count.
An Eastern Kingbird in a field of Shooting Stars in the Longview area, on the 2022 May Species Count. Photo by Bob Lefebvre.
I will post more details on each meeting and each presentation a week or two before the event. Below is the schedule (which is also always posted on the right-hand sidebar of the blog). Remember, the second Friday of each month!
January 13 – May Species Count presentation.
February 10
March 10
April 14
May 12
June 9
We take a break from Birds & Beers in July and August, then resume for the fall season, September to November. I will post that schedule once the dates are booked. See you in January!
Fish Creek Provincial Park half-day count needs more birders!
Posted by Bob Lefebvre
Each year on January 1st there is a half-day bird count done in Fish Creek Provincial Park. Team of birders go out to sevearal locations in the park, and we count all the species we can find, and the numbers of each. We find around 35-40 species on average.
The resident pair of Great Horned Owls in our section of Fish Creek Provincial Park, 2008. Sometimes we find one or two of the owls on the count, and sometimes not. Photo by Bob Lefebvre.
Jim Washbrook has organized the count for several years, and he invites interested birders to contact him to join one of the field teams. You can email Jim at jwashbrook1{at}gmail.com.
The Fish Creek count is not an official Christmas Bird Count (CBC). CBC’s take place each year within a fixed 15-mile diameter (24 km diameter) circle. CBC circles cannot overlap, and the Calgary count circle, which lies just north of Fish Creek Park, was established in 1952. Due to the long east-west geography of the park and its proximity to the Calgary circle, there is no way to fully enclose the park within another CBC circle.
The Calgary area showing the CBC circle, with Fish Creek Park (more or less!) outlined just south of the circle.
The Fish Creek Count was started in 1994 to document the changes in bird populations within the park in winter. As you can see below, species numbers, number of participants in the count, and of course temperature, can fluctuate from year to year.
Jim would like to increase the number of participants so that we can fully cover all the areas in the park. You will be placed in one area, with a team led by an experienced birder. Teams meet in their areas and begin at 9 am, and finish by noon. Maybe this year all the teams can again meet to compare notes afterwards, as we always did pre-pandemic. It looks like the weather will be pretty good, so it will be a great opportunity to come out and give it a try! And it’s a great way to kick-start your birding year!
In early December I posted about the start of Winter Birding season. As usual, we picked up almost all of the commonly-occcuring winter species pretty quickly for our list. Before last weekend’s Calgary Christmas Bird Count, we were at 87 species. But we added four new species on the Calgary Count on December 18 (Varied Thrush at Queen’s Park Cemetery, Northern Shoveler at Bonnybrook waste treatment plant on the Bow River, Gadwall at a couple of locations on the Bow, and a Common Grackle seen at a feeder in SE Calgary). So, as of December 20, we were at 91 species for the Calgary region.
Common Grackle, photographed in mid-December in SE Calgary by Jennifer Howson. (Yes, I have spoken to her about the bread!)
The extreme cold weather we have been having is keeping birders from going out, and the birds are often sheltering, so one might think we would have a low number of species this year. But it is in line with the past few years:
Year
Total on Dec. 20
Final Total
2019
89
109
2020
98
119
2021
92
118
2022
91
???
(Data courtesy of Caroline Lambert. Caroline has done most of the work on the Calgary list again this year, as well as maintaining the Bow Valley list.)
There are several other Christmas Bird Counts in the region in the next ten days, so we should get a few more species on those. (Nature Calgary’s site has some information on some of the other counts if you wish to take part. There are also some Long-term Foothills Counts that may need addditional participants.) And then there is the long stretch from the beginning of January to the end of February to find more species. So we might end up with a total of well over 100 species again.
Northern Pygmy-Owl, Calgary, February 2008. We haven’t yet had a report of one in the 80-km circle. Some winters they are right in the city. Photo by Bob Lefebvre.
Some of the species that haven’t been reported yet this year but that we are still likely to find include Wild Turkey, Northern Pygmy-Owl, and Short-eared Owl. Those have all been seen in the five previous winters. American Kestrel and Red-winged Blackbird have also been seen in each of the last five winters, but I wonder if it is now less likely at this point that they will turn up. We have a good chance to get Clark’s Nutcracker (seen in three of the past five years but known to winter in nearby areas) and Black-backed Woodpecker (seen in four of the past five). Hoary Redpolls have also been seen in four of five years, but the low numbers of Redpolls around this year will make it a real challenge.
If you see somethig that is not yet on the list, please report it on the Albertabird site.
Meanwhile, over in the Bow Valley near Canmore and Banff, they have 55 species so far. They may not get to the record of 74 for the season, but should have a respectable total in the 60’s. You can follow the Bow Valley Birding Group on Facebook here.
Check out the Alberta Winter Bird List site to see the lists for Calgary, the Bow Valley, Edmonton, and the overall Provincial list.
I recently posted about the Calgary Christmas Bird Count, which is a week from today, on Sunday December 18th. Birders, like everyone else, have a lot of committments at this time of year, and we find ourselves a little short of help on some of the field routes. In particular, we need a few people who are good birders and also quite fit, who are able to do long walk through some difficult terrain. One such area is the Paskapoo Slopes near Canada Olympic Park, which has many deep ravines. Last year there was a Barred Owl at the west end of that area, but we missed it! We also need help in the Edgemont Ravines, and possibly in East Calgary at Elliston Park and area (Elliston is not as challenging of a walk). These are all good areas, so you might find something special!
Barred Owl, photographed on Count Day in 2021 near Cougar Ridge. We didn’t know about it until long after the count. Photo by Orlando Pastran, courtesy of Joachim Bertrands.
If you are not up to a long difficult route, or are less experienced, you are still welcome to help out in the field. You will be placed on a team with experienced birders.
For those of you who can’t make it out in the field but watch birds in your yard, we will take as many Feeder Watchers as we can get! We are particularly short in the NE quadrant of the city. Feeder-Watching does not require a long time commitment and can be done in as little as fifteen minutes, or in intervals during the day. Of course, to take part you must live within the count circle.
The Calgary Christmas Bird Count Circle, from Google Earth. Look at all the green space we have to cover!
If you would like to participate this year, or even if you just want more information or may want to take part next year, please fill out the registration form and we will be in contact with you.
