NWT Big Day - PART 5

Our last bird as we left Hay River was a group of 13 AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER walking around a vacant lot filled with trash! Below is a pic of one of the group.

We left Hay River with 133 species and knowing that we really had very few gaps left in the list! Our final destination was Yellowknife, which was almost 450 km or about 5 hours straight driving to the north. As there was now a bridge over the west arm of Great Slave Lake, we didnt need to worry about the ferry over this site! The road was in excellent condition with virtually no traffic and we made good time. Several speculative stops along the way added TUNDRA SWAN, CANVASBACK and WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW.
The next key stop was km 90 of Hwy 3 on the way north to Yellowknife. A report on eBird mentioned a marsh here with BLACK TERNS so we thought it was worth a shot. When we arrived at the appointed kilometer marker there was the marsh, and it was full of BLACK TERNS!!! Unfortunately there was only a narrow viewing angle to the wetland by looking down an old flooded road bed that led to the lake and marsh. I decided to grab my rubber boots and walk the hundred meters along the flooded road to where it provided a full view of the lake. Paul waited to see what I would find. I was thrilled to find 13 WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS, 2 SURF SCOTERS, and several pairs of RED-NECKED GREBES! I returned to the road and Paul donned the one pair of rubber boots and now repeated the process while I watched. Below is a pic of him wading back from a successful mission!

  

We finally arrived in Yellowknife around 10:30 pm but the sun was still up and there was lots of light for finding birds. Unfortunately we had few possibilities left to find here! Nonetheless we did enjoy a wonderful view of the harbour and below are some pics of a cottage in evening light and the sunset when it finally came after 11 pm! It was a beautiful way to end a fantastic day with our final total being a record Big Day for the NWT of 145 species!!!!

 

NWT Big Day - PART 4

We arrived at Hay River just before noon, with a great total of 103 species! Our first stop was the Nuisance Grounds (the local name for the town dump!). Here we tallied four gull species, and our what was certainly our rarest bird of the day - a flyover AMERICAN GOLDFINCH! This is certainly one of the few, if only, records for the NWT!! The nearest eBird observation is nearly 800 km to the south and the NWT bird list does not include this species.

Our real target in Hay River was the mouth of the river, where it empties into Great Slave Lake. When scouting there was still lots of ice here and we were hoping that some still remained. Ice is often a magnet to north bound migrants. When we arrived at our first view point we could see a large floe of ice to the west so we quickly moved there. Next began an amazing string of new birds for the day as flocks of shorebirds dropped in to the ice edge, along with loons, gulls and terns, and many waterfowl feeding busily along this area. We added 31 species in just two hours of scanning this area! Conditions were perfect, though it was extremely cold with a light wind off Great Slave Lake. Highlights of the birds here included RED-NECKED PHALAROPE (10), STILT SANDPIPER (5), SANDERLING (10), WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER (2), and EARED GREBE (1). The last species is quite rare in the NWT. Below are some pics of these same species taken in the days before while we were driving through Alberta.

Female RED-NECKED PHALAROPE

 STILT SANDPIPER in breeding plumage

 SANDERLING in breeding plumage

 A mixture of SANDERLINGS, WHITE-RUMPED and SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPERS

EARED GREBE displaying in full breeding plumage!

NWT Big Day - PART 3

From Ft. Smith we now began the long drive to Hay River. This trip is about 320 km and takes about four hours of solid driving. Our target was to get there by noon with a few birding stops along the way. Not long out of town we passed a long wide area of low stunted spruce and both screamed when a medium sized raptor flew along the roadside and landed on the top of a tree. We were thrilled to see that it was a NORTHERN HAWK OWL!! Despite the time pressure we stopped to take a few pics. The photos below were actually taken the next day, of a different hawk owl we found later on the big day near Yellowknife!!

Not long after the Hawk Owl we stopped at a roadside site in Wood Buffalo National Park known as the wetland pulloff. Here we had an incredible string of luck with HOODED MERGANSER, FOX SPARROW, OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER, COMMON GRACKLE, PEREGRINE FALCON, RUSTY BLACKBIRD, EASTERN KINGBIRD and BLACKPOLL WARBLER (our 16 warbler for the day) all being added within minutes!! While scoping Paul spotted a LYNX at the edge of the highway digging in the sand bank for some tasty morsel. Speaking of mammals, we saw lots up here and during the Big Day other highlites included no fewer than 8 BLACK BEARS, a RED FOX, the LYNX, BEAVER, WOODCHUCK, and over a hundred BISON!  The pic below as taken a few days before of a BLACK BEAR grazing by the roadside at dusk. In four days here we spotted at least 25 bears.

NWT Big Day - PART 2

We returned to Hwy 5 around 5:30 PM with 60 species already on the list. Now we backtracked in to the townsite of Ft. Smith. Our targets here were things like HOUSE SPARROW, STARLING and CROW. Yes, they all count on Big Days! Just as important was that Gigis coffee shop and bakery was now open. The sweet old lady who ran it made us some bacon and egg sandwiches to go. We grabbed some great coffee to go and were soon zipping around town looking for a few targets before hitting the road. One of the key birds in Ft. Smith is AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN. In fact our hotel was named the Pelican Narrows Hotel and for good reason. Only a few hundred yards away were a set of rapids with hundreds of pelicans feeding at close range. The evening before the big day we had hiked down to the river bank and photographed the pelicans feeding at close range. They provided incredible close views. Below is a small selection of pics from the evening before. And yes we easily saw hundreds on the big day, plus a bonus BAY-BREASTED WARBLER singing along the river valley!

Northwest Territories, Canada - Big Day May 31, 2013 PART 1

Sorry for the long break in blog posts. Been very busy! For the last week Paul Pratt and myself have been making the 6,000 km journey from Ontario to the NWT. Along the way we have stopped for breaks for some photography. On May 31st, we did a "Big Birding Day" in the NWT trying to find as many bird species in a calendar day as possible. This post summarizes that day using pics from the day, plus pics taken during the trip out (not much time to actually take photos on a big day!!).

Our day began at 2:15 AM in the parking lot of the Pelican Rapids hotel in Ft. Smith. It was a bit noisy due to the drunken partiers from the nearby bar (just closed), but we still managed to hear COMMON NIGHTHAWK, CHIPPING, SONG and LINCOLNS SPARROWS singing away. On the outskirts of town we heard the first two of ten GREAT HORNED OWLS recorded during the day.

We drove pretty much due west from Ft. Smith to an area known as the Fox Hole. We arrived at this wetland around 3:00 AM when the photo below was taken. You can see it is pretty light already! In fact, we were so far north there was always some light in the sky.

The amount of bird song at this early hour was remarkable. We spent about 45 minutes birding this wetland area and our list was 40 species by 4 AM. Among the highlights were both LECONTES (see photo below) and NELSONS SPARROWS, MARSH WRENS, SORAS, AMERICAN COOT, and SANDHILL CRANES. One of the best sightings was a pair of WHOOPING CRANES seen briefly flying to the west and then dropping out of sight.

It was a spectacular morning but mighty chilly. We were happy we had filled the thermos with hot coffee from the overnight pot from our hotel. Any coffee is better than none when you are cold!!

We had lots of ground to cover and in the Ft. Smith area we really wanted to get as many songbirds as possible. This area has lots of big trees, and good habitat diversity so many species reach the northern limits of their breeding grounds here. One of the key families was warblers, with about 16 species reasonable possible here. A key target was CONNECTICUT WARBLER. We had found one the day before and when we pulled up to the spot at 5:00 AM he was singing away! This pic below of this rare bird was taken the day before.