My blog hasn’t been getting much attention lately, but my yard certainly has.
Because of our location near the river, the number of mature trees and the fact that I have bird food out year round, our yard turns into a migration trap in the fall. I’ve spent the last week at the windows with binos in one hand and camera in the other. Then when it gets too dark to watch birds, I work on the computer until midnight, trying to get some actual work done. And I won’t even mention the number of photos I have to edit.
In the last four days, the back yard has featured:
- MacGillvray’s Warbler
- Orange-crowned Warbler
- Wilson’s Warbler
- Yellow Warbler
- Possible Nashville Warbler – we’re still working on the ID
- Western Wood Peewee
- Eastern Phoebe
- Ruby-crowned kinglet
- White-crowned Sparrow
- White-throated Sparrow
- Fox Sparrow – yard bird #97
- Pine Siskin
- American Robin – 30 or so
- Common Grackle
- Black-billed Magpie
- Blue Jay
- Black-capped Chickadee
- White-breasted Nuthatch
- Red-breasted Nuthatch
- Mourning Dove
- American Crow
- Merlin
When I manage to pry myself from the back yard, our big poplar tree in the front has provided:
- House Finches
- House Sparrows
- Downy Woodpecker
- Northern Flicker
- Common Redpolls
Some years are busier than others during migration, and this is the first year I can ever remember having to try and identify warblers in the back yard, while looking at Common Redpolls in the front. Redpolls are a winter bird, and don’t usually show up this early. Now I have to search through them for Hoary Redpolls…
Fall migration is normally a gradual event, with species trickling through. This year seems to be different in Alberta, and we’ve got huge numbers appearing in the last couple of weeks.
The following was posted on the Alberta Bird listserv last weekend. I wasn’t aware of the Migration Research Foundation, but their website sure makes for some interesting reading.
Impressive Duck & Hawk Numbers in Southern Alberta
Over the past week I’ve been doing surveys across much of southern Alberta (from west of Pincher Creek to east of Medicine Hat), and have seen some impressive numbers of migrants. Virtually every wetland has at least a few ducks on it, and there are plenty of fairly small ones with many hundreds, even some with a thousand or more, virtually covering the water surface.
The most abundant species tend to be Mallard and American Coot (easily 10,000 – 20,000 of each in total), followed by Northern Pintail and Gadwall,but pretty much all of the “regular” prairie waterfowl are fairly easy to find, the only exceptions being Canvasback and Ruddy Duck (present, but scattered and relatively scarce).
Shorebirds are quite common and widespread too, with Yellowlegs by far the most abundant (somewhat more Greater than Lesser), followed by American Avocet, Killdeer, Wilson’s Snipe,and peeps mostly too distant to identify; only a couple of Willets still around early in the week.
Other species observed in small numbers this week include the first few Snow Geese of fall, as well as Black-crowned Night Heron, American Bittern, Common Tern, Red-necked Grebe, and Western Grebe (didn’t see Pied-billed, Eared, or Horned Grebes anywhere).
Many of the ducks are milling about in large flocks, clearly staging migrants – but there are a surprising number of broods still being raised too (mostly Mallards and Coots). Because most of the birds are moving around so much, there’s no point recommending particular wetlands, but ingeneral the areas east of Stirling and west of Etzikom seem to have particularly large numbers at present.
Also in these areas were some impressive concentrations of Swainson’s Hawks, in some places as many as 25-30 in a single quarter section, mostly standing on the ground, but also scattered on hay bales and fence posts in some places.
Northwest of Pincher Creek, there was a nice movement of Golden Eagles on Tuesday, and there were a couple more near Etzikom yesterday. Very few Red-tailed Hawks around anywhere, and all the Ferruginous Hawks appear to be gone already.
Not much passerine activity out in the prairies these days, but there were still a few Western Meadowlarks singing in various places despite the dismal weather.
Marcel Gahbauer
Migration Research is a a nonprofit organization dedicated to researching and documenting animal distributions and movements to aid in conservation and wildlife management efforts.