Canada and Alaska 1 - Calgary

 

With Covid restrictions easing Sue and I finally got the go ahead for a Rocky Mountaineer and Alaska Cruise tour we had booked back in 2019. You couldn't class it as a birding holiday but it had been planned to coincide with the spring migration and I expected to be able to free up plenty of time to go looking for birds. Sue does not generally show any interest in sightseeing between dawn and breakfast and there would also be long periods at sea off the western coast of Canada and Alaska for Pelagic birding.

It didn't all go to plan, as you will see, and there were some disappointments on the birding front but I still came away with a number of life ticks and a few good pictures.

We flew into Calgary for an overnight stop arriving late afternoon giving me an hour in the evening and a few hours the following morning before we needed to board a coach for the trip up to Banff for a three night stay in the National Park. One of the real benefits of air travel east to west is that whatever time you go to sleep you are wide awake about three in the morning and ready to go birding.

There are some great birding places around Calgary but given the time available the only one I could get to was Prince's Island Park in the Bow River just a few minutes from the hotel where we were staying. I got off to a good start, Canada Goose, hundreds of them but at least they were genuine, Mallards, Starlings, Rock Doves, that is feral pigeon to me, Common Merganser (Goosander), Red-breasted Merganser, and even an American Robin which I had seen for the first time in England only a few weeks earlier.

American Robin

Not the start I was looking for but there were other birds about and even a few decent pictures to be taken.

Northern Flicker

There are two variants of the Northern Flicker, the red shafted in the west and the yellow shafted in the east. This particular bird is probably an intergrade showing features of both, the red malar of the red shafted but the red on the nape suggesting a yellow shafted.

Black-billed Magpie - Pica Hudsonia

Black-capped Chickadee

Juvenile Coopers Hawk

I think the identification of the hawk is correct but unfortunately it didn't like having the camera pointed at it and flew off before I could get a view from the front.

American Wigeon

Song Sparrow

I also found this White-throated Sparrow whilst walking to the park before dawn. It appears to have flown into one of the high rise buildings and was lying stunned on the pavement. The picture was taken in the dark at 1/3 sec on a 600mm lens so is not the best, however, I am pleased to report that after a few minutes it seemed to recover and hopped away into some cover.

White-throated Sparrow - pre dawn 1/3sec on a 600mm lens

It does make you wonder if birding around the base of the high rise buildings would have been more productive than birding the park.

Also seen around the park were American Crow, Brown-headed Cowbird, variants of the Fliker and a Woodpecker heard but not seen.

The trip up to Banff viewing through the coach window added Bald Eagles and Trumpeter Swans to my holiday list. There were also a few smaller birds that I could not identify and a good number of places that I would have liked to stop and explore.

See the details of Banff in the next blog.

Canada and Alaska 2 - Banff

 

Arriving in Banff and having a quick look around I saw my birding plans start to unravel. Banff is a nice town but there were a lot of people there and according to locals we were lucky that we had arrived early in  the season before the crowds arrived. Worse still there was an absence of birds. No swallows nesting under the Bow River bridge, which looked as though it had recently been renovated. No ducks or bird life along the river and a late afternoon walk around the Fenland Trail, which has a bird list of 155 recorded on e-bird, gave me nothing at all.

There also seemed to be a lot of snow on the mountains. In one respect we were happy, as we had come early in the season, to see the Rockies with snow on them but there looked to be a bit more than we had expected. Again talking to locals we found that Canada had suffered one of its coldest winters on record and that Spring was running two to three weeks late. All my careful planning on hitting the spring migration was going wrong.

The next morning I checked out the Bow River and the bridge again with my only sightings being Magpies, American Crows and House Sparrows. Fortunately Cascade Gardens (e-bird list 53) had a few Dark-eyed Juncos foraging on the grass. These look like the Slate-coloured subspecies and are resident year round in the area. 

Dark-eyed Junco - male

Dark-eyed Junco - Female

The rest of the day was spent on a scenic tour along the Icefield Parkway up to the Bow Summit and Athabasca Glacier. Very impressive but the Lake Louise area was covered in snow, they had been ice skating on the lake only a few days earlier and there was no access to Peyto Lake, both planned birding spots. 

