Beaverhill Lake Bird Watching

I spent Sunday morning in the forest bordering Beaverhill Lake a few miles east of Tofield, Alberta. I was alone on this quest, just enjoying the peace of this beautiful place. I carried my binoculars, camera and tripod down a grassy trail lined with willows and young aspen.

It was a gorgeous sunny morning with the big blue sky filled with billowing clouds warning of possible rain showers later in the day. Aspen leaves have nicely emerged from their sticky buds, still less than half their full size, very odoriferous displaying that beautiful bright green that is so full of spring time promise. A light breeze rattled and rustled the leaves against it's neighbour with a muffled murmur.

Where Does This Trail Lead?

Cheeps, and peeps and songs issued from the treetops from various warblers that I struggled with kinked neck to see and identify. I think they are ventriloquists sometimes as I try to find them by sound alone. Mostly it is a flit of quick movement that I finally spy to get a location at which to point my unfocused binoculars. By the time I get focused the little flash of colour has moved to another limb. I try to bring my camera to focus at other times and may even get a quick glimpse but by the time I press the shutter release a leaf has fluttered between us knocking the auto-focus out of whack. Why do they not sit still for a minute? I am not going to hurt them. Why do they always seem to sit with a leaf or limb partially obscuring them from my lens?

Yellow Warbler

I look at myself from their perspective once I sat down on a bench to contemplate. Here is a large critter prowling down a trail peering here and there, as if hunting. I am a predator to the bird, one more they have to watch out for in this dangerous world. Every time the bird lands, I stop, stare at it, then lift my two big eyes, (binoculars) up to stare even harder. Then I focus my big eye (camera with telephoto) on the little bird. Now I get real stealthy as I try to hold still and not shake too hard. (stalking cat like) I move side ways or closer to get a clear view (the better to pounce). No wonder the little guy doesn't want to sit still. It is about to get attacked.
I have talked previously about sitting still for a while and let the world around us settle down to normal routine. I may even get a bit of a blind to wrap myself in and try that. I have always enjoyed sitting still anyways, especially if there is a wide view.  I got a few shots at least and when I did sit still. I got a few shots of various black birds once they got used to the idea that they could move quicker than I.

Shucks, everything can move faster than I can anymore. All in all it was a very enjoyable three hours of peace and relaxation with the wild birds.
I noticed along the road into this refuge many birdhouse now occupied by tree swallows. Last year and the year before they were almost all inhabited by blue birds. Are the swallows chasing the blue birds away?
Following is a list of birds I was able to reasonably able to reliably identify on this tour:
Red winged blackbird
Yellow headed blackbird
Black Terns
Mallards
Northern Shoveller, more than I remember seeing other years.
Green winged teal
Blue winged teal
Sora  (heard)
American coots
Canada Geese
Tree swallows
Yellow warblers
American redstart
Eastern King bird
Sharp shinned hawk
Red tailed hawk
Horned grebe
Ruddy ducks
Common yellow throat
Bufflehead
Lesser scaup
Ring necked duck
Canvas back
Redhead
Gadwell
Mourning doves
Hairy woodpecker
Least flycatcher
Crow
Raven
Magpies
Horned lark
Robin
Swanson's Thrush
Savannah sparrow
All in all, a pretty good day for a stalking, photographing, predatory birdwatcher.
I took a different road home and paused at an area of shallow wells. You can always tell that when you see old windmills on abandoned homesteads. These windmills pumped water for household use or for filling cattle troughs.

I then enjoyed a Ukrainian lunch buffet at a small cafe in the town of Mundare. There was a Chinese cafe and the one I chose across from each other so had to flip a coin. Perogys and sausage won out. The only table left was for the "Old Farts" who apparently merge here every morning for coffee and current worldly affairs discussions.

