Grasslands National Park

Last weekend my wife and I enjoyed a few days of nature-watching and relaxation at Grasslands National Park with our friends from the local nature society. The park is in south-western Saskatchewan, and is as close as you can possibly get to the US border.
Rolling hills and plains are all you can see for miles around, and the park is home to Bison, Rattlesnakes and Burrowing Owls ( all of which I sadly did not see this time )
I had a few target species to find and was happy when I came home with some photos for my files.
A couple of bird species I have had fleeting glimpses of closer to home, but down south I ended up getting 5 new birds for my life list.
The weather was not kind to us for the first few days with pouring rain, strong winds and overcast skies, but it finally relented before we left, finishing up our trip in Cypress Hills , Maple Creek , Stewart Valley and Saskatchewan Landing.

Highlights were :

Lark Bunting
Chestnut-collared Longspur (lifer)
Yellow-breasted Chat (lifer)
Rock Wren (lifer)
Common Nighthawk
Long-billed Curlew
Dusky Flycatcher (lifer)
Estern Bluebird (lifer)

Also some cool new mammal species such as Black-tailed Prairie Dog.

Here are some new photos from the trip :

Black-tailed Prairie Dog





Lark Bunting



Chestnut-collared Longspur



Rock Wren




Common Nighthawk





Dusky Flycatcher



Coyote - During some heavy rain we found this Coyote with his meal of Richardson's Ground Squirrel :



Pronghorn Antelope




Garter Snake



Yellow Warbler

Flycatchers, Swallows & More

I recently finished another May Day Bird count for the Saskatoon area. A good pal and I have done this count together now for the past 5 years and always have a blast.
Last year was exceptional , and because of the very late Spring , we had an amazing 140 species documented by the end of the day. This time the weather was against us, and it rained hard pretty much all day. This did not deter us though , and we stayed out from 7am till 7pm notching up 116 species in total.
We had some nice highlights including a (usually rare) eye-level view at an Olive-sided Flycatcher and many other hard-to find species such as Wood Duck, Dunlin and Sedge Wren.

This update includes a few soggy shots from the day, plus a few other new photos :

Olive-sided Flycatcher from the bird count






Alder Flycatcher from a recent morning at the Forestry Farm Park




Tree Swallow - The Swallows were having a real tough time on the day of the bird count and were pretty much grounded while it rained.


Bank Swallow



Tree & Cliff Swallow sharing same soggy perch




Horned Grebe from a recent visit to the Forestry Farm Park




Veery from the bird count



Dunlin in very poor light from the bird count




Wilson's Snipe from a recent drive in the country



Brown Thrasher from a recent river walk

Catching Up !

It feels like I haven't blogged in ages, but I have been out and about, birding and taking photos quite a bit in my spare time.
Migration is in full swing here and I have many new year birds that I will list later.
For now, I hope you enjoy some of my latest pictures , but be warned, there are lots for this update ! :

As usual, all photos are best viewed full size, by left clicking on them.

Red-winged Blackbird



Ruddy Duck



Moose



Chipping Sparrow




Least Chipmunk



Clay-colored Sparrow



Canvasback




Yellow-headed Blackbird




Red-necked Phalarope



Spotted Towhee



Sora



Beaver

Cooper's Hawk

Last week, I took a nice walk along the riverbank, and visited one of my favorite parks in town, Cosmopolitan Park. This can be a great place to find migrants and other choice species if you get there at the right time of day.
I was there fairly early in the morning, and had actually been there briefly a few days before, and had flushed a lone Cooper's Hawk, while walking one of the trails .
This time, I got very lucky, and caught sight of a Cooper's Hawk that had just caught its prey, and was busy plucking it to eat from an open perch that crossed overhead of me.
While he was busy, a second Cooper's was circling close overhead, so I'm guessing there is a breeding pair in the woods at this park.
I got a couple of photos from this vantage point, then watched the bird fly off to the higher canopy to finish its meal. I wanted to get up to the birds level, so had to scale the steep muddy bank and wedge myself up a tree and stay very still and quiet , while the bird did his thing..

Warning some of these photos are quite graphic !