Some of my main targets, Clark's Nutcracker, Steller's Jay, Gray Jay where to be found in this area. Instead I had American Crows and Black-billed Magpies. The one consolation was Cliff Swallows which I knew nested on the Lake Louise Hotel. I could see the swallows but I could not get a decent picture or see enough detail to identify the bird. Fortunately the distinctive nests were visible, if distant, and if you blow the picture up big enough you can just make out the red face of a Cliff Swallow emerging from one of the nests under construction.

Cliff Swallow nests - managing to defeat the anti nest defenses

Also at Lake Louise, I got caught out by this one, I thought Chipmunk but when trying to sort out which Chipmunk I found it was a Golden-mantled ground squirrel. Looks as though it is also in search of spring and some snow free ground.

Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel

Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel

Further down the road, at one of the viewpoints, there were a few birds harassing the tourists for food.

Brown-headed Cowbird

Brown-headed Cowbird - Female

Raven as UK

A stop at the services at the Saskatchewan river crossing gave me another new bird which after much searching I have down as a female Purple Finch.

Purple Finch -female

Purple Finch - female

Our brief stay in Banff was coming to an end and I hadn't seen many birds. Our plan for the last day was an early morning visit to the Cave and Basin area for me whilst Sue had a lie in and then a  trip on the Banff Gondola up to Sulphur Mountain where I again had hopes of seeing the Clark's Nutcracker, Fox Sparrows and other high altitude birds that I had pencilled in on my wish list.

The Gondola trip on Sulphur Mountain is easy to deal with. The the top was mostly snowed in although the boardwalk out to the Cosmic Ray Station on Sanson's Peak was open. There were snow flurries around and a cold wind. The only birds seen were Ravens and a few Crows. The views were spectacular but perhaps not so spectacular if you were more interested in the birds. Venturing further afield on the mountain, in search of some avian life, was out of the question without full winter mountain gear and a good knowledge of the area.

I was left with the Cave and Basin area which is fed by hot springs as my best option for picking up a few birds. See the next blog for details.

Canada and Alaska 3 - Cave and Basin

It was our last day in Banff, I wanted to visit the Cave and Basin wetland area but I only had a few hours. I had promised to take Sue for breakfast at nine o'clock so by five I was walking Cave Avenue in the dark to make sure I would be on site when dawn broke.

I got off to a good start when I found a Bufflehead asleep on a small pond close to the start of the road. Unfortunately with no light available, the camera refused to focus and I could not get a picture. Not so good were three deer erupting from the undergrowth only a few metres in front of me. It was a heart stopping moment, I had visions of Grisly Bears or Elk and of my poor wife having to breakfast by herself but luckily I survived the encounter.

The Cave and Basin area is fed by a series of hot springs. They support a unique ecological environment and are said to be the birth place of the Canadian National Parks. They were "discovered" in 1883 by three railway workers although the indigenous peoples of the area had, of course, been using them for thousands of years before that. All very interesting but I had limited time available and I was keen to get to the end of the boardwalk where a hide looks out over a marshy area and open water and I was not disappointed.

I could see movement and hear bird song all around me but initially light levels were too low to take any decent pictures or, with my limited knowledge of North American birds, to be able to identify anything. Gradually the light levels came up and I was able to take a few pictures with he first bird appearing out of the gloom being the Red-winged Blackbird.

Red-winged Blackbird

An American Coot, a Green-winged Teal and a Common Snipe were welcome additions and easy to identify.

American Coot

Green-winged Teal

Common Snipe

Then we had a few Warblers and Sparrows which proved a bit harder to put names to.

Common Yellowthroat

Song Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Lincoln's Sparrow

Yellow-rumped Warblers were interesting. The wetland had good numbers of the Audubon's form as well as a few of the Myrtle form. The distribution maps suggest that Banff is in a narrow band of   overlap between the two forms and that interbreeding does occur.

Yellow-rumped Warbler - Audubon's

Yellow-rumped Warbler - Audubon's

These first two looking like the Audubon's form whilst the next suggests Myrtle or some form of interbreed.

Yellow-rumped Warbler - Myrtle?

