Post by ed on Jun 2, 2019 18:02:59 GMT -8
John and I had a good, week long birding road trip to Alberta. We left on the 25th of May making it to Brooks in a looong day(including a 6.5 hr fatal accident blockage at mt Revelstoke Nat park).
I had a goal of 6 lifers and was excited to just explore the prairie grasslands wilderness. It seems as though John has seen everything everywheređ so he was along for the ride with expectations of seeing a few birds for the second time and enjoying nature.
Our strategy was a good one....seek out the target birds and the others will come to us. We explored areas around Brooks for 3 days and then moved to Medicine Hat for another 3 days. Dinosaur P Park, Cypress Hills, Lake Newell, and long awesome stretches of gravel roads deep in the remoter rural areas were explored. There is a great booklet The Birding Trail of SE Alberta that can be obtained from the Tourist Info in Med Hat, or downloaded online.
Now that youâve read this far youâll remember I donât post photos so this is a picture less but amazingđ report. I will be posting a few record shots of birds on ebird in a few days if youâre interested. So to the birds!
Target birds were Chestnut-collared Longspur- we found a pair on our first day, later seeing many more, this was probably the easiest of my target birds, somewhat local but once we were there, fairly abundant.
â-Spragueâs Pipit- these were in similar areas(prairie grass) and the ones we saw were often at gravel road side margins. They werenât abundant but we saw 1or 2 several times.
â-Bairdâs Sparrow, Somewhat rare and local, I was really exited to see one on the first day of birding. A very interesting and for me recognizable song was good as my brain works real hard at remembering and coming up with names for even well known birds, like Spotted Towhee for example!đwow three lifers on my first day!!
âGrasshopper Sparrow, we came back to the same area in the Rolling Hills South of Brooks the 2nd day. One Grasshopper Sparrow sang for us and made me sing too! Three more Bairdâs Sparrows were seen or heard there this day as well We saw 1 more Grasshopper Sparrow several days later as well.
âMcCownâs Longspur, this could also be a difficult bird to find, but after scanning kilometres of nice prairie grass habitat and many Chestnut -collared Longspurs, 4 hours into our 3rd day we checked out an âinterestingâ bird and it was our bird! Four hours of scanning, oh the eye strain!! Non birders would think we were nuts.....I know we werenât though!đ
âUpland Sandpiper the bird I had tanked on in the Fort St John area on 2 trips up north in the last 10 years. Here I expected one on every fence post along the highway.đ Five big days of birding and not an Upland in sight, very few current ebird sitings as well, even going back the postings were a bit scarce for the area! We decided to try another area nearer the Sask border and a possible longish dusty road on our turn around day(we ended up in Revelstoke that night). With one last extra try and yes some dust, I arrived at a place of turn around both literally and figuratively. You know five out of six is still pretty sweet!! Birding is like that, and if the birds were always a sure thing and available through our aspirations and efforts what kind of game would that be!! I was resigned and felt the trip was a great success. Spending time with a good friend and finding over 120 species was wonderful! Then unbelievably after we had turned around and retraced our drive for less than a kilometre I caught a recognizable shape in the corner of my vision and knew immediately what it wasđđ»đ Yes Upland Sandpiper looking just like it should! High fives all around.... what, you donât do that?đ
So all target birds were found and 121 species, including Brown Thrasher, Loggerhead Shrike, Black and White Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Mourning Warbler, Grey Partridge, Lark Bunting and many Swainsonâs and Ferruginous Hawks were seen along the way. We even got on the Alberta rare bird list by reporting a pair of Barrowâs Goldeneye which is listed as a Vagrant at Cypress Hills(Elkwater Lake)!
We explored neat places like Dinosaur Pro Park and Cypress hills which are also great places for families to camp at. Gas is noticeably less expensive in Alberta and when you come back you gain an hour which gives you time to recover!
Ed Klassen
I had a goal of 6 lifers and was excited to just explore the prairie grasslands wilderness. It seems as though John has seen everything everywheređ so he was along for the ride with expectations of seeing a few birds for the second time and enjoying nature.
Our strategy was a good one....seek out the target birds and the others will come to us. We explored areas around Brooks for 3 days and then moved to Medicine Hat for another 3 days. Dinosaur P Park, Cypress Hills, Lake Newell, and long awesome stretches of gravel roads deep in the remoter rural areas were explored. There is a great booklet The Birding Trail of SE Alberta that can be obtained from the Tourist Info in Med Hat, or downloaded online.
Now that youâve read this far youâll remember I donât post photos so this is a picture less but amazingđ report. I will be posting a few record shots of birds on ebird in a few days if youâre interested. So to the birds!
Target birds were Chestnut-collared Longspur- we found a pair on our first day, later seeing many more, this was probably the easiest of my target birds, somewhat local but once we were there, fairly abundant.
â-Spragueâs Pipit- these were in similar areas(prairie grass) and the ones we saw were often at gravel road side margins. They werenât abundant but we saw 1or 2 several times.
â-Bairdâs Sparrow, Somewhat rare and local, I was really exited to see one on the first day of birding. A very interesting and for me recognizable song was good as my brain works real hard at remembering and coming up with names for even well known birds, like Spotted Towhee for example!đwow three lifers on my first day!!
âGrasshopper Sparrow, we came back to the same area in the Rolling Hills South of Brooks the 2nd day. One Grasshopper Sparrow sang for us and made me sing too! Three more Bairdâs Sparrows were seen or heard there this day as well We saw 1 more Grasshopper Sparrow several days later as well.
âMcCownâs Longspur, this could also be a difficult bird to find, but after scanning kilometres of nice prairie grass habitat and many Chestnut -collared Longspurs, 4 hours into our 3rd day we checked out an âinterestingâ bird and it was our bird! Four hours of scanning, oh the eye strain!! Non birders would think we were nuts.....I know we werenât though!đ
âUpland Sandpiper the bird I had tanked on in the Fort St John area on 2 trips up north in the last 10 years. Here I expected one on every fence post along the highway.đ Five big days of birding and not an Upland in sight, very few current ebird sitings as well, even going back the postings were a bit scarce for the area! We decided to try another area nearer the Sask border and a possible longish dusty road on our turn around day(we ended up in Revelstoke that night). With one last extra try and yes some dust, I arrived at a place of turn around both literally and figuratively. You know five out of six is still pretty sweet!! Birding is like that, and if the birds were always a sure thing and available through our aspirations and efforts what kind of game would that be!! I was resigned and felt the trip was a great success. Spending time with a good friend and finding over 120 species was wonderful! Then unbelievably after we had turned around and retraced our drive for less than a kilometre I caught a recognizable shape in the corner of my vision and knew immediately what it wasđđ»đ Yes Upland Sandpiper looking just like it should! High fives all around.... what, you donât do that?đ
So all target birds were found and 121 species, including Brown Thrasher, Loggerhead Shrike, Black and White Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Mourning Warbler, Grey Partridge, Lark Bunting and many Swainsonâs and Ferruginous Hawks were seen along the way. We even got on the Alberta rare bird list by reporting a pair of Barrowâs Goldeneye which is listed as a Vagrant at Cypress Hills(Elkwater Lake)!
We explored neat places like Dinosaur Pro Park and Cypress hills which are also great places for families to camp at. Gas is noticeably less expensive in Alberta and when you come back you gain an hour which gives you time to recover!
Ed Klassen