Diane Stinson will present on Canada’s High Arctic. Next Thursday, April 11th, we will have another Birds & Beers event at the Legion at 9202 Horton Road SW in Calgary. The event starts at 5 pm and at 7 pm there will be a presentation by Diane Stinson on a trip that she and her husband Rob took to the High Canadian Arctic last summer. Northern Fulmar. Photo by Diane Stinson. Canada’s High Arctic – Diane Stinson Rob and I went to Canada’s High Arctic in August last year.  The original itinerary had us exploring Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg Islands, including stops at Devon and Beechy Isl ..read more

By Cathy Warwick Mountain Bluebird, photographed by Carole Steeves, Carburn Park, Calgary, 21 March 2024. The Mountain Bluebirds are back in Calgary and surrounding areas! The “Friends of Fish Creek” birders saw five at Carburn Park on March 21st. The Bluebirds appear to arrive faithfully on the Spring Equinox every year. This picture Carole Steeves took of a Mountain Bluebird sort of sums it up. Imagine you fly all night from the Southern States and, exhausted, you land in Calgary only to be greeted by a cold wind and snow covering all the food. Perhaps I am projecting my own “snow-fatigue” o ..read more

Posted by Bob Lefebvre The site is again clean and secure. Recently the Birds Calgary site was infected by malware bots. These caused many of the links on Birds Calgary to re-direct to sites in Japan and China that sell various things online. There was never any danger to users of the blog (but don’t buy from those sites!) but many readers told me they couldn’t connect to pages they were trying to go to. The malware has successfully been removed and anti-malware software installed which should prevent any future problems. You may still notice that links are not directing properly for a while ..read more

I’ve added a payment feature called “Buy Me A Coffee” to the blog. If you want to support Birds Calgary, just go to the blog web site and click on the icon to make a secure payment. It’s not really to buy coffee or birdseed, but to help with the annual costs of web hosting and domain name renewals that I’ve been making for several years. If Birds Calgary has been useful to you, please consider supporting the blog! Thank You!! – Bob Lefebvre Note to subscribers who get the posts by email: You can go to the Birds Calgary website by clicking here, or by clicking on the title of any post you get b ..read more

Register now for Brooks (May 17-19) and Writing-On-Stone (May 24-26) Bird Counts 2024 Posted by Bob Lefebvre Registration is now open for these two southern Alberta counts. Calgary birders will need to arrange camping or hotel accommodations ahead of time, so register soon. Note that our local Calgary May Species Count is on the same dates as Writing-On-Stone one, but some of you may want to try helping out with that one down in the very south part of the province for a change of pace (I will have information on the Calgary count closer to that weekend). Ferruginous Hawk, photographed in south ..read more

By Cathy Warwick The last time I saw a Brown Creeper I was cross-country skiing at Confederation Park and had stopped at the top of a hill to catch my breath. I was near a stand of Spruce trees and noticed a piece of the bark was moving. Of course it wasn’t the bark – it was a tiny brown bird moving up the tree. The Brown Creeper is not a well-known bird largely because they lay low, extremely low. They are elusive and mysterious but when you see one its behaviour and look is unmistakable. If you decide to add it to your Life List and go out looking for one, good luck! You’re going to need it ..read more

Featuring a presentation on the East African wilderness. Birds & Beers will resume next Thursday, March 14, at the Royal Canadian Legion at 9202 Horton Road SW. Doors open at 5 pm, and we meet in the big ballroom. Enjoy food, drinks, and visiting with your fellow birders. At 7 pm there will be a presentation by Melanie Seneviratne on the wildlife of East Africa. Secretary Bird. Photo by Melanie Seneviratne. Here is the presentation description: Join me as I delve into the heart of East Africa’s wilderness and share with you my amazing journey through Tanzania’s untamed landscapes. You will ..read more

By Cathy Warwick Male House Finch. Photo by Diane Stinson. If you are walking around Calgary and hear a bird singing its heart out in a long trilling song, it is most likely a House Finch. These small birds are identified by their brown bodies, heavy beaks and the red colour on the male. It’s hard to believe that these now ubiquitous birds were fairly rare in Calgary, until as recently as the 1990’s! In theory most of us can remember a time when there were no House Finches around. In practice I barely remember the 90’s. Look at a group of birds at any feeder now and you will probably see some ..read more

Presenting the Christmas Bird Count Results Next Thursday, January 8th, we will have another Birds & Beers meeting in Calgary. As usual, we meet in the big ballroom at the Royal Canadian Legion at 9202 Horton Road SW. The event starts at 5 pm. A Black-billed Magpie seen by a Feeder Watcher on the 2023 Calgary Christmas Bird Count. Photo by Lou Zaganelli. After some time for socializing, eating, and drinking, there will be a presentation on some of the recent Christmas Bird Counts that took place in the Calgary area. Matthew Wallace will present the results of the Calgary Count, Gavin McKin ..read more

By Cathy Warwick Have you ever seen a Northern Cardinal in real life? These birds are beautiful and striking, and most of all, an intense red. If you haven’t seen them in person, I know you have seen them on Christmas cards and other winter-based accessories. Surrounded by snow and red berries probably. Those of us who live in Western Canada are tired of seeing them on our cards and mugs, and since they refuse to migrate out west I say we get a new bird to be emblematic of winter. I propose the Pine Grosbeak. Male Pine Grosbeak. Photo by Diane Stinson. The Pine Grosbeak is a large (robin sized ..read more