Whilst the two forms have been lumped together under the name Yellow-rumped Warbler for around 50 years, the latest DNA evidence seems to suggest that there are three seperate species within the grouping. It is true that there is some interbreeding but research shows that this is over a narrow geographic area and that it is not spreading. This suggests that there could be some genetic weakness in the hybrids that prevents them surviving and carrying the genetic mixing further afield.

I saw very few waders whilst on the tour so two life ticks in the form of Least Sandpiper and Solitary Sandpiper were well received. That is assuming I got the identification of the Least Sandpiper right?

Least Sandpiper

Solitary Sandpiper

More brown-headed Cowbirds and a Northern Waterthrush, the later not the best of pictures but they all count, especially when they are life ticks.

Brown-headed Cowbirds

Northern Waterthrush

I had one bird that I struggled to identify but I now realise that it is a female red-winged Blackbird. I was expecting to find something far more unusual.

Red-winged Blackbird - Female

and one final bird whilst rushing to get back for my nine o'clock breakfast appointment with Sue, the Bufflehead was still asleep on the pond.

Bufflehead

Needless to say, I was late for breakfast.

The next morning we joined the Rocky Mountaineer for our two day journey to Vancouver.

Canada and Alaska 4 - Rocky Mountaineer and Vancouver

 

The next two day were spent on the Rocky Mountaineer train travelling from Banff to Vancouver with an overnight at Kamloops. The train journey was fascinating but for birding it was a bit frustrating. I saw a few distant birds most of which I couldn't recognise. There were lots of Osprey and Bald Eagles but even with the train slowing down as we passed the nests, pictures were difficult. 

Bald Eagle Nest

Other birds seen included Common Loon, Common Merganser, Starling, Lincoln's Sparrow, Turkey Vulture, Red-tailed Hawk, and Double-crested Cormorant. There was also a hint of something that looked like Cranes in the background of one picture but I couldn't be sure. They could well have passed for Ostriches if I had been in Australia. It was getting dark by the time we got to Kamloops but we saw Tree Swallows and as always lots of distant birds that I could not put names to.

Red-tailed Hawk through train window

I had been looking forward to birding around Vancouver. We only had one day allocated too see the city, then possibly a couple of hours the following morning before we boarded the cruise ship but I had done my research and planned to make the most of it. Sadly the best laid plans sometimes fall by the wayside. We ended up having to travel to the airport to be tested for Covid before we were allowed onto the cruise ship which is USA territory. Then when one of the people on the tour tested positive we had to go through the whole testing routine again the next morning before being allowed to board. Our time in Vancouver was wiped out and all I managed was a couple of hours just after dawn walking around Stanley Park.

Sad but being amongst the early visitors to both Canada and American which still had most of their Covid restrictions in place was always going to carry a degree of risk. At least the Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park gave me a few new birds.

Tree Swallow

Wilson's Warbler

Anna's Hummingbird

Orange-crowned Warbler

Great Blue Heron

Pelagic Cormorant

There were also sightings of Wood Duck, Northwestern Crows, and Song Sparrows along with some of the more common birds. Sadly I did not get to search the extensive shore line for some of the sea ducks I had been hoping to see.

Canada and Alaska 5 -Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan

 

I have split the Alaskan cruise into two parts, time spent in the ports and time spent birding from the deck of the ship.

What can I say about the three ports we visited, Juneau the capital of Alaska with a population of around thirty two thousand, Ketchikan at eight thousand and Skagway with less than two thousand people. They are all tourist towns with anything up to 20,000 cruise passengers visiting each day. It sounds horrendous and if you stay around the port and shopping areas or go on all the organised trips horrendous is what it is. However, if you are willing to walk half a mile you can be by yourself on the edge of the town with a thousand miles of wilderness in front of you and possibly even a few birds around. At least that is the theory.

Our first port was Juneau and the priority was a decent picture of a Bald Eagle but the weather was against us, there was pouring rain and low visibility. However, Harlequin Ducks and Pigeon/Black Guillemots in the harbour were a good start.