I even paused for a look at one quircky item on the edge of the village of Lamont. This is the location of a large automobile wrecking yard and a limousine graveyard memorial. Don't ask why, ask why not! There has to one somewhere, right?
There is plenty of action and sights to see in this part of the world, if we can just get out there and quietly observe. This tour took about 6 hours.
www.wildviewfinders.ca

East Central Alberta Historic Tour

In my last post I talked about the wildlife we saw along the two day tour. I enjoy the birds and other critters as much as the scenery and the main attractions that we tend to gravitate towards. Today we headed toward the Fort George and Buckingham House fur trade museum east of Elk Point, Alberta. Even though this is our main destination there is plenty to see along varied routes.

Mundare Sausage

We paused for a few minutes in the village of Mundare to photograph and pick up a sample of famous Stawnichy's Ukrainian Sausage. There is a very large, realistic enough to want to take a bite of, statue of a sausage in the village square.Stawnichy's ship pepperoni and sausages to many regions of this province and is a major employer in Mundare. With pepperoni breath we headed north and east toward St. Paul. I remember being here one time a few years ago when I was driving truck. I came for a b-train load of salt which I delivered to a Rycroft highways department for winter highway frost removal. As we toured along the rolling Parkland aspen countryside we see evidence of European settlements, farmsteads long abandoned or sold, fence rows lined with large rocks and piles of small ones. These rock piles bring back memories of my youth spending days and weeks picking rocks and roots off our small fields. I still see a family of kids carrying pails full of rocks to the high wheeled wagon, up and down the fields on hot, dusty summer days. It seems that there is never an end to picking rocks. The larger rocks we could not carry, we rolled onto stone boats and if we couldn't roll them, we towed them off the field behind our John Deere AR or model 70 tractor.

Rock Piles Towed Off the Land

Along the way we notice old school sites, long abandoned to centralisation and population loss. The only thing left to remember these sites are the bronze plaques and perhaps a note in the local history books. When we paused for a few moments we think we can hear laughing and jostling kids lining up for class after the young school marm rings the little school bell. Horses stand hip shot at the hitch rail behind the one room school house as the last boy runs from the two hole outhouse.

We paused for a few minutes across from a beautifully preserved Orthodox church and cemetery. Some of these communities would have more than one church often competing for members or built as populations of people from differing languages, customs or religious faiths settled the region. The cemetery is large for this area remembering and honouring the settlers who worked so hard to settle in hope of an improved life. Homesteads were dolled out to families from Europe who were willing to move here, build a livable house and break 40 acres in 4 years. Some of these conditions were open to very loose interpretation but slowly the country filled up. We are slowly loosing the stories of the settlement of this land as the ageing pioneers are passing away.
Predating the farm settlements were the fur trade explorers and trappers trading with the original native settlers. Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Company both had competing fur trade forts overlooking the North Saskatchewan River just east of Elk Point. The river was the main highway and transportation route for trappers and traders for several years. They paddled up river from Hudson Bay or from the great lakes region carrying steel knives, muskets, bolts of cloth and beads to trade to the native people for beaver, muskrat, Lynx, wolf and ermine furs. This was not an easy life for anyone or as glamorous as we would like to think. This was a hard life, very physically demanding and dangerous. Boats and canoes often swamped, drowning the voyageurs. Small men were used as paddlers so more weight could be carried in canoes. These men would carry tremendous packs across portages or overland to trade posts. Interpreters at the museum honouring the fur trade tell us they would carry two packs of 90 pounds each, 180 pounds. Wow, sore backs, pulled and aching muscles with little trained medical help anywhere.

