Long Weekend in Southern Alberta

Guest Post by Mira Furgoch

Last weekend I went on a four day long birding trip from Edmonton, AB to Brooks, AB with some friends from the Edmonton Nature Club.


Friday - Driving South

We ventured out of the city around 9am with our sights set on a small pond in Holden where a five species goose flock (Snow, Ross's, Canada, Cackling and Greater White-fronted) had been hanging out last weekend. To our pleasure the geese were still there!

Snow, Ross's, Canada, Cackling and Greater White-fronted Geese the weekend before this trip (May 12, 2013)

(Please excuse the photo quality, and the giant dust spot on my lens. Luckily for us all I travelled with some other great photographers.)

From Holden we birded our way south, stopping at Big Knife Provincial Park for lunch. As we continued our dive south we got our first few looks at Long-billed Curlew's as they flew across the road to land in a field on the other side.

Long-billed Curlew by Dawne Colwell

We also started seeing lots of Western Meadowlarks, Savannah Sparrows and Chestnut-collared Longspurs, which we would soon get used to seeing as we searched all the longspurs for a, rarer, McCown's Longspur amongst them...

Chestnut-collared Longspur by Dawne Colwell

Swainson's Hawks were abundant and quite tame, allowing us to sneak up right beside them for fantastic looks.

Swainson's Hawk by Janice Hurlburt

And we finally arrived in Brooks, about an hour later than we were expected, but it had been worth it.


Saturday - Count Day!

We were split up into groups for the 15th Annual Brooks May Species Count. I joined a team of Edmonton birders covering the Majorville Medicine Wheel region of the count area west of the Bow River.

Looking down upon the Bow River near Brooks

This area had a lot of natural grassland and duck ponds full of waterfowl and shorebirds. Northern Shovelers, Gadwall, Wilson`s Phalaropes, Yellow-headed Blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbirds and Vesper Sparrows were most abundant, but it was also great to see a fair number of American Avocets, Marbled Godwits and Cinnamon Teal.

American Avocets by Janice Hurlburt

Marbled Godwit by Dawne Colwell

Cinnamon Teal by Dawne Colwell

We also got some great looks at a fluffed up Barn Swallow and some American White Pelican with large knobs on their beaks, which both males and females display in nesting season before eggs are laid.

Barn Swallow by Colleen Raymond

American White Pelicans

Eventually, under threat of rain we reached the end of the road, and climbed one of the highest hills in the area to the Medicine Wheel where we each left an offering.

Majorville Medicine Wheel

On our way back we made a stop near some agricultural fields and were pleasantly surprised at what we found. Two Ferruginous Hawks, a dark morph and a light morph on a nest, one of three Great Horned Owl nests we saw over the weekend and one of two Harris`s Sparrows we saw over the weekend. All within about 100m of each other!

Ferruginous Hawk by Janice Hurlburt

Great Horned Owl chicks by Janice Hurlburt

Another long but exciting day came to an end with 97 species seen.


Sunday - Provincial Parks and Fields

We started the day at Tillebrook Provincial park, where we saw many migrants including seven species of warbler, Baltimore Orioles, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, many Swainson`s Thrush and the second Harris`s Sparrow.

Harris`s Sparrow by Janice Hurlburt

Our next stop of the morning was Dinosaur Provincial Park (one of the coolest places I have ever been!) to look for Say`s Phoebe, Rock Wren, Lark Sparrows and Spotted Towhee.

Dinosaur Provincial Park

After a couple of us got a little lost (due to the distraction caused by a close up Red-naped Sapsucker) we ventured through the rugged terrain and found all of our target birds!

Red-naped Sapsucker by Janice Hurlburt

The Rock Wren was putting on a real show singing from the top of a rocky hill.

Rock Wren by Janice Hurlburt

Lark Sparrow by Janice Hurlburt

Later in the afternoon we ventured out around the countryside continuously checking all the longspurs to try and find a McCown`s until finally we found a small flock with two creeping through the grass!

McCown`s Longspur by Janice Hurlburt

All weekend I had been hoping to see a Prairie Falcon, so it was just my luck that when the car ahead spotted one on the fence post and pointed out the window to the right, that I started scanning the field and totally missed the falcon flying across the road and over the field on the left... Might this become my nemesis bird?


All was not lost however because after about 30 minutes waiting in the rain Sunday afternoon (watching Ferruginous Hawks hunting baby hares) we saw the bird that probably made my weekend...

