Tag Archive | Harris’s Sparrow

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Nov12

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

In early October a Golden-crowned Sparrow showed up in the yard of local birder Brian Elder. This species is almost never seen in the city. The bird stayed in the area for a few days, and many local birders were able to see it. Gavin McKinnon photographed it on October 8.

Golden-crowned Sparrow, NW Calgary, October 8, 2017. Photo by Gavin McKinnnon.

Golden-crowned Sparrows are normally found in the western mountains of North America. They breed as far north as Alaska, and migrate to the west coast of the continental US to spend the winter (they are also present in winter on the BC coast and southern mainland, and some overwinter on the western Alaskan coast). The occasional one that turns up here is probably on its way to the west coast of the US.

Golden-crowned Sparrow, NW Calgary, October 8, 2017. Photo by Gavin McKinnnon.

This species is in the genus Zonotrichia, which also includes Harris’s Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, and White-throated Sparrow (all of which can be seen in Calgary), and the Rufous-collared Sparrow which is native to Mexico, Central and South America. White-crowned and White-throated Sparrows breed here, and many more are seen in Calgary on migration as well. Harris’s Sparrow (the only songbird that breeds exclusively in Canada) migrates mostly through Manitoba and Saskatchewan, but a few are seen here every spring and fall.

When the Golden-crowned Sparrow was in Brian’s yard, a Harris’s Sparrow was also present. Gavin photographed this bird too.

Harris’s Sparrow, NW Calgary, October 8, 2017. Photo by Gavin McKinnnon.

At one point, both a White-crowned and a White-throated Sparrow were also there, so Brian had all four of the local Zonotrichia species in his yard at the same time – certainly a very rare and possibly unique circumstance for Calgary.

These four species are all large and similar in structure. Here are the other two local Zonotrichia species, photographed in Calgary in earlier years by Dan Arndt.

White-throated Sparrow, February 2, 2014. Photo by Dan Arndt.

White-crowned Sparrow, September 11, 2015. Photo by Dan Arndt.

All of these birds are first-year or immature birds. Adults are more distinctive but are more often seen in the spring.

Here is a photo of the other Zonotrichia species, the Rufous-collared Sparrow. If you see one of these, you are no longer in Calgary.

Rufous-collard Sparrow from Wikimedia Commons. By BERNARDO VALENTIN – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51781854

 

Sunday Showcase: Autumn in Calgary’s Parks

Oct30

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Catching up with some great autumn photos of Calgary Birds and Mammals, taken by Tony LePrieur from September 25 to October 16, 2016. The locations were the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, Carburn Park, Fish Creek Provincial Park, and the Weaselhead Nature Area.

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Boreal Chickadee, Bebo Grove, FCPP, September 25, 2016. The bird has no tail. Birds don’t molt all their tail feathers at once, so this indicates it probably survived an attack of some kind.

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Great Horned Owl, Bebo Grove, FCPP, September 25, 2016. These resident owls are fairly common it the city. Pairs will be spending the days resting on their winter roosts now, and by February (or sometimes even January) they will be on their nests, incubating eggs.

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Great Blue Heron, Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, October 16, 2016. The herons have usually all migrated by mid-October, but a few may stay later.

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Harris’s Sparrow, seen at the south end of the big bridge over the Elbow River in the Weaselhead on October 16, 2016. The bird was seen for at least a week, from October 16 to October 25. These Sparrows mostly migrate well east of Calgary and are a bit of a rarity here. They sometimes overwinter, so it is worth looking for.

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American Tree Sparrow. These arctic breeders are passing through here now and some overwinter here.

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Dark-eyed Junco. These sparrows are pretty common here in the winter and can be seen in residential areas right now, often feeding on the ground under bird feeders.

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American Robin bathing.

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American Robin. They passed through here on migration in huge numbers a few weeks ago, but there are always quite a few that overwinter here, mostly in the river valleys.

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Northern Flicker (male). A migratory woodpecker, but again there are always lots in Calgary in the winter – either some local breeders that overwinter, or birds that bred farther north and migrated this far. They will readily come to suet and nut feeders.

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Downy Woodpecker (male). A year-round resident that also will come to feeders.

