I have been waiting for the wintering finches to arrive. They usually arrive in December and they are mostly redpolls. I was very surprised to see a Pine Grosbeak in October, though some have been reported in southern Alberta.
I saw this Pine Grosbeak this morning in the woods across the road from my house. The Pine Grosbeak is a Life Bird,
If you would like to join me for Feathers on Friday, please put the link to your blog post in the comments and I will add a link to my post.
I saw this Bald Eagle this morning near a very large slough near our corrals,
If you look carefully you can see one very big talon,
I saw these Tundra Swans this morning when I was doing my farm chores today. I’m glad I had my camera with me.
If you would like to join me for Feathers on Friday, please put the link to your blog post in the comments and I will add a link to my post.
Northern Harriers have been a very common sight around my house. But I’ve had very few opportunities to get good photos of the birds.
I had a great Big Sit on Sunday. I was able to count 29 species.
I would have been sitting at 6:30 am but I had my favorite radio show to listen to at 7:30, Ray Brown’s Talkin’ Birds. I started my official count at 8:40. The first bird I counted was a Canada Goose which was not surprising since the part of Alberta I live in seems to be a major flyway for the geese. I counted 2,024 Canada Geese, 2,075 Greater White-fronted Geese and 6,158 Snow Geese. I was seated in a pretty good spot for birdwatching, near a pretty large slough, grasslands and woods. My count was made up of mostly water fowl: Tundra Swans flying overhead, Mallards, Teals Shovelers and alone Bufflehead swimming on the slough.
It took me a while to catch a glimpse of the very scarce chickadees. I also had good luck with raptors: two Bald Eagles, two Northern Harriers and one Rough-legged Hawk which was a life bird. I waited until it was quite dark so I could wait for owls but none came. I finished my Big Sit after 12 hours at 8:40 pm.
I had a great Big Sit this year. I can’t wait to participate in it next year!
My circle site,
I used sticks to mark my circle,
The first bird to be counted,
I saw 80 Short-billed Dowitchers,
Thousands of Greater White-fronted Geese flew over me throughout the day,
A bad photo of a Rough-legged Hawk, life bird,
A Northern Harrier flew right past me twice through the day,
On Saturday my family and I went to the Smoky Lake Pumpkin Festival. We have gone three or four times in the past few years. There is a pumpkin weigh-off to see which pumpkin is the heaviest. The winner (heaviest pumpkin) weighed in at about 1,000 lbs.
After the weigh-off there was a pumpkin auction, where my father bought two pumpkins, one weighing 452 lbs and the other one 166 lbs. We are going to have a Halloween party at our house at the end of the month and carve the pumpkins as part of the festivities.
At the end of the day there was a pumpkin drop, where one big pumpkin was dropped on another, and then the heaviest pumpkin was dropped onto an old car.
I love these coveralls,
A vendor was selling an assortment of very neat pumpkins and gourds,
A very bumpy pumpkin,
The giant splat that the 900 lb pumpkin left after falling on the car,
Sitting on our 452 lb pumpkin,
Sitting on a concrete pumpkin,
On the way home from the festival we stopped it Andrew, home of the world’s largest Mallard Duck,
Prairie Birder 