Saturday, April 30, 2011

Wonderful days of bird sightings - too h*** with the snow storm


Big snow on Friday, April 29th, yesterday. The last two pictures were taken as Charley and I were heading into work.
The raven starts a series of bird pictures taken during our four hour morning bird walk today. Audrey and I went to the marsh loop and saw a sharp shinned hawk (no photo) in the marsh grasses hunting, a killdeer, a coyote, and other birds. Then we went to Vermillion Lakes and saw an Eagle and a great blue heron (no photos) and the ones posted here were birds we saw at the beaver dam: in order: Yellow-rumped Warblers, a beaver! first sighting this year! Hooray Audrey saw it! one of a family that lives in beaver pond, Varied thrush (orange and black) the wren was a thrill to see and it came very close to us. The loon and the Ruddy Ducks - with BLUE beaks, I saw on the Bow River on my walk home on Friday.














Saturday, April 23, 2011

Happy Easter, Happy Spring


So many birds have returned to Banff that I have to believe that spring has a toehold in the mountains.
I have had wonderful bird sightings this week: The first picture is the male Ruby Crowned Kinglet:
A pair of Mountain Bluebirds,
a Varied Thrush, a Northern Shrike, an Osprey, dove into the Bow River, caught a fish, fought to hold the thrashing fish, lost the fish, flew away frustrated, then Boreal Chickadees,
Ruby Crowned Kinglets, Yellow Rumped Warbler, Mergansers,



Saturday, April 16, 2011

The four letter word that begins with S
SNOW
This morning - this evening, yesterday, the day before.....
the only one enjoying this is
Santiago
What happened to the other word that begins with S
SPRING
went for a birdwalk at 8am this morning....cold, snowy but great fun.
Heard an American Rail (that's to very knowledgeable birders on the walk - they could tell from bird songs what we were hearing). Heard a Pileated Woodpecker.
Saw a Northern Three-toed woodpecker
Saw juncos, boreal chickadees, a hairy woodpecker, Canada Geese, robins (? what are they doing here in the land of eternal winter)