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Worldwide there are three species of waxwings:  Cedar, Bohemian (both can be seen throughout North America) and Japanese.  The Cedar waxwing gets its name in part due to the brightly coloured wax-like tips on their feathers.  “Cedar” comes from their consumption of juniper berries.  While several different trees have the word “cedar” in their common name, one, the eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) which is actually a juniper, has blue fruit that these waxwings eat.

The Cedar waxwing’s genus name, Bombycilla, means “silk-tail” and refers to its dapper-looking plumage.  The species name, cedorum, is Latin for “of the cedars” and reflects its fondness for the small cones of the eastern red cedar.

Cedar waxwings with orange instead of yellow tail tips began appearing in the north-eastern U.S. and southwestern Canada in the 1960s.  The orange colour is the result of a red pigment picked up from the berries of an introduced species of honeysuckle.  If a waxwing eats enough of the berries while it is growing a tail feather, the tip of the feathers will be orange.

Cedar waxwings are a highly specialized frugivorous (an animal feeding on fruit) species, exhibiting almost full reliance on sugary fruits, unlike other fruit-eating passerines that exhibit only opportunistic frugivory when other food sources are in poor supply.  Their efficient digestion of fruits containing simple sugars allows them to persist off of fruit alone, while other fruit-eating passerines found subsiding on fruit alone to be a fatal task.  Reliance on primarily fruit alone occurs until fruit cessation in the spring when the birds start to feed on insects and flowers

Within its range, Cedar waxwings move nomadically in response to food supplies, and is an important and very effective seed disperser.

Young are fed on insects for the first two days, then solely on regurgitated fruits, leaving the nest around 15 days later.  This fruit-based diet ensures that any parasitic Brown-headed cowbirds hatching in their nests do not survive.

When:     Wednesday, August 3, 2022.  Registration at 6:00pm; Activities begin at 6:30pm

Where:    Weaselhead Park, Calgary

What:      Grab your FREE pair of Nature Kids binoculars to go birding with the Weaselhead/Glenmore Park Preservation Society and participate in family activities to learn all about our feathered friends with nature Calgary

The English and genus names for “phalarope” come through French phalarope and scientice Latin Phalaropus from Ancient Greek phalaris “coot”, and pous, “foot”.  Coots and Phalaropes both have lobed toes.  Phalaropes also have a unique way of nesting.  The female lays her eggs in nothing more than a scrape on the ground and then abandons the eggs leaving the male to tend to them.   Later, the male tidies the scrape and arranges the surrounding vegetation to hide the nest.  Phalaropes differ from most bird species as the female is more colourful than the male.  There are 3 phalaropes all can be seen in Canada:  Red-necked phalarope, Red phalarope and Wilson’s phalarope.        

Set-Date Tours

Set-date tours are scheduled many months if not years in advance to maximize enjoyment and birding opportunities.  The group size for these tours can range between four and ten participants depending on logistics, focus of the tour and location.  These tours can be viewed and booked anytime through our website.

Calgary Day Trips

Calgary day trips are tailored to fit your exact needs and circumstances as well as your personal goals.  Do you want to spend a day of targeting specific birds you need for your life list?  Maximize the number of species?  Or even just a casual stroll through a local park?  All of these can be arranged to fit your preferences and schedule.

Canadian populations of these tiny owls have declined more than 90% over the last 40 years.  According to Canada’s list of species at risk, the Canadian population of Burrowing owls reduced by 90% from 1990 to 2000, and a further 64% between 2005 and 2015 with estimates of fewer than 500 breeding pairs in Canada today.

Severe habit loss, climate change and other changes to the owl’s environment has contributed to the population loss, and the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo says last-hatched owlets within each wild family have about a 3% chance of surviving their first year.  Even those that do survive to leave the nest are very, very unlikely to survive migration and unlikely to return to Canada.

That is why the organization has sought to head-start the youngest owlets with human care at its Wildlife Conservation Centre, giving them a chance to grow up in a controlled environment without the threats of predators, extreme weather and other factors.

Still only owlets when they were brought to the Calgary Zoo last summer, The Wilder Institute and The Calgary Zoo have since returned 20 Burrowing owls to the wild in southeastern Alberta.

The owlets are brought back near where they were originally hatched into installed secure burrows.

A netted enclosure is placed around owl pairs and their burrows to ensure they can safety mate and lay eggs and new couples are provided with food until eggs can be laid.

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The Bird Seed Truck

Didn’t start out as a particularly great day to go birding (the wind was fierce and rain clouds were everywhere on the horizon),  but things usually have a way of turning around.  After spending almost an hour trying to find the owners of a corgi mom and her 2 puppies which had escaped and were wandering near the highway, we were off again and it didn’t take long to find the birds.  Surprisingly, even though there was a vast improvement in the amount of water, the ponds and lakes remained almost completely void of waterfowl and shorebirds. We did catch sight of the Loggerhead shrike, Yellow warblers, Western meadowlarks, lots of Eastern kingbirds and a few Western kingbirds, Eared, Horned and a lifer for me, the pied-billed grebe, lots of Black terns at one lake, but the surprise of the day was visiting one of our favourite birding spots.  We came around the corner and there standing on the side of the road was a Great blue heron.  Now if you know anything about GBH’s if you slow down or stop—they are out of there immediately.  This one did not move.  Then we realized in the field beyond where he was standing there were more, and more and more—we ended up counting 28 and all immature!  We were completely mesmerized.  We had seen groups of GBH adults in British Columbia, but other than at the rookery here in Alberta, we had only seen singles and not very many this year at all.  So after about a 1/2 hour of watching we continued on our way promising to pass that way on our way home later in the day.

We saw lots of American white pelicans and Cormorants but they were all hunkered down against the wind.  The wind also was no doubt responsible for the lack of waterfowl/shorebirds and their babies as they too could not deal with the wind.

So after driving around on backroads for a few hours it was time to head home.  Back to where the GBH had been found.  We never thought they would still be there—boy were we surprised!  There were now at 35 and they kept coming.  They were standing in a field—I thought they resembled grim reapers standing so still with their immature colouring.  Something we will never forget.  We had learned from a resident who lives across from the lake that the GBH were there because there were invasive Eurasian carp in the lake.  A buffet for hungry immatures learning to fend for themselves.

We have had the best year of birding ever and we are so thankful for the rain not only for our gardens and the farmers, but most of all for the birds. 

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