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.