Bluebirds and a bold Skunk

Despite a cold and bitter wind on Wednesday morning, I went for a little drive out to Beaver Creek with a friend straight from work .
Another friend who reads this blog informed me of some Mountain Bluebirds that had just arrived in that area , so I was hoping to find some and got lucky by finding 4 in one place and 3 more a bit later on.
Unfortunately they were very skittish and were quite a distance away for a decent photo , so I just enjoyed the fact that I'd found them and hope to get some photos another time.
There were not too many species around , probably because of the 25k gale that was blowing, but still, the Sun felt nice and warm .
Here's what was seen :

Red-tailed Hawk - a lone soaring bird . ( New for 2008)
Mountain Bluebird - 7 ( New for 2008)
American Crow - 2
Common Raven - 6
Black-billed Magpie - 19
Horned Lark - 8
European Starling - 3 at a farmstead
Black-capped Chickadee - 3
Common Redpoll - 12
Bohemian Waxwing - 45
Rock Dove - 3
Canada Geese - 25

I was hoping I'd see a mammal of some kind , as that always makes the day extra special, so I was extremely happy to find this Skunk on the way home . He certainly wasn't afraid of us , and I'm lucky he didn't decide to let rip with a blast of spray at me !

Horned Larks

This morning my friend and I took a drive out along a seldom used road and looked for Horned Larks that have been slowly trickling back into the area since last weekend .

It was a beautiful calm day without any wind, so you could clearly hear them singing.

Horned larks are often inquisitive enough that they will sit still and allow a car to roll up alongside them, or sometimes they will fly right across the road like a kamikazi pilot , almost colliding with the windshield, so we drove fairly slowly with the windows open and just enjoyed the songs .

Here is an adult male in full song :



And a female :

Porcupine's & Partridge

Well, it sure looks like Spring has finally sprung !
This is the time of year when the snow melts, everything turns to slush and the birds seem to get louder & louder first thing in the morning.
I've had a nice couple of days birding over the weekend and again on Monday.
Saturday I spent a couple of hours hiking around the riverbank , walking even further than I usually do, and ending up right near Circle Bridge where I flushed 3 Gray Partridge from the side of a hill as I looked down at the cracking ice that would soon disappear and merge into the waters of the South Saskatchewan River.
On the way back I watched as 3 American Crows ( early arrivals maybe ) were mobbing an adult Bald Eagle near the Weir. It appeared to be eating a large fish high up in the confines of a tree and then soon took off down towards Goose Island . It was way too far for a decent photo unfortunately.
Another highlight was a lone Common Merganser and 3 Canada Geese on the water.
On Sunday my Wife and I went for a little afternoon drive and happened upon 2 Porcupines both in the area of Patience Lake . One was on the ground eating thawed out grass and another was stripping bark from a tree about 20ft up.
We also saw an adult Northern Goshawk and a few newly arrived Horned Larks along the roadside.
On Monday I went out with a friend and we too saw a Northern Goshawk close to Blackstrap Lake that made a very fast swoop across the road in front of us, 18 more Gray Partridge , 70+ Horned Larks , a pair of Great Horned Owls and 3 Canada Geese flying over the old Regina Highway.

Here are some new photos :

Porcupine - The one on the ground looks like it was fairly young . While the other one paused from its chewing to peek at me from behind the tree branch :





Gray Partridge - I managed to catch this flighty bird in full stride before it took off :

Four Ravens born in the Winter

I received an email this week alerting me to a sighting of an active Raven nest close to St.Pauls Hospital here in the city.
Once at the site , we could see the nest about three quarters of the way up a tall Spruce tree.
At first it was unclear how many young were at the nest, but on further inspection , 4 healthy fledglings were counted.
Interestingly, the parent birds were already constructing a second nest under the existing one ! I don't know if they expect to have more young or are just adding an extension :-)
This is a very early record for breeding of this species in Saskatchewan. , 2 months earlier than a previous record.
Apparently the eggs hatched sometime in mid-January , so those Ravens were incubating eggs in some pretty horrible weather.
From my only decent vantage point , the Sun was glaring right at me , and the reflection bouncing back off a glass window didn't help matters , so photo opportunities were pretty dismal. At least you can make out the four young . One of them is pretty well fed as you can see . Both parents were keeping watch on the roof of a nearby building.

Sleepy Waxwing

On the 28th of February I looked out of my bathroom window ( one of my favourite viewing spots ! ) and was surprised to see a Bohemian Waxwing asleep on our clothesline .
I took 2 photos towards some harsh sunlight with my old Fuji camera and some fill flash ( as it actually focuses closer than my Canon )

Here it is awake for a few seconds :



Then it went right back to sleep again :

Park Birds

On Monday afternoon I visited 2 parks within town . Firstly a stop-off at Gabriel Dumont Park, where a Townsend's Solitiare was feeding on Juniper Berries right near the entrance.
This is now the 10th Townsend's Solitaire I have seen since November in town, and up until then, as some of you may know, I'd never seen one before! So this species is becoming abit of a habit this Winter.
Other than the Solitaire , the place was pretty much deserted with only 2 Black-capped Chickadees , and some fly-overs by Bohemian Waxwings.

I then went to Holiday Park, which isn't too far away, just a hop,skip and a jump across the river. There I was rewarded with a flash of colour from the still-present female Cardinal in the yard of the Bowerman House.

Other birds seen at the park :

White-breasted Nuthatch - 2
Black-capped Chickadee - 8
Red-breasted Nuthatch - 2
Dark-eyed Junco - 1 ( this bird could be one of the 2 seen over
Christmas )
Red-shafted Northern Flicker - 1
Common Redpoll - 15
House Finch - 5
Downy Woodpecker - 4
Hairy Woodpecker - 2
White-winged Crossbill - 9
House Sparrow - 7
Common Raven - 1
Black-billed Magpie - 2
Bohemian Waxwing - 35

On the way home there were several Rock Doves perched atop buildings along Broadway Avenue and the last bird I saw before I got indoors was my first Merlin of 2008 atop a spruce tree on 7th St.

On Saturday, my wife and I went to Pike Lake where we saw the usual suspects, plus 4 Pine Grosbeaks, a few Redpolls , 2 Red Squirrels and then a Great Horned Owl on a powerpole on the way home along the highway.

Here are some new photos ( click to enlarge )

Red Squirrel at Pike Lake



Common Redpoll at Pike Lake



Great Horned Owl on the Pike Lake Highway



Townsend's Solitaire at Gabriel Dumont park

Local rarities still here !

Taking place throughout America and Canada,over this long weekend is the Great Backyard Birdcount, where feederwatchers, casual observers and nature enthusiasts tally up every last bird they see in their yard , out on their travels or on field trips . This data is then used to determine bird population declines or increases , migration and other habits.
On Friday my friend and I decided to try and cram as much birding as we could from 8am till 2pm and try to bump up the numbers for Saskatoon, and the province as a whole.
We managed a respectable 23 species and were happy to find the Northern Hawk Owl still at Aberdeen, 2 Saskatoon rarities, the Townsend's Solitaire at Lakeview Park and the Northern Cardinal still visiting the yard of the Bowerman House downtown.
Other highlights were Pine Grosbeaks and Sharp-tailed Grouse at Pike Lake and a Bald Eagle perched over the river within the city.

I manged to get a couple of photos despite the pretty poor weather in the morning :

Sharp-tailed Grouse



Northern Cardinal