In a country with more than its share of spectacular scenery, the stretch of mountains along Alberta’s western boundary with British Columbia stands out as arguably the most beautiful of all. With breathtaking vistas at pretty much every turn in the road, a journey through this region is filled with one postcard-worthy panorama after another. The famous national parks we’ll visit—Banff, Jasper, and Waterton Lakes—are worth visiting for the scenery alone, but the wildlife in these regions makes the experience even more exciting. Big game animals abound in the parks, and we stand a good chance of seeing bears, moose, elk, sheep, and more as we patrol the park roads in search of our main quarry, birds. A good variety of smaller mammals, from coyotes and foxes to pikas, beavers, and an assortment of ground-squirrels, make the area one of the best mammal-viewing areas on the continent, with previous outings recording upwards of 20 mammal species in the course of the tour. And the location of these parks along the eastern edge of the Rockies, and the western edge of the prairies, gives us easy access to a great variety of habitats, and thus a fantastic assortment of birds, from high mountain denizens like White-tailed Ptarmigan and Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, to grassland specialists such as Sprague’s Pipit, Thick-billed Longspur, and Baird’s Sparrow.
Our tour kicks off in the provincial capital of Edmonton, from where we will visit nearby Elk Island National Park in the aspen parklands to the east. The park plays an important role in the conservation of the American Bison, with free-roaming herds of both the Plains and Wood subspecies (each in different, fenced-off sections of the park). But the mosaic of aspen woodland, wetlands, and grasslands here are also home to a great variety of birdlife, including several species we’re unlikely to see elsewhere, and we’ll have a full day of searching for species from Red-necked and Western grebes to Nelson’s and LeConte’s sparrows, Mountain Bluebird, and more typical eastern species like Broad-winged Hawk, Great Crested Flycatcher, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak. If our timing is right, we may also track down the tricky Connecticut Warbler in this region.
From Edmonton we wind our way westwards towards the mountains of Jasper National Park. Amidst the magnificent mountain scenery, we’ll scour mountain streams for Harlequin Ducks and American Dippers and search among the towering conifers for Northern Pygmy-Owl, Canada Jay, Varied Thrush, Boreal Chickadee, and White-winged Crossbill. We’ll visit the alpine tundra via a motorized tram in an attempt to track down White-tailed Ptarmigan, American Pipit, and Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch while enjoying a spectacle of alpine flowers. Our journey then finds us heading south along the famous Icefields Parkway, into Banff National Park, with a number of stops along the way, including the thundering Athabasca Falls and the famous Columbia Icefields, with views of the impressive Athabasca Glacier. Clark’s Nutcrackers may attempt to pilfer goodies from our picnic lunch en route, and along the highest section of the road we’ll look for the “Slate-colored” Fox Sparrow, a very different-looking bird to the Fox Sparrows of the east. Continuing our sampling of the mountain parks, we’ll move on to the spectacular vistas of Kananaskis Country, crossing the highest paved pass in the country—Highwood Pass, at 7237’ (2206m)—then skirting the eastern edge of the mountains to arrive in Waterton Lakes National Park, in the southwestern corner of the province. With targets including Calliope Hummingbird, American Three-toed Woodpecker, Townsend’s Solitaire, Western Tanager, and Lazuli Bunting, not to mention Mountain Goat, Bighorn Sheep, Elk, Moose, Beaver, Black Bear, and Grizzly Bear, all with the constant backdrop of some of the most majestic scenery on the continent, our time in the mountains will be unforgettable indeed!
As a coda to our time in the mountains, we’ll make a broad sweep eastward out into the prairies that cover most of the southern half of the province. Sloughs and potholes dot the grasslands here, and a great assortment of waterfowl and waders inhabit these, the number and variety dependent on the depth of the water, the presence or absence of vegetation, and/or the alkalinity of the water. Eared Grebe, Cinnamon Teal, Canvasback, Ruddy Duck, Franklin’s Gull, Wilson’s Phalarope, American Avocet, and many more will likely be found at these waterholes, while the grazing reserves, remnants of the endless Mixed-Grass Prairie that once blanketed this region, host a completely different suite of birds. In these areas we’ll watch for Long-billed Curlew, Ferruginous and Swainson’s hawks, Prairie Falcon, Sprague’s Pipit, Loggerhead Shrike, Baird’s, Vesper, and Grasshopper sparrows, Thick-billed and Chestnut-collared longspurs, and Lark Bunting, as well as elegant Pronghorns and industrious American Badgers, as we work our way northward to the prairie town of Brooks. Our final morning will see us visiting the spectacular badlands along the Red Deer River at Dinosaur Provincial Park, where in addition to some amazing vistas, we’ll seek out birds like Say’s Phoebe, Rock Wren, Spotted Towhee, Lark Sparrow, and the elusive Yellow-breasted Chat, before making our return to Calgary to wrap up the tour.
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