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August 15, 2002  Sharp-tailed Blackbird Sightings To all those who called me with your Sharp-tailed Blackbird sightings, and there were thousands, I thank you. However the Blackbirds that you are seeing are not a new species, I speak now specifically of the white-eyed Blackbird with long central tail feathers with shorter feathers on either side. This is the very common Brewer’s Blackbird going through a progressive molt as it does at this time each year. Instead of losing all the tail feathers at once, a procedure that might cause a loss of steering and flying ability, these birds, like other birds, lose important flight feathers in pairs or in this case probably four at a time. Hawks and Eagles, you will notice, have matching gaps on each wing as they lose and grow new flight feathers. The Alberta Odyssey (Graveyard to Whitecourt) When we left our weary travelers last week they had found comfortable camping at William A. Switzer Provincial Park just north of Hinton Alberta. The birder had tallied the Blue-headed Vireo as his first lifer of the trip, a journey dubbed ‘Into the Warbler Wave’. We go now and join the campers for this week’s installment: As we settled in to the campsite at Graveyard Lake that first evening I met a mammal, or I should say it met me, that I had not seen since I was a teenager. The White-tailed Deer, actually a pair of white tailed deer bucks walked boldly yet warily along the edge of the mown grass of the campsite not 60 feet away. I noted their large ‘flag’ tails so unlike the Mule Deer’s appendage that in recent years I have become most accustomed to. In the next two days at this spot I would cross paths with these two bucks many times as we would surprise each other out among the willows and tall grass. During one encounter, while I concentrated on a bird in the willows, a buck exhaled so violently, as they will do when alarmed, that I almost, well...dropped my binoculars. As I said last week, the first night’s rest was bad so we decided to stay at the park an extra day just to relax. I was sure there would be much to see and do around the park, and a trip to nearby Hinton to get bug spray was high on my list of things to do. But a footnote to that thought; as soon as one acquires bug spray the bugs aren’t a problem any more, which was true again in this case. So we spent the day in other parts of the park, at one point, visiting the office area to look at the maps and information brochures, including a foothills bird checklist. We walked around a Jarvis Lake bay named Kelly’s Bathtub. There are many good trails in the park and as we walked around one we flushed a family of Spruce Grouse. I paid particular attention to the tail of this Grouse species because, unlike the Cariboo race of the Spruce Grouse (Franklin’s subspecies), this bird has a coppery tip to the tail feathers and lacks the white spots on the upper tail coverts. This wasn’t obvious at first because the first few birds to show themselves were the young. I couldn’t believe the disparity in age of the birds in one clutch. Some looked like newly hatched while others were like little pullets. The adult bird did give me a good look at its tail tip eventually. I also saw a Boreal Chickadee on a trail near the office. Before last year I hadn’t seen one of these birds in B.C. until one came to my feeder in the winter. In this region of the Alberta foothills Boreal Chickadees are common. It was good to encounter them in their natural range. We returned to the Graveyard Lake campsite and I scoured the bushes for more birds. I was surprised by the number of Clay-coloured Sparrows nesting in the shrubbery around the campsite. In the 100 Mile area Clay-coloured Sparrows enjoy dry open fields. Here they preferred, or at least didn’t shun dense understories. In numbers they were probably as common as the White-throated Sparrow. I revisited the Blue-headed Vireos in the campsite area and while I was in their company found another lifer. A slow moving Vireo with obvious yellow neck methodically made its way through the upper branches of a willow. It was in the company of another of its kind, a more contrastily marked bird. (My spell checker doesn’t like the word contrastily, but what does it know.) Except for the obvious yellow on the neck and throat and a darker cap on the male this Vireo has a lot in common with Warbling Vireos from the Cariboo. These birds however were Philadelphia Vireos, a species common to much of Northern Alberta, and my second lifer. These birds were silent as they moved about, if my visit was a month or so earlier, the male would have been quite vocal. A bird that was singing regularly attracted my attention. I tried to creep up on it but it kept dropping down from its evergreen perch into the grass before I could get a good look. I knew it was a sparrow but which one? I was hoping it was the Swamp Sparrow, which would be another lifer. In the heat of the afternoon I got a good look at this bird without knowing what it was. When I crossed a little bridge on a trail near the campsite, a sparrow with a rusty cap moved about in the grass. I stared at it and thought at first it was a Chipping Sparrow. However, nothing it was did was typical of the antics of a Chipping Sparrow. It stayed in the grass, scuttling about and when it flew it stayed low until finally disappearing in the grass. Later, when I consulted the Sibley’s, I noticed it mentioned that the male Swamp Sparrow in breeding plumage has a red cap. The next morning I watched this bird sing and knew I had another lifer. It was a Swamp Sparrow. There were several at this location along the grassy creek edge, typical habitat for this species. All day long I enjoyed the Blue-headed Vireos calling and in the evening the song of the White-throated Sparrow. The next morning, after a better night’s sleep, we attended a pancake and sausage breakfast at the park office, a fund-raising event for the Friends of William A. Switzer Park. It was invigorating to sit in the early morning air with the mountains near Jasper in sight and chow down on a great breakfast. When we were done we headed back to Hinton. My plan was to go east and see what new bird species might be found. We passed Edson and turned north onto highway 32 heading for Whitecourt. I was still just following my nose at this point, knowing I was in the right area to find new bird species but still without a specific spot in mind. That all changed in a parking lot on highway 43 just west of Whitecourt. In a driving rain, with gusting winds we swung into a spot between gas station and a café. As we drove in we shooed a Gull ahead of us. Close behind it, carrying a camera was a fellow trying to get a photograph of the gull. I threw open the van door and was hit by driving rain. "What kind of Gull is that? I asked through the spray. "Possibly a Mew!" yelled the photographer. "Are you a birder?" I asked after he got his photograph. "No I’m not." he replied. "I’m only into Gulls." Such a specific interest in birds seemed a little peculiar but we’re talking about bird fanciers here so there’s no way I was going to find anything out of the ordinary. I told him I was seeking a number of eastern birds (birds found east of the Rockies) to add to my life list. It was then, in his next words, that my bird quest gained a solid destination. "If you’re looking for those kinds of birds", said the stranger, "You must go to a place just north of here that calls itself the bird capital of Canada. It’s a town called McLennan Alberta". "Where precisely is that?" I gasped dragging a map out into the pouring rain. He circled the town on the map. Suddenly I was no longer wandering in the wilderness. McLennan Alberta, bird capital of Canada, I hear you calling. (continued next week) To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
