Yesterday my son and I went for a nature walk at the Whitemud Ravine. We quickly encountered the usual suspects. The Black-Capped Chickadees where out in full force as usual, Mr. and Ms. Mallard were swimming around in the swollen creek but got tired of the strong current and waddled up on a sand bank, a few Canada Geese flew noisily overhead, a lonely Downy Woodpecker made a brief appearance and a few dozen Bohemian Waxwings were gobbling down Mountain Ash berries, drinking water from puddles and eating snow. After a few hours, thinking we had seen it all for the day, we started heading back to the trail head. On our way back a subtle movement in the dense understory caught my eye. It was definitely a small bird. About the size of a chickadee, but the way it moved was different. We quickly focused in on the bird with our binoculars and camera. With a rufous coloured crest and a bi-coloured beak, it’s was definitely a new species. I managed to coax the camera into action and snapped a few pictures before a fitness buff came steaming down the trail and the bird took off. As we inspected the images and consulted Merlin Bird the verdict was unanimous. It was an American Tree Sparrow. A lifer for both of us and bird number 97 on our life list and number 44 on our AB Big Year list. It’s amazing how such small and and unassuming creature can make you so excited and happy. On our way back to the car my son and I talked about the significance of lifers and while it may be just another bird, it is also a once-in-a-lifetime experience that we can cherish for the rest of our life. Welcome to our life little American Tree Sparrow.
May the curiosity be with you. This is from “The Birds are Calling” blog (www.thebirdsarecalling). Copyright Mario Pineda.
This picture was taken by my son when he first put his hands on our new Canon PowerShot SX70 HS. He took this image in the low light conditions of the understory with full zoom at 1365 mm (35 mm equivalent) at ISO 800. I like how the picture shows the “fluffiness” of the Black-capped Chickadee, which helps to keep them warm in the winter. It also shows a rarely seen phenomenon…, a Black-capped Chickadee sitting still for more than a blink of an eye. These small nonmigratory songbirds seem to be in perpetual motion even during the coldest of winter days. We saw an abundance of Black-capped Chickadees flittering around in the understory during the recent February cold-spell even when temperatures dropped to below -40 °C. It is remarkable how well-adapted these birds are to our harsh climate. To conserve energy on cold nights, they have the ability to go into a state of torpor by lower their body temperature by as much as 10 to 12 °C (their normal body temperature is 42 °C). They may be small, but what they lack in size they make up for in sheer feistiness and awesome attitude. They are constant companions on our nature walk along the creek and are always checking if we bring any treats.
May the curiosity be with you. This is from “The Birds are Calling” blog (www.thebirdsarecalling). Copyright Mario Pineda.
Coyotes sometimes get a bad rep. Any creature, however, that survives the long dark cold Canadian winter and comes out at the other end looking this handsome and chilled deserves our respect. We spotted this beautiful Coyote at the Bison Loop at Elk Island National Park last week. He was pacing back and forth at the edge of the forest and seemed just a curious about us as we were about him. Just by happenstance, at 6 am the next morning smack dab in the middle of Edmonton I found two coyotes in front of our house. They were probably looking for a cat for breakfast and took off as soon as they spotted me.
May the curiosity be with you. This is from “The Birds are Calling” blog (www.thebirdsarecalling). Copyright Mario Pineda.
If you spend any time down in the Whitemud Ravine, whether you are a birder, dog walker or fitness buff, you soon realize that someone is hiding high up in the trees along the trail. It’s an expecting pair of Great Horned Owls. They are discrete and quiet with the female hiding in a large tree cavity while sitting on eggs and the male, always close by, hiding among the branches high up in a nearby tree. You could easily walk by them not realizing they are there. The only reason one cannot miss them is because of all the photographers hanging out by their nesting site. These owls are truly a celebrity couple with paparazzis-style nature photographers and nature buffs breathlessly watching their every move and counting the days the female has been sitting on the eggs. Apparently today is day 23. Great Horned Owls incubate their eggs for about 30-37 days which would give a predicted hatch date somewhere between April 8 and April 15. With the Whitemud Ravine being the closest birding hotspot for us, we typically head down to the creek several times a week. It is always exciting, refreshing and suspenseful as you never know what you see or who you bump into, birds, animals or fellow nature buffs. On our walk yesterday I managed to snap the following picture of the male. He seemed tired and could not care less about the photographers below the tree. For a moment a feisty Black-capped Chickadee tried to get his attention, but he dismissed the diminutive critter like it would be nothing more than a buzzing mosquito. The chickadee deserves our respect though. It takes some big cojones for someone that small to pick a fight with someone that much larger with those formidable talons and beak.
May the curiosity be with you. This is from “The Birds are Calling” blog (www.thebirdsarecalling). Copyright Mario Pineda.
The Canada Geese are back and with that, spring migration is slowly getting started. I spend the morning at Elk Island National Park and came across, what must be one of the most iconic Canadian sights, a bunch of Canada Geese making a racket on top of a beaver dam in a frozen lake. No sight of beavers though. I imagine, however, that the occupants of the dam must have been royally annoyed by being awoken so rudely by the geese. Not far away, I spotted a band of European Starlings chattering away in a tree. The starlings became species 42 on my Alberta Big Year list. It may be a slow start to spring but from now on it can only get better as the pace of the returning migrants quickens. There is much too look forward to as our familiar birding spots are about to get transformed. The bison were also out in full force, both the Plains and the Wood bison. I also saw some deer and a fleeting shadow at a forest edge in the distance eerily reminiscent of a moose, but maybe it was just an optical illusion combined with wishful thinking.
