February 15-21, 2025 with Jay VanderGaast & Dan Arndt
Ever since I first ran this tour in 2017, I've been waiting and hoping for a big owl winter in the province. After this year's trip, I'm confident that I can say the waiting is now over, as we smashed our previous records for numbers of owls and also beat our previous best for number of owl species seen on the tour. So, to say this year's tour was a success is something of an understatement. It was so good that I'm glad we don't have this trip scheduled for next year, as this would be a hard act to follow! We knew the tour was a success after our first day in the field, when we counted an astounding 22 different Great Gray Owls before we'd stopped for lunch! While many of these were rather distant, there were enough of them that offered close-up looks that we could pick and choose which ones we stopped for! Most years we'll stop for any and all of them! On the downside, we didn't see any other Great Grays on the tour after lunch that first day, but I don't think anyone could be disappointed with the outcome! We even got to watch as one flew towards us and landed on a nearby fencepost then proceeded to pounce into the snow below, ultimately coming up empty, but it's always fun watching them hunt!
While the Great Grays were certainly the story of this tour, there were plenty of other owls to be had as well. Northern Hawk Owls weren't undergoing the same type of irruption as their larger relatives, but there were still some around, and we tallied three different birds, with progressively better views with each one, culminating in some incredibly close looks at one in a park in Okotoks that seemed completely unphased by all the humans walking below it! And Snowy Owl numbers were quite low in the province, but, as always, there were some around, and we found 6 birds over two days in the prairie regions around Calgary, including a nearly immaculate white bird sitting in a snow bank right next to a quiet back road! And after a couple of years missing Short-eared Owl, we were pleased to once again get some amazing views of 8 of them late one afternoon south of Calgary. More exciting though, was that we also found a Long-eared Owl in the same area, a rather uncommon species here, and a first for our Owlberta tours! Rounding out the owl list was a couple of Great Horned Owls, including a glowering bird picturesquely perched in the window of a weathered farm building, and a lone Northern Pygmy-Owl, our least cooperative owl of the trip, as it was seen only briefly at quite a distance before vanishing on a spruce-covered hillside.
Of course, it's not just owls that make a winter trip to Alberta something special; there are plenty of other birds to fill the time between owl sightings. Open water along the Bow River in Calgary offers up a bunch of overwintering waterfowl, all in fresh breeding plumage and usually in excellent lighting conditions. Nearly 20 Trumpeter Swans, once a scarce species in the province, fed alongside the large flocks of Canada Geese (many with tiny icicles dangling from the tips of their beaks), while Redheads, Canvasbacks, both species of scaup, and Bufflehead were among the many ducks plying the icy waters of the river, impervious to the cold. Gorgeous Common Goldeneyes were beginning their bizarre courtship displays, and a careful search turned up a couple of prized Barrow's Goldeneyes among them, and the lone overwintering Harlequin Duck, a stonking male, also put in an appearance, much to our delight!
Meanwhile, we tallied 5 of the 6 possible woodpecker species, with the highlights being a close pair of Pileated Woodpeckers hammering on tree trunks right next to the trail, and a female American Three-toed Woodpecker quietly prying the bark off a nearby spruce, both at Fish Creek PP. All three expected chickadee species frequented the various feeders visited on the tour, as did dapper Clark's Nutcrackers, Red and White-breasted nuthatches, Pine Siskins, Redpolls, and both Pine and Evening grosbeaks. Majestic Bald Eagles were getting an early start on the breeding season, making frequent visits to a massive stick nest along the Bow River, and gorgeous Bohemian Waxwings gorged themselves on the desiccated fruits of a roadside mountain ash, and White-winged Crossbills pried the scenes from the clusters of spruce cones in a local cemetery. And out in the prairies, large groups of introduced Gray Partridge showed beautifully against the snowy backdrop, while swarms of Snow Buntings did their best to blend into their surroundings. And let's not forget all the Moose and Coyotes, the Wapiti and the Mule and White-tailed deer that showed up regularly throughout the trip.
Despite the cold temperatures, the snow and the ice, I hope you have warm memories of your time in the province. Dan and I truly enjoyed sharing the beauty of an Alberta winter with all of you. Not just the birds, but the stunning snowy scenery, the views of the spectacular Rocky Mountains, the sundogs and the weather inversions, the warm, friendly people and yes, even the cold. Thank you for joining us this year, and we look forward to crossing paths again one day.
**Note** Species designated by Ebird as "Sensitive" will not appear on the Ebird lists for those with whom the lists weren't shared directly. For this tour, that excluded Great Gray Owl and Northern Hawk Owl from the Ebird lists. Clark's Nutcracker was also seen, but doesn't appear on the list due a request from the property owners to hide the checklist for their home from public viewing.
Mammals seen on this tour:
White-tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus townsendi): One, our first evening, in the parking lot of the Edmonton hotel.
Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis): Introduced. Many at the Queen's Park Cemetery, primarily melanistic ones.
North American Red Squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus): Common in coniferous forests. A few at various feeders.
Coyote (Canis latrans): Recorded daily, with 16 sightings over the 5 days in the field.
Wapiti (Cervus canadensis): One herd of ~15-20 along Grand Valley Road.
Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus): Common in mostly open habitats in the Calgary region.
White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus): Tends to favour somewhat more wooded areas than the Mulies, but likewise a common species.
Moose (Alces alces): Seen only in the Edmonton region, where we had 5 different ones the first day.
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/332863
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/owl25TRIPLIST.pdf
- - Jay