Camping, kayaking and bird photography – sounds like a great summer to me!

  One of my favourite activities in summer is to go trailer camping with my family in the provincial parks of southern Alberta. The reason I enjoy it so much is that it combines a lot of things I like to do: spend time with my family, relax, and get …

Continue reading

Evaluation of Audubon’s Cell Phone App

  Last summer I was looking for a birding App to add to my cell phone and opted for Audubon Birds. Originally I was considering “Sibley eGuide to Birds”, but after reading some product reviews went with “The Online Guide to North American Birds “called “Audubon Birds”. This application contains …

Continue reading

Showcase: Sandhill Cranes

More great photos from Rob English who says “I was lucky enough to come across these guys northwest of Cochrane. The male sure put a run on those geese. These two cranes were very co-operative as at one point they walked out of the marsh on to the road while …

Continue reading

The Beautiful Belted Kingfisher

Gabriola islanders have been known to complain (in private, of course) about the number of summer visitors they get. The complaints relate, mostly, to meal prep and washing of linens and such. But visitors are one of the perks of living on a beautiful gulf island in the Salish Sea …

Continue reading

Flying Jewels

Even the non bird nerd will stop and marvel at the antics of a hummingbird. So tiny, so agile and so quick! I truly applaud those that can get photos of these flying gems; most of my attempts are nothing but a blur. Hummingbirds are my all time favourites and …

Continue reading

Birding from your car – a photo essay

  One of my favourite bird photography trips is to cruise out east of Calgary, just beyond the city limits, and work my way up and down the back roads of the prairie and see what birds are out there. Cars make excellent blinds and many birds will let you …

Continue reading

Take Your Birding Expereince to New Levels

I have been pursuing my passion for bird watching for the past 15 years and must say that it has given me countless hours of satisfaction and excitement.  In the birding world we recently had both the book “The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession” written …

Continue reading

My encounter with the ABA Bird of the Year at Dinosaur Provincial Park

My better half and I were evacuated from our neighborhood in Calgary during what will likely be known as the worst flood in Alberta’s history. While it wasn’t completely unexpected, we had our camping gear packed and ready to go, and a general idea of where we would head to …

Continue reading

Birding the Foothills

Posted by Bob Lefebvre, Calgary For the past six years, I have participated in the Calgary May Species Count. The area I cover is about an hour’s drive SW of the city, in the Longview area. The territory is prairie on the east side, and it gets more and more …

Continue reading

The Provincial Bird of BC

When I lived in New Westminster my sister-in-law, Pat, fed peanuts to the Steller’s Jays (Cyanocitta stelleri) in her urban back yard. At that point I had no interest in birds at all, but I was intrigued by the jays that came by for dinner at Pat’s. So when I …

Continue reading