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October 2024

TRUE to their name, Bohemian waxwings wander like bands of vagabonds across the northern United States and Canada in search of fruit during the non-breeding season.  High-pitched trills emanate from the skies as large groups descend on fruiting trees and shrubs at unpredictable places and times.  These regal birds sport a spiky crest and a peach blush across their face.  Unlike the familiar Cedar waxwing, they have rusty feathers under the tail and white marks on the wings.

THE bohemian wanderings of this waxwing make them a little unpredictable to find.  The best place for most people to see them is during migration and winter (September—March) in the northern United States and Canada, when they come south from their breeding range and move around in search of fruit.  Check dense patches of fruiting shrubs like mountain ash and listen for their high-pitched trills.  Watch the skies for tight flocks that descend en masse towards fruiting trees and shrubs.  If you see or hear a group of American robins or Cedar waxwings, check the flock for Bohemian waxwings as they sometimes flock together.

BOHEMIAN waxwings are fruit connoisseurs, so planting a native tree or shrub that holds its fruit late into the fall and winter may bring in any that pass through your area. 
 

= Bohemian waxwings, unlike many songbirds, do not hold breeding territories, and they also don’t have a true song.  Bohemian waxwings communicate with high-pitched calls as they roam around in large groups looking for fruit

= Only three species of waxwings exist in the world: the Bohemian of North America and Eurasia, Cedar of North America, and the Japanese of eastern Asia

= Bohemian waxwings have an uncanny ability to find fruit nearly everywhere, almost like they have a GPS tracker for berries.  Flocks sometimes turn up in desert areas, find an isolated shrub, devour its fruit in minutes, and move on

WINGS OF CHANGE – Part FOUR:

NAVIGATING WESTERN’S CAMPUS

What the birds are telling us about climate change

Story by:  Kurt Kleiner  Western Alumni Magazine Spring 2024

Biology PhD candidate Brendon Samuels books beyond the building, walkways and greenery, see through the eyes of a bird in flight.

Take windows, for example.  To a human, the International and Graduate Affairs building is easy to see—an attention getting modernistic box made mostly of reflective glass.  For birds flying between the Thames River and nearby woods, it might as well be invisible.

A few years ago, Samuels routinely collected birds that had died there after hitting windows they couldn’t see.  He estimated at the time that the building killed 150 birds a year.  “They just don’t understand what glass is.  They never really encountered a reflection before in nature.  Often their first encounter is a lethal one.” Samuels says.

In fact, collisions with windows are estimated to kill more than a billion birds every year in North America and are one of the most common human made causes of bird deaths.

For his PhD, Samuels studies pre-collision behaviour and tested how birds perceive windows, and how to create the most effective window treatments to make windows visible to them.

It turns out the bird-shaped stickers many people place on windows to make them visible don’t really do much.  “What we find is that if you put one or two stickers up on your window, a bird is just going to fly around the stickers and hit the glass,” he says

On the other hand, patterns with spaces of no more than five centimetres will signal to even the smallest bird that there is no space to fit through.

Over the past few years, Samuels has worked with the university to identify problem  buildings and treat the windows with coatings the birds can see and avoid.

He says this has drastically reduced bird strikes, and the university has committed to making all new buildings bird safe and is working towards retrofitting existing windows with the protective film.

It may be surprising that the grids of pencil-sized white dots make a difference.  From  a distance, it’s difficult for human eyes to detect them, and even up close they don’t stand out.  But for birds the dots make all the difference.

Working with the City of London, Samuela is advocating for development planning bylaws to require bird-safe building design.  And he has been working with the non-profit organization FLAP (Fatal Light Awareness Program) Canada to advocate for Bill 145, a policy that would incorporate bird-safe building design into the Ontario Building Code.

“Like a lot of issues in conservation, I actually think we have enough knowledge.  We know what the solutions are.  At least enough so we can take decisive action through policy and systems change to achieve the goals of conservation,” Samuels says.

Anna’s Hummingbird 

We would like to acknowledge that the Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area is on the traditional territory of the Blackfoot Nations, which includes the Siksika, the Piikani, and the Kainai.  We also acknowledge the Tsuut’ina and Stoney Nakoda First Nations, the Métis Nation (Region 3) and all peoples who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.
 

Early Beginnings

Sandy was born Alexander Rothney Macleod Cross on April 11, 1914 to Alfred Ernest (A.E.) Cross and Helen Rothney Macleod.  A.E. was a prominent Alberta rancher, brewer, and politician who started ranching in 1886 at the Cross family’s A7 Ranche in Nanton.  Helen was the daughter of Colonel Macleod and was the first Caucasian to be born at Fort Mackeod.  Growing up, the Cross family split time between the ranch and the Cross house in Inglewood.  Following in his family’s footsteps, Sandy began purchasing land south of Calgary in 1945 for what would become Rothney Farm (named after his Mother).  As the son of one of the Calgary Stampede’s “Big Four,” A.E. Cross, Sandy was known around Calgary as coming from a long line of cattlemen.  Others would comment on his love for and connection to the rolling foothills he grew up on.