Overlook North Saskatchewan River from Ft. George

I enjoyed our visit to Ft. George and Buckingham House very much. It is well worth the drive just to step back in time and honor these hardy explorers.
We have to remember the native peoples who lived here for thousands of years before the white scourge arrived. They were hunter gatherers who travelled in harmony with the land. They moved with the buffalo, the berries and the weather. They utilised the whole animal that was hunted. They honoured and thanked them for their gift of life so the people could live. It was not an easy life but was a very earth friendly life. The native people did not wreak such havoc in 10,000 years as the white trappers, traders and settlers have in the two hundred years since we arrived. Even their skirmishes with enemy tribes was not as hard as the invisible killers we call small pox and influenza. These diseases decimated native villages often undiscriminating killing 80 to 90 percent of the population. Wise elders, powerful hunters, mothers and grandmothers as well as kids and babies died leaving surviving people looking for lost guidance and food. With the white invasion also came the loss of their main food source, the buffalo. An estimated 30 million buffalo were slaughtered for hides, leaving the carcasses to spoil in the hot sun. Ducks, geese, curlews, pigeons were also hunted to extinction or nearly so. The land was soon settled and treaty's signed, reserves established, residential schools tore families apart and treaty's were broken. We have not been kind to the native people or the land.
The land continues to provide only differently. Large farms now cultivate the former forested land with wheat and canola. Often, modern corporate farms have slowly bought out the former settlers. Decaying, dilapidated farmyards display the lofty dreams and desperate struggles that are now forgotten by current owners. Beautiful way of farm life has become incorporated big business dependant upon larger corporations who genetically modify seeds to glean maximum yield from tiring land. Can it continue?
I also see a new industry that has taken up residence on the land. Oil pump jacks and tanks no stand tall overlooking the landscape, much like the old grain elevators did. Often the farmer who owns the land that oil lies beneath now makes a fantastic income for lending their land to oil companies to cross and to drill for black gold. Pipelines criss-cross the land, soon unnoticeable once rehabbed.
We stayed for the night at Vermillion and toured the grounds of the Vermillion Agricultural College where my parents went to school as teenagers and met. It is still a very valuable educational institution today.

After breakfast we headed south toward Wainwright then turned west toward home. Many stops and pauses to see and try photograph birds and old homesteads delayed our tour but made it entertaining. We took a side trip to see the large Battle River Train Trestle. It is on the mainline connecting east to western Canada. This was an integral part of the settlement of the country. The railroad route made and broke many towns, depending upon their locations. We were lucky enough to see a grain train cross, even if the wrong way for best photos. What a marvel of engineering.
www.wildviewfinders.ca

East Central Alberta Tour Birds and Wildlife

Last weekend we took a tour to the St. Paul, Alberta region of east central Alberta. Our tour was exploratory searching for what ever we could find. It is a region rich in bird life, east European settlements and earlier fur trade and native peoples history. The route we chose wandered along highway 15 east of Ft. Saskatchewan then north and east of Mundare toward St. Paul. The area is a combination of Parkland converted to agriculture and oil fields. It is rolly terrain draining into the North Saskatchewan River system which will eventually drain into the Atlantic Ocean through Hudson Bay. It is dotted by pothole puddles of various sizes, depths and shapes full of life. Every puddle has a pair of ducks or geese floating or resting, hip shot, with head tucked under shady wing for a mid afternoon snooze. Sometimes there are many species in the same pool.

Semi-Palmated Plover

I saw in one pool that we paused beside a pair of American Avocets, a first for me, then as I struggled to handhold my camera for some shots, I spotted a pair of Plovers scurrying along the sandy shoreline. I could not identify which plover they might be so when I got home I sent photos to the Edmonton Nature Club for confirmation. As always, members were sure to help ID Semi-palmated Plovers, another first. Thank you ENC. Also in the same pond were several Canada Geese, Lesser Scaup, canvasback, nesting blue winged teal, mallards, northern shovellers, red-winged blackbirds, crows and magpies. Frogs croaked in the foreground as traffic roared past with little notice to the natural wonders so near.

We paused to try out a new camp stove at a small lake campsite. Burgers, potatoes, carrots and onions broiled on the griddle because I did not put together our new portable bar-b-que. It will be ready for the next trip.