Harlequin Ducks enjoying the rain

The Guillemots I am not sure about. My initial reaction was no dark bar across the greater coverts so it has to be a Black Guillemot. But then the mouth and legs do not look as bright as Black Guillemots I have seen in Scotland. A trick of the light, a sub adult Pigeon Guillemot, I was not sure and they did not flash their underwings to enable me to confirm the sighting either way. Given the location they were more likely to be Pigeon Guillemots. Luckily I had better views of  Pigeon Guillemots a couple of days later where there was no doubt about the birds identity.

Black/Pigeon Guillemot

A few minutes in the tourist shops in Juneau sheltering from the rain and we decided to join a coach heading for the Mendenhall Glacier. The glacier itself is nothing much to look at and is in itself a bit of a tourist trap but there is an extensive wetland area next to it with a good bird list and unfortunately for us, on the day, even heavier rain. We did see Bald Eagles from the coach window. Close on twenty of them in a field just north of the town. They were sitting on the ground and in the trees and looked as wet and bedraggled as we were about to become. We tried but my bird list for the glacier and wetland was one Orange-crowned Warbler and a complete loss of enthusiasm.

Returning to the docks we took the tramway to the top of  Mt Roberts some 1800ft above Juneau. Spectacular views and well worth the ride but again we were to be disappointed. With spring running about three weeks late the top of the mountain was snowed in, there were no paths open and as with Sulphur mountain at Banff, we were not really equipped for mountain walking in the snow. This was my last location for seeing the Clarke's Nutcracker, will I ever get back for another attempt.

My bird list for Mt Roberts capped a disappointing day, a Western Crow, two Ravens flying over and a Varied Thrush scratching around in a little clearing under one of the pine trees.

Varied Thrush

But there was just a reminder of what could have been. I had been standing outside on the verandah for about an hour and was getting cold so took advantage of a small snow flurry to step inside and get a coffee. Turning back to look at where I had been standing a ghostly image looked back at me. This shot taken through a steamed up window but what a shot to miss.

Stella's Jay through steamed up window and snow flurry

The next port was Skagway. Having just got off the Rocky Mountaineer we resisted the attraction of the White Pass and Yukon narrow gauge railway and instead walked the Pullen Creek northeast out of town, then the Skagway River back in on the other side of town and a few of the footpaths going north along the coast. An exhausting day but we did at least burn off some of the excess calories we had been piling on. Lots of birdsong heard but nothing unusual seen apart from a small Arctic Tern colony near the mouth of the river.

Arctic Tern

When we got back into town Sue had had enough and went off in search of some retail therapy. With time to burn before I needed to get back on the ship I returned to the creek and to a little pond it skirted on the way out to sea. I didn't expect much so was surprised to see a smart looking Ring-necked Duck sitting in the middle of the pond.

Ring-necked Duck

Having photographed that I noticed a disturbance in the water and then spent the next hour watching an American Dipper family feeding a youngster and trying to encourage it to find its own food

American Dipper - mother and youngster

Youngster already bigger than the mother

Dad keeping a low profile

Finally I had another chance at a Stella's Jay that I had missed out on the day before although perhaps not such an impressive looking specimen.

The final port was Ketchikan and this would be my last chance to get a good picture of a Bald Eagle. Once again there were a good number of the regular birds around, House Sparrows, Starlings, Magpies, Crows, American Robins, Varied Thrushes. We also found a Belted Kingfisher, a lifer for me as I hadn't bothered to twitch the bird that had somehow turned up back home in England earlier in the year.

Belted Kingfisher

Belted Kingfisher

There were a couple of Bald Eagles circling over Ketchikan but I needed one perched up and showing well. 

Bald Eagle

I had an old map that indicated an Eagle viewpoint near to a salmon cannery just south of the city, with the eagles being attracted by salmon slurry from the site. The new maps were no longer showing the viewpoint but the cannery was still there. 

It was not the most inspiring of areas. A busy road in a run down semi industrial part of town. There was a steep slope behind the industrial units with some houses amongst pine trees at the top of the slope. Not what I had envisaged but the eagles were there.

One sitting at the back of a car park overlooking the sea.

Bald Eagle

with three adult and three juvenile sitting in the trees above. 

Juvenile Bald Eagle

Bald Eagle - A really impressive bird

Then back to the Cruise Liner to finish the last of our holiday.