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Coyote.

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Black-backed Woodpecker. A bit of a rarity in the city, they are occasionally seen in the west end of Fish Creek Park, from Bebo Grove to Shannon Terrace. This one was photographed there on October 23, 2016.

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Pileated Woodpecker (male). Another resident woodpecker.

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Rough-legged Hawk. This is the common buteo in our region in the winter. They have arrived in good numbers from their northern breeding grounds. Most commonly seen outside the city, especially west of the city.

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Black-capped Chickadee. Year-round resident.

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Muskrat. They are active all winter in open water.

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Mule Deer buck.

See more of Tony’s Photos on his Flickr page.

Share your bird photos from the Calgary area. Just email them to birdscalgary@gmail.com.

Christmas Bird Count in East Calgary

Dec26

It’s been a busy week, but now I finally have time to post about my Christmas Bird Count experience.  This year I was assigned to cover route E8 with Andrew Hart.  This area is a narrow strip along the eastern edge of the count circle, bordering 84 Street at the extreme east edge of the circle, and reaching to McKnight Boulevard in the NE and Shepard Road in the SE.  It is an area that requires a lot of driving, scanning the open areas for raptors.  We had high hopes of finding a Prairie Falcon, or perhaps even a Snowy Owl.

The only open water is in the northeast corner of Elliston Lake, but this can harbour a lot of waterfowl at times.  We went there twice, and unfortunately there were very few birds on the water.  We did find four Hooded Mergansers, which were only reported on one other route, and also the only Lesser Scaup of the day.  Other than that, there were only Mallards, Canada Geese, and Common Goldeneyes.

Although we failed to find a Snowy Owl or a Prairie Falcon, we did find three Rough-legged Hawks on the day, two of which I managed to photograph.  Here is one with typical markings.

 

The other one, pictured perched below, had much darker underwings when it flew (which I failed to photograph).

The highlight as far as raptors went was a Northern Harrier, which was the only one reported on the count.  We didn’t get a picture, but after it flew, we saw something else in the shrubs along 50 Avenue and 68 Street SE, so we got out to investigate.  We flushed ten Ring-necked Pheasants out of the ditch, 7 males and 3 females or immatures.  Then we noticed that there were flocks of small birds all along the shrubs there, which proved to be upwards of 200 Common Redpolls (we tried to find a Hoary Redpoll among them, but no luck).

Common Redpoll (photo by Andrew Hart).

When we were checking out the redpolls, one bird stood out as much larger than the rest.  It was clearly a sparrow of some kind, but with the sun behind it we couldn’t initially see the colours or markings very well, and we weren’t sure what it was.  We lost track of it for a while, and I went around to the other side of the bushes.  We found three American Tree Sparrows among the redpolls, and although that wasn’t what our mystery sparrow was, they were good birds for the count, since only six were reported altogether, an unusually low number.

American Tree Sparrow (photo by Andrew Hart).

Finally the large sparrow reappeared, and with sun behind me I could see it well enough to see that it was a first-year Harris’s Sparrow.  These aren’t common here at any time, and only two were seen on count day.

Harris’s Sparrow (photo by Andrew Hart).

Harris’s Sparrow (photo by Andrew Hart).

Also nearby, on 51 Avenue near 68 Street, we saw a dozen Gray Partridges.  I got a poor photo of one.

We spent some time checking out the residential areas in the northeast, where we turned up a few new species.  The highlight was a pair of American Crows.  Terry Koryluk, who usually covers this route but was unable to this year, told us that there were two hanging out near Lester B. Pearson High School on 52 Street.  As soon as we pulled up there, the crows appeared and perched in a tree right in front of us.

We saw a lot of magpies, and the biggest concentration was at this deer carcass.

As for mammals, we saw a dozen (living) Mule Deer in all, and a few Eastern Gray Squirrels, but surprisingly, we saw no Coyotes.

Altogether we recorded 20 species of birds for the day, and although we missed a couple that we hoped to see, we saw a couple of others that were pleasant surprises.  The mild weather and the excellent wind-up at the Flynns’ made it another very enjoyable Christmas Bird Count.

Posted by Bob Lefebvre