Impacts Of The Alberta Oilsands On Birds
This report is one that every birder should read. What is going on here in Alberta right now affects us all, in more ways than one. The amount of habitat destruction, both current and proposed, is immense. Strip-mining for the oilsands is expected to remove terrestrial and aquatic habitat (habitat …
The 2011 Great Backyard Bird Count – A Huge Success!
The 2011 Great Backyard Bird Count was a huge success; nearly 92,000 checklists were submitted in North America. Canadians submitted a record 7462 checklists and counted 647,402 individuals of 243 species. These numbers are well above those from 2010, when 6653 checklists totalled 228 species. In Canada, the most widespread …
Wednesday Wings: A Bitty Beauty
It’s so nice to have birding friends. Last Saturday, my husband and I were sitting at home wondering which direction to go looking for birds. Our March weather is extremely fickle, so we were gauging our chances of heading out to the mountains when the phone rang. A friend had …
A Predator Moment
Spring is slooowly returning to southern Alberta, and with it the reappearance of my main nemesis bird. If one more person tells me “oh, Eurasian wigeons are everywhere’… The first duck reports of the year came in last week. There is very little open water around, but nevertheless a male …
World Sparrow Day
Who knew? Thank you to Steve and his wonderful blog at Steve Creek Outdoors for sharing the fact that today is World Sparrow Day. As someone with a more than generous number of sparrows in my yard year round, it’s clearly time to acknowledge the humble house sparrow. …
Plastics Ingestion in Marine Birds Gaining More Attention
Plastic pollution in marine environments and its impact on marine life is an increasing concern. The issue was the focus of 15 presentations and a workshop at last year’s World Seabird Conference, summaries and abstracts from which are available on the Seabirds website, an important resource for anyone with an …
The Magpie Tree
I am beginning to think my yard is emitting some kind of weird force field, resulting in some very strange bird encounters – daily owl visits, eastern birds, hundreds of waxwings… And that’s just the last few weeks. On one supremely frigid day last week, I noticed one of my …
Bird Monitoring, Banding and Identification Workshop
The Vancouver Avian Research Centre has just posted spring 2011 dates for their Bird Monitoring, Banding and Bird Identification Workshop. The workshop is a 3 day action-packed introductory course consisting of presentations, specimen study, field mist-netting, banding, and processing. It has been developed for people with little or no bird banding …