A Lasting Legacy

Ann Abbott captured the heart of Sandy, a long-time bachelor, and in 1974 they were married.  As they settled into life on Rothney Farm together, they watched the expanding City of Calgary approach, and new acreages divide the farmland around them.  Concerned about what the future held for the land, they decided to act.  In 1987, Ann and Sandy donated nearly 2000 acres of their land to the Province of Alberta.  At the time it was the largest private land donation in Canadian history.  Ann and Sandy wanted the land to be preserved the way it was for future generations to enjoy.  The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) operated the area to ensure it was managed according to their vision.  Funds were raised in 1991 to build the education centre, Belvedere House, and support the education programs at the Cross Conservation Area.  In 1996, Ann and Sandy Cross donated another 2,800 acres of land, for a total of 4,800 acres or 12 square kilometers. That year the Sandy Cross Conservation Foundation was created to manage the Conservation Area independently of the NCC.

Ann Cross passed away at the age of 92 on January 20, 2013; and Sandy Cross passed away at 89 years of age, on December 13, 2003.

Thank you for your support

Recently in the skies above Calgary, gulls, including Franklin and Ring-billed, have been swarming to take advantage of an explosion of flying ants.  After all, birders know wild birds will always take advantage of a free food source!
 

Flying Ant Buffet by Kevin Van Tighem  July 4, 2022
 

The Maligne River drops out of a hanging valley to rendezvous with the Athabasca.  The narrow, deep canyon it has carved there is a popular attraction for visitors to Jasper National Park.  Those who linger into the evening are sometimes treated to the sight of graceful, long-winged birds tilting down out of the darkening sky and vanishing into the shadows below. 

Those are Black swifts, a rare species that nests only in places with very high humidity, low temperatures and day-long darkness.  Alberta has fewer than 10 Black swift nesting areas, all in deep mountain canyons, caves or behind cascades.  In the mountain parks, those include Maligne and Johnson canyons.  There, the swifts build nests of moss, lay a single egg and raise a single young each summer.

Swifts feed only in the air.  Like Franklin’s gulls, they have an uncanny sense of where to find swarming insects, often travelling tens of kilometres to gorge themselves on bugs.  Flying ants are a favourite—easy to catch and highly nutritious.

Biologist Geoff Holroyd, who has made a life study of aerial-feeding birds, suspects that swifts nest in such seemingly hostile environments not just to avoid predators, but also because their young have to wait so long between meals:  swifts feed their offspring only once or twice during the day. Young swifts apparently conserve energy by going hypothermic between meals of protein-rich ants.

With some woodpecker species, such as Downy woodpeckers for example, it is fairly easy to distinguish the male from the female.  The male Downy has a red spot on the back of his head, while the female doesn’t.  This is not the case with Flickers, as both sexes have red spots. But the males have something the females don’t.  They have a black streak, or a “mustache” on each side of their beaks.  The females have no such mustache.  Ornithologists refer to this as the “malar stripe.”

Like most birds, Flickers have elaborate courtship displays, but the Flicker dance is less about territory defense.  The dance is mostly common in the spring, when birds are defending their mates and nesting territories.  It typically takes place when a mustached male Flicker tries to move into another couple’s territory.  The intruder is met by the resident male, who confronts him in a stare down.  The two birds stand a few inches apart, just glaring at each other, with their beaks pointing skyward.  At first nothing much happens, but then one bird begins to move its head from side to side, which causes the other bird to do the same thing.  Without making contact, they continue to wave their long beaks back and forth.  From a distance the birds look like tiny Jedi Masters having a lightsaber duel..

As things become more intense, the birds will flash the red under their wings and tails, and make their distinctive “wicka, wicka” call.  Occasionally, physical contact takes place, but usually one bird gets bored with the whole thing and simply flies away, and the best dancer wins the day.

Turkey trot: Wild birds venture into Kananaskis
 

Repeated sightings of at least one Wild turkey—a hen—have been reported in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, a fair distance from typical turkey range in the province.

It is about 50-60 km from the nearest location where turkeys are released and it is not banded, so it isn’t one  that was released , but could possibly have been released from a local landowner or it could be a young turkey from one that was released. 

The Alberta Conservation Association (ACA) is managing a 10-year plan to relocate Wild turkeys from other regions over the next decade to establish a sustainable population in Alberta.

The conservation organization has been releasing birds over the last two winters, into early spring.  Working with landowners, Wild turkeys are dispersed from Black Diamond south to near Waterton Lakes National Park.

Wild turkeys are not native to Alberta, but historically have been found across the eastern United States and up into Ontario.

By the early 1900s, overhunting and habitat destruction had wiped out Wild turkeys from much of their original North American range.

Habitat restoration and reintroduction efforts have led to Wild turkeys re-occupying their original range and establishing population in new areas.  The birds now occupy all 48 lower U.S. states, as well as British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.

Options for shopping at the Wild Bird Store

PLEASE NOTE: WE WILL BE BACK TO EVERY WEEK DELIVERY ON THURSDAYS STARTING OCTOBER 3/24

THE DELIVERY CHARGE WILL BE $10. MINIMUM $25 ORDER FOR DELIVERY.

5901 3rd Street S.E.,

Calgary, AB T2H 1K3   

email: info@wildbirdstore.ca 

(403) 640 2632

The Store is open Monday through Saturday 10:00am to 5:00pm

The Wild Bird Store will be closed on Monday, October 14 to celebrate Thanksgiving.

We are CLOSED Sundays, and ALL Statutory holidays for Faith, Family and Friends.                 

We still offer curbside pickup every day we are open and delivery service on every other Thursday.

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