Roadside lunch

Food was still delicious even with the added protein flying around us. Coffee was special with a wee dram of Baileys. We enjoyed a flyby of 3 small common terns and a pair of common loons floated and dove their hunting way past the beach. We were serenaded by little brown jobs of at least three different species, all to quick for me to get my camera lined up for identifier shots at least. I really struggle with these little but enjoyable birds. They are busy, colourful songsters working hard to maintain contact with each other, protecting territory and feeding themselves and their babies. After hot cherry and blueberry pie. I burned my tongue because I couldn't swish it around inside my mouth quick enough and couldn't suck in cold air faster and was too polite to spit it out in front of my laughing, dainty eating wife. Sure tasted good though and with a few gulps of cold water, no great damage was done.

I have always enjoyed the rolling countryside such as this that we drove through. We followed the breaks of the river and crossed several small or large drainage valleys as well as assorted forest lands. Jack pine, spruce mixed with stunted prairie aspen and scattered birch and willow as well as assorted caragana and Manitoba maple shelter belts all provide valuable shelter from wind, blizzard and sun for many species of birds and animals. Bright green leaves and buds are just emerging so have not hidden all the hawks, crows and magpie nests nestled into heavy tree crotches and limbs. The occasional head peers over the nest rim or a solitary mate stands attentive vigil on a nearby lofty perch, ready to repel any invaders. At one lookout above the river we noticed a very large, woody nest that suddenly expelled a bald eagle. It's shrill cry echoed across the river to where we stood watching as it traded spots with its mate.

I notice this year that there seem to be many northern shovellers. Maybe I just did not notice before but I am seeing them in almost every pothole puddle. I will have to get more opinions from wiser folk.

We even spotted a solitary snow goose standing a couple hundred yards from the road. It did not move while we watched so do not know if it was okay. It stood on alert watching us as we were not a normal passing vehicle. Birds are very sensitive to their surroundings so a vehicle that stops when all others roar past all day, is something to pay attention to.

Big Sky, Big Land

We stayed for the night at Vermilion then headed south and west toward home. Stopped for several bird sightings then paused for a look at a prairie dog colony. We saw two kinds of dogs, the first was the common gopher and the second was thirteen lined ground squirrel another first for me. A little further down the road was a large hawk carrying one ground squirrel meal off to a fence post. It flew on as I slowed down for a photo.

It was time to head for home so off we went. It was a very full day of touring with many highlights to remember. No matter were we travel in this region there is life amidst the farms, oilfields and settlements

www.wildviewfinders.ca

Goose has Finished Incubating, Now the Work Begins

On Friday morning she was still setting. Friday afternoon she was gone with her goslings. All that is left are a wind-tossed downy bed. It was 29 days that she sat on this nest.

Empty goose nest on top of old hay bale.

I missed seeing this particular goose but spent this evening with another family including their new babies. What a pleasure to spend some time watching a bit of their new lives. I watched as they tried to land on a distant island but the bank was too steep for the babies to crawl up. The family then swam across to the far bank where all could get high and dry. A couple of people walking their dogs got a bit too close so the family re-entered the water and swam to shore where I was sitting quietly. It wasn't too long until they settled down once they were left alone.

Mother Goose Answers a Question

It was just my pleasure for the next half hour or so as I sat on the grass photographing and watching quietly.

Free Ride

 I would just like to mention to people who have the pleasure of watching wildlife with babies. This is a very stressful time for parents. Please help the new parents by keeping a safe distance. It is easy to see when you are crowding their personal safety space.

