Tag Archive | migrating birds

Online Film – Avian Summer

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Photographer and filmmaker Rick Andrews has produced a wonderful wildlife documentary about some of our local birds. Avian Summer has fantastic high-resolution video of birds that migrate into Southern Alberta each spring, where they come to find a mate and raise the next generation, before migrating south again in the fall. Watch the trailer below.

Avian Summer by Rick Andrews – trailer.

The full film is available to rent or purchase on the Vimeo platform. The cost is $8 for a three-day rental, and $25 to buy. You can watch it on your phone, tablet, or computer. (I played it on my phone and streamed it to our TV, and it looked fantastic.) Proceeds from Avian Summer will benefit the Growing the Grassroots Endowment Fund in support of nature-based interpretive programming at the Helen Schuler Nature Centre in Lethbridge.

I really enjoyed this thirty-seven minute film. It focuses mostly on waterfowl, raptors, herons, and cranes, and a few songbirds. There are a lot of great sequences of birds raising their young.

Rick Andrews is a conservation wildlife photographer and filmmaker from Southern Alberta. He has many other excellent films available for free on Vimeo, so be sure to check them out. (It is free to sign up on Vimeo.) Rick’s collection of films showcases resident wildlife in Southern Alberta, including the full-length documentary Wildlife of the Oldman River Valley (2018), as well as several documentary shorts including Great Horned Owls (2020), Country Club Marmots (2019), and Lethbridge Wild Turkeys (2018).

Here is the poster from the film’s online premier, which was on June 25. The question & answer session with Rick is available to view on the Helen Schuler Nature Center Facebook page here.

Check out these excellent productions, and help support conservation in southern Alberta.

You can follow Rick Andrews on Facebook here.

Friends of the Helen Schuler Nature Centre Society.

Spring Birds at Frank Lake and Carburn Park

May19

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Here are some birds that Tony LePrieur photographed at Frank Lake on April 27. All of these species can still be found there throughout the breeding season, along with dozens more. All photos by Tony LePrieur.

American Avocet, Frank Lake, April 27, 2019.

American Coot, Frank Lake, April 27, 2019.

Black-necked Stilt, Frank Lake, April 27, 2019.

The next day, after an overnight snowstorm in Calgary, there were quite a few migrating songbirds at Carburn Park. Tony was able to get some great shots of Yellow-rumped Warblers.

These are the Myrtle subspecies of Yellow-rumped Warbler. The Audubon’s subspecies has a yellow throat and lacks the dark mask. Most of the ones we see here are Myrtles heading for the boreal forest. Audubons breed farther west, but we do see both on migration.

There are still flocks of Yellow-rumps moving through the city now. Keep an eye out in parks and even in your yard!

Lafarge Meadows – Spring has arrived!…?

Mar31

Posted by Dan Arndt

March 20th, 2014 was the first day of spring. The Google Earth image that I’m using for this week’s map was from March 28, 2004, and seems to show much more open water on the Bow River, a bit of open water on both ponds at the park on the east side of the Bow River. It just goes to show how much colder, snowier, and icier this year has been (and continues to be!) than last.

Lafarge Meadows
March 23, 2014

Of course no visit to Lafarge Meadows and Sikome Lake is ever complete without a visit to the resident Great Horned Owls. With Dad on watch and Mom on the nest, it looks like they’re off to another good start this year. In fact, it won’t be too long now until the young start to poke their heads up and explore their new environment!

male Great Horned Owl
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 500

female Great Horned Owl
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 800

After a few weeks of them being more or less absent on the river, the Canada Goose numbers were back up as migrants began their trip north to their breeding grounds once again. This particular stretch of river is rather good for finding birds staging before their trek further north, or to disperse around the countryside near Calgary.

Canada Goose
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 800

Canada Geese in flight
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 800

We were even lucky enough to see a (seemingly) early Mountain Bluebird along the river. While we only saw it at a distance, it was more than enough to be certain of the ID. Chances are good that this bird is finding enough to eat along the edge of the river with the various insects that are still present in the water, as well as egg sacs, larvae, and various other food sources near the banks of the river.

Canada Goose
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 200

We ventured quite far south at Lafarge Meadows in hopes of finding some other birds a little bit closer to the water’s edge, but didn’t get anything much more interesting than the Mountain Bluebird until we headed back the other way. It all seemed to come fast and busy, with this adult Bald Eagle landing very close by to start, followed quickly by the sighting of some American Wigeon across the river, and then finding our first Killdeer of the season in amongst them!

Bald Eagle
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 400

American Wigeon and Killdeer
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 500

Our last “new” birds of the day was a fly-by of a fairly sizeable flock of California Gulls, two of which flew by quite low, allowing for a much better view (and photos) than we had the previous week at Pearce Estate Park!

California Gulls
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 160

While I didn’t get too many good shots last week, I guarantee you’ll enjoy the ones I was able to capture this week. See you next Monday, and until then, good birding!

Where are the warblers?

Mar16

Posted by Dan Arndt

On our outing last week, I mentioned an idea to Bob Lefebvre about setting up a post showing our readers where some of our summer migrants are right now, and maybe keeping it updated on a weekly basis. Easy enough to do using eBird, but in doing a quick Google search, I found out that Greg Miller (yes, that Greg Miller,) had already done a similar post, which I’ll link to below.

I do plan on setting up a resource page right here on Birds Calgary, tailored to our own favourite locals, but for now, here’s Greg’s great summary this topic.

Where are the Eastern Wood Warblers Now? – 2014

Just follow the link and click on any of the names of your favourite Wood Warbler species for an up to the minute update on their migration progress! As of this post, almost all of these species have landed in the southern United States, pushing northward on a daily basis. Many of them first arrive on the coast of Florida, Texas, and Louisiana before moving ever northward to their breeding grounds in the Boreal Forest of northern Canada, while others may breed further south in their preferred breeding habitats. The hardiest of them all, the Yellow-rumped Warblers, most of which over-winter in the continental United States, have pushed even further northward, into the interior of British Columbia, Washington state, and in the interior, as far north as northern Colorado and Utah.

Spring is on the way!

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