June 7 - Quiet day West of Calgary

When I envisioned this five day trip, I had four definite locations that I knew would produce a variety of quality sightings. Monday had been in Calgary, Tuesday was to the south at Frank Lake, Wednesday to the east and Friday was planned to be in Calgary again.

That left west of Calgary for today. I had not done a lot of birding out in this direction, and I decided to use the Birding in Calgary guide to explore Cochrane and the Kananaskis. There was allegedly a marsh north west of Cochrane that sounded promising. I picked up Mary-Jean in southeast Calgary and we headed westward to Cochrane, gateway to the Rockies!



Unfortunately, the directions in the book I was using (written in 1993) did not seem to get us anywhere near a marsh. At one point we pulled over to refer to the book and IPhone maps.

While I was doing that, Mary-Jean noticed a pair of Mountain Bluebirds close to the jeep.  She got the better photos as I had to stretch just to see them from the driver's seat.



Mountain Bluebird - Near Cochrane AB - Photo by Mary-Jean Payeur



Mountain Bluebird (F) - Near Cochrane AB - Photo by Mary-Jean Payeur

About 30 minutes later we had the good fortune to spot an immature Swainson's Hawk, our first for the trip. The speckles on the breast indicate it is a young hawk and the white on the breast makes it a light morph.

Swainson's Hawk (imm) - near Cochrane AB

2018 Bird #177 

I decided to give up on finