Post by ed on Oct 5, 2021 20:37:11 GMT -8
So who wouldn't want to see a Whooping Crane? John Vooys and I made the long trek to Saskatoon area to attempt to find these wonderful Birds, the tallest bird in NA. John had seen these birds in their wintering grounds in Texas and I had never seen them anywhere, although I mistakenly posted a report on e-bird last fall when I punched the wrong square on ebird subbing the Whooping Crane for a Sandhill Crane that I had found on Banford Road in Chilliwack. It took all of 30 minutes for someone to set me straight on that.
Whooping Crane, a bird that was reduced down to about 15 birds in captivity now has a still precarious population of about 650 individuals. In fall they move down through Saskatchewan via a 50-100k wide corridor to their wintering grounds in coastal estuaries on the Gulf of Mexico in the south of Texas. They predictably have a staging area just north of the Saskatoon area and we hoped to capitalize on the regularity of the cranes themselves to show up and on the reports of other individual birders and tour leaders in the area. There is an optimal window which is approximately from the middle of Sept to the middle of Oct.
I'm no stranger to long road trips but we managed close to 2000k in the first 2 days including a detour through Radium on the first day which added 130k to our day. On our second day we travelled from Brooks Alberta to Saskatoon and the Whooping Crane staging area 100k North of Saskatoon, finding 22 birds. Well this was exciting of course, but the birds are shy of humans and were 1-2k removed from the road. We had to scan fields carefully as there were 10,000 Snow Geese around (probably easily many multiples of that figure). When we saw them though they were unmistakable with their height and upright silhouette. The next morning we retraced our travel to the little town of Marcelin 100k north of Saskatoon and relocated them in the same field as the evening before. We were fortunate to score a few days of warm sunny weather (up to 24C) but the resulting heat waves put a shimmer on the birds that the scope only amplified. After a short while we saw a pair flying diagonally towards a point ahead of us so we raced ahead with the car and stopped where we thought they might cross above us. I had just enough time to stop on the gravel road to hold my camera out the window for 2 record shots of them passing in front of us (will eventually post on e-bird).
So a life bird for me and a new Canada bird for John, yea!!
Interestingly the flocks of Snow Geese had up to 35% Blue Goose which is the dark morph of the Snow Goose as opposed to 1 in 1000 or more on the west coast. Also we saw many Ross's Geese which seemed to have a 5-10% rate among Snow Geese in any given flock. This wasn't a life bird for me but a Canada bird, and it was just plain fun to try to find them in flocks of Snow Geese. They were easier to spot in the air where their definite size difference was obvious.
While still in southern Alberta we found flocks of American Pipits, Lapland Longspurs and many Horned Larks. We found Long-billed Dowitchers, Pectoral Sandpiper, Black-bellied Plovers and Common Grackles. A highlight was a whole flock of Gray Partridge in a farm yard.
For those who are interested, we travelled 3725k over 5 days of travel (from Chilliwack), spent 4 nights in hotels and only ate dinners out...for the cost of about 425.00 per person.
Ed Klassen
Whooping Crane, a bird that was reduced down to about 15 birds in captivity now has a still precarious population of about 650 individuals. In fall they move down through Saskatchewan via a 50-100k wide corridor to their wintering grounds in coastal estuaries on the Gulf of Mexico in the south of Texas. They predictably have a staging area just north of the Saskatoon area and we hoped to capitalize on the regularity of the cranes themselves to show up and on the reports of other individual birders and tour leaders in the area. There is an optimal window which is approximately from the middle of Sept to the middle of Oct.
I'm no stranger to long road trips but we managed close to 2000k in the first 2 days including a detour through Radium on the first day which added 130k to our day. On our second day we travelled from Brooks Alberta to Saskatoon and the Whooping Crane staging area 100k North of Saskatoon, finding 22 birds. Well this was exciting of course, but the birds are shy of humans and were 1-2k removed from the road. We had to scan fields carefully as there were 10,000 Snow Geese around (probably easily many multiples of that figure). When we saw them though they were unmistakable with their height and upright silhouette. The next morning we retraced our travel to the little town of Marcelin 100k north of Saskatoon and relocated them in the same field as the evening before. We were fortunate to score a few days of warm sunny weather (up to 24C) but the resulting heat waves put a shimmer on the birds that the scope only amplified. After a short while we saw a pair flying diagonally towards a point ahead of us so we raced ahead with the car and stopped where we thought they might cross above us. I had just enough time to stop on the gravel road to hold my camera out the window for 2 record shots of them passing in front of us (will eventually post on e-bird).
So a life bird for me and a new Canada bird for John, yea!!
Interestingly the flocks of Snow Geese had up to 35% Blue Goose which is the dark morph of the Snow Goose as opposed to 1 in 1000 or more on the west coast. Also we saw many Ross's Geese which seemed to have a 5-10% rate among Snow Geese in any given flock. This wasn't a life bird for me but a Canada bird, and it was just plain fun to try to find them in flocks of Snow Geese. They were easier to spot in the air where their definite size difference was obvious.
While still in southern Alberta we found flocks of American Pipits, Lapland Longspurs and many Horned Larks. We found Long-billed Dowitchers, Pectoral Sandpiper, Black-bellied Plovers and Common Grackles. A highlight was a whole flock of Gray Partridge in a farm yard.
For those who are interested, we travelled 3725k over 5 days of travel (from Chilliwack), spent 4 nights in hotels and only ate dinners out...for the cost of about 425.00 per person.
Ed Klassen