May the curiosity be with you. This is from “The Birds are Calling” blog (www.thebirdsarecalling). Copyright Mario Pineda.
Bohemian Waxwings like to hang out in fruit tree. They are frugivores with an attitude. They can be found roaming around in large groups, descending on fruit trees and engaging in noisy fruit eating feasts before moving on. Over the last few weeks we have been seeing Bohemian Waxwings regularly in the Whitemud Ravine. They are handsome birds with facial markings resembling the makeup of a Chinese opera performer, wingtips with distinct bright yellow, white and red markings, dark orange under tail feathers and bright yellow tail tip. You can never have enough Bohemian Waxwings in your life.
May the curiosity be with you. This is from “The Birds are Calling” blog (www.thebirdsarecalling). Copyright Mario Pineda.
You could hear them all around. Chattering and singing. Like a rambunctious social gathering. Like a large group of old friends all talking at the same time around the dinner table. First we could only hear them, but once our eyes managed to see beyond the tangled branches we could see them, the Bohemian Waxwings. They were everywhere and once we started observing the gaggle we soon realized what all the commotion was about. It was dinner time and the trees were full of fruit. With all the chattering it made you wonder if, by any chance, some of those berries may have something stronger in them just virgin fruit juices. A gaggle of drunken waxwings? Fancy that.
May the curiosity be with you. This is from “The Birds are Calling” blog (www.thebirdsarecalling). Copyright Mario Pineda.
Project 365 is a challenge where you kickstart your journey as a photographer by committing to taking one photo a day for one year. Now, I am not a photographer (yet) so Project 365 does not seem to apply to me, or does it? I recently came across the Disperser Tracks blog where a Project 365 is remixed as a photography / blog / narrative challenge. In the words of Disperser Tracks: Three-hundred-and-thirteen posts, each with a photo . . . and a joke and an original doodle. On a side note, Disperser Tracks did a Project 313 (instead of 365) because he/she likes to “go against the tide” and the number 313 is, mathematically speaking, prettier (something I can relate to in my day to day job). In other words, feel free to take the idea behind Project 365 and turn it into anything your want.
So here is my version of Project 365. First of all, next year (2020) is a leap year, which means that if I start today (March 29, 2019) and do this project for one year, that year will be 366 days long. So, that means I will be doing Project 366. Secondly, rather than committing to take one picture a day, I am committing to posting one picture with a story every day. This picture will not necessarily have been shot on the same day, but it would be taken by me (or by a member in my family) and it will be accompanied by a short narration. To me Project 365…, I mean Project 366, is not so much about taking pictures as it is about telling stories. The stories will be told through pictures and through the written word. Sort of like Hinterlands Who’s Who, except blogging-style.
Do not, however, expect dazzling images or profound stories of all manners of charismatic critters on a daily basis. While all the posts will be on the topic of natural history, much of it will likely be rather mundane stuff. Stuff that we might see on a daily basis, but not notice. Or as I often say, when you are looking for birds, you find all the other things as well, things that you have seen a million times but never noticed. Stuff like this…
Yes, that’s a very large turd found at Elk Island National Park. Apologies for not including a familiar object for scale but, trust me, it was big, really big. The turd is remarkable in more ways that just because of its monumental size. It is dung from a Plains Bison. Bison dung provides a fascinating story of nutrient cycling and providing a home to an entire ecosystems of micro-organisms and insects. Bison dung has also served mankind in the form of fuel for cooking and warmth. Today, there are more bison at Elk Island National Park than existed in the the whole of North America in 1880. The Wood Bison (which also lives in Elk Island National Park) is the largest land mammal in North America, followed closely by their relative the Plains Bison. Hence, the huge turd!
The ultimate purpose of my Project 366 is to use it as an excuse to head out into nature more often, to practice my observation skills, id’ing skills and being mindful and present in the moment. A more mundane reason for embarking on this project is to kickstart my photography and blogging skills.
Here is the plan. Project 366 entries will be posted at midnight, starting tonight. Posts will include a picture and a short story relating to the picture. That’s it! Sounds easy enough. Wish me luck and make sure you are up at midnight for the next year to be the first one to see the day’s entry. I better go and snap some pictures now.
Disclaimer (aka as the fine print): I reserve the right to modify the rules as I go along to make this project more personally meaningful. There may be various glitches and mishaps along the way due to technical shortcomings. I will embrace every “failure” as a learning opportunity and learn from my mistakes and from the haphazard limitations that modern technology sometimes throws our way. In other words, I am building this plane blog as I am flying writing it. I know, this is a terrible analogy when applied to important stuff that actually matters, but since this blog is not mission critical and no humans or animals will get hurt in the process, the analogy sort of works here.
May the curiosity be with you. This is from “The Birds are Calling” blog (www.thebirdsarecalling). Copyright Mario Pineda.