Bed Time, All Tucked In

Body language is universally recognisable to all observers. Please keep your dogs leashed and well back from wild families. Dogs, close relatives to wolves and coyotes, are predators to all wildlife. Please show your kids the new babies and teach them respect at the same time. Teach your kids about body language, the rewards of patience and quietness as well as the protectiveness of Moms and Dads, just like theirs. Children need the connection to nature as part of their healthy upbringing.
Thank you to all who defend and protect youngsters. Thanks to all the great, loving Moms. Thank you to all hard working, protective dads. You are all working hard to make greatkids and future adults.,

All 6 Babies

www.wildviewfinders.ca

First Spring Flush

I think this is the latest in any year that I have seen the first flush of spring leaves. It is May 14 2014 and I saw the tops of distant aspen trees showing green leaves, finally. It has been a long drawn out winter, not real cold but long. November through almost mid May is too long. We had snow and still daytime highs barely above freezing last week. Farmers are just getting started field work and seeding into cold, wet soil. No canola yet just cold tolerant seeds such as peas and fava beans.

Canada Goose incubating her clutch of new generation

Birds are nesting irregardless of the chill. Patient mothers sit quietly on nests of down and grass diligently keeping precious eggs perfectly warm. I have been watching a goose that is setting on a nest nestled onto the top of an old, round hay bale. She began her vigil on the weekend of April 19. It will be interesting to see when she crosses the field with her goslings in tow.
I am also watching a pair of Swainson's hawks guarding their lofty pile of sticks high in the top of an aspen tree in a small copse beside a farmers hay field. This field will be full of field mice, a Superstore of great shopping right in their neighbourhood. One of the hawks has been on constant guard, watching for marauding magpies and crows. Everyday, on my route to work, I see at least one hawk watching and several predators nearby, just in case the guard falls asleep. Today I see the first few leaves begin to hide the hawk nest. By next week I will not be able to see the nest. Good luck to all the patient mothers on this Mother's Day week, and watchful Dads out there.
www.wildviewfinders.ca

Swainson Hawk guarding it's hidden nest as first aspen leaves emerge.

Wow Moments

I have seen in the past how we can all become blase' about common, to us, sights and views. I have lived in some beautiful regions of the world that because of my familiarity with them, don't always appreciate the richness of the place or action around me. This richness has to be pointed out to us as a reminder of how lucky we are to be alive where we are. I have also noticed that events that may be spectacular to me might be so common to other creatures that they don't even pause from their feeding or life to take a look.

We were touring the countryside east and south of Edmonton last weekend when we came upon a huge flock of feeding snow, white-fronted, Ross's and Canada geese. When I stopped to snap a few pictures, about half the flock lifted off in a flurious cacophony of trumpeting and flapping. The grazing cow did not even raise her head from the fresh green grass just emerging from last autumn's stale wheat stubble.

Is this cow so used to this spectacular sight that she cannot pause for a moment to take it all in?

This scene reminds me of a rhinoceros auklet that I once saw while on a tour with a boat load of guests in Johnston's Strait on B.C.'s west coast. We had just finished our lunch and tea while floating upon a beautifully calm ocean all the while watching birds of all types diving into balls of bait fish. Eagles soared down upon flocks of feeding gulls, murres, murrelets and phalaropes, scattering them in panic for fear of becoming eagle food. Bald eagles lifted off the water with claws full of herring, full power on, heading to tall cedar dining. Suddenly, all the birds lifted off in panic and a second or two later the water erupted. Like a large island emerging from the deep, humpback whales soared into the air in a mighty surge of strength. The whale was almost totally standing on its tail above the water. As human observers, we were stunned. What sheer power and speed it must take to lift 30 tons of whale totally out of the water. Why would it do that? In one of the most amazing feats of power, strength, grace and exuberance the whale soared skyward several times within a couple of minutes. Floating between our boat and the acrobatic humpback was one rhinoceros auklet going on about it's business with now concern or flapping of amazed wings. Perhaps the auklet thought; "that's not so great, I can dive, swim float and fly. Lets see that humpback do that!"

I do hope that I can remember and be thankful for all the amazing sights we could see every day if we just pause to take a look. A good friend of mine once said: "it would be a different world if people had to stop to chew their cud and contemplate!"