Canmore Spring Bird Walk June 4th

A surprisingly low number of people came out for the third Canmore Spring Bird Walk, with only seven participants compared to 25 last time. The seven, however were treated to a bird not reported in Banff county for over fourty years, and only three times before that – a first spring Bullock’s Oriole! We started as usual at 7:30, but one end of the Boardwalk was closed, so we walked around to behind the Raman bar to see the back of the creek. There we picked up some Yellow Warblers, a Northern Flicker and European Starlings at nests, and Wilson’s Snipe winnowing.

We then worked our way around to the area where there stands a telephone pole, poorly disguised as a tree. My Dad had just mentioned that we rarely, if ever see birds in this “tree,” when I spotted a bird in it. Training my binoculars upon it, I was slightly to slow to catch it, as it flew across the field. We relocated it, however, and it proved to be a Bullock’s Oriole. Keeping us at a distance, it winged it’s way across the tracks and perched in a faraway tree. My photo proves the bird, but not much more than that!

High water levels had pushed a Sora into view, but it still did a magnificent job of not being seen properly. Soras can pick their way through the marsh without moving a single blade of grass more than a millimeter. We also saw small numbers of Lincoln’s and Song Sparrows, and heard Policeman’s Creek’s first ever Willow Flycatcher.

Also, a quick update on the Boardwalk – the eBird hotspot now has 125 species, of which I have seen almost 120. Thanks for coming out last Sunday, and I hope you’ll all be here for the final walk of this spring, on June 18th at 7:30. We’ll still meet at the Big Head. Let me know if you think I should run some walks this fall in the comments, or by emailing me at [email protected]. See you next time!