Burrowing Owl by Janice Hurlburt

Monday - Back North-West

On our drive back we hit up some popular birding locations towards Calgary, Frank Lake and Weed Lake. The lakes had a variety of waterfowl and (especially Weed Lake) shorebirds. We got some great looks at a White-faced Ibis which flew into our area.

White-faced Ibis by Janice Hurlburt

There was a large number of Black-necked Stilts nesting in the area.

Black-necked Stilt by Janice Hurlburt

All in all it was an amazing trip, I had a fantastic time exploring southern Alberta!

Many thanks to the wonderful ladies I travelled with for sharing their experience and photos with me! Thank you Colleen, Janice, Dawne and Heather.

Weed Lake

Thunder Bay to Rainy River - May 22

The last stretch of our drive to Rainy River included many stops along the way. One of our first stops was an unexpected stop at a flooded section on the road to Silver Islet:

The flooding wasn't enough to stop us, but we did see/hear over 10 species of warbler at that location alone! There are a ton of migrants around up here. It's been better than many of the slow days along Lake Erie earlier this spring.

At Silver Islet we found a Northern Mockingbird. A cool bird for the north shore of Lake Superior!

Almost predictable, a Clay-colored Sparrow was feeding under the local feeder:

A cold Cedar Waxwing was nearby watching all the action around the feeders:

We didn't spend much time at Silver Islet. The next stops were at the hotspots in Thunder Bay. Mission Island had a bunch of shorebirds, and several singing Clay-colored Sparrows. From here on, Clay-colored Sparrows remained quite common and lost much of their excitement!

The scenery around Thunder Bay is fascinating with many large hills/mounts, that once must have been islands:

At Chippewa park we found another good bird, an Eared Grebe was far in the distance but not too far for my 50x point and shoot camera!

While we were driving over 100 along the highway towards Rainy River, Mike amazingly picked out an unusual looking bird perched on a post on the side of the road. A quick turn around and we were looking at a Townsend's Solitaire! Nice!

At the Emo sewage lagoons this American Golden-Plover was an unexpected find!

136 Wilson's Phalaropes were at the Rainy River sewage lagoons! Easily beating any of my previous high counts.

The last unexpected find of the day was a Hudsonian Godwit. This Blue-winged Teal was trying to steal all the attention:

Beautiful bird:

Nearby, one of many Brewer's Blackbirds was singing:

That evening we had our first of many Yellow-headed Blackbirds:

We're still on the road today (May 24), and have already finished our visit at Rainy River. We'll be taking our time traveling along the Lake Superior shoreline over the next few days.

This new camera has been great for getting lots of great pictures! I already have a big back log of photos waiting to be posted! There's 15 on this post alone... I'll have to brag about the camera some day when I have more time... Definitely check it out though if you're looking into getting a new point & shoot. The model is: Canon Powershot sx50 hs... all these photos were taken with it.

Wawa to Thunder Bay

Today we spent more time birding the communities along the North shore of Lake Superior and less time on the highway. Much of the coastline here reminds me of Newfoundland. If someone took a picture from one of the bays of Lake Superior I don't think I'd be able to distinguish it from a bay in NL...

One of our first stops was at Pic River, a seemingly abandoned community along a large river. There were plenty of birds at the river mouth. There were hundreds of Dunlin, Horned Larks, American Pipit, and Lapland Longspurs.

In Marathon we walked the railway bed hoping to stir up some interesting sparrows. There were plenty of Savannah Sparrows and White-crowned Sparrows. We still haven't found a Gambell's White-crowned Sparrow despite scrutinizing about 30% of the White-crowned Sparrows we've been seeing.

A flock of Horned Larks included several Lapland Longspurs, including one male close to full breeding plumage:

A Field Sparrow in Marathon was a good find (apparently) with only 19 previous records in the Northern Ontario region (before 2012)! It was feeding from a lawn, where we watched it for no more than 30 seconds before we lost interest in this common species for Southern Ontario...

I was happier to see this Clay-colored Sparrow even though they're not nearly as rare:

In Terrace Bay a flock of 15 swans turned out to be the least expected species, Mute Swans. Another rarity for Northern Ontario (only 11 records prior to 2012) but a similarly not very exciting find, even though it's a record high for this large region!

It has been raining a lot here over the last few days. Some of the highways have been washed out resulting in closed roads. Luckily we haven't been delayed too much yet. This Bald Eagle didn't seem to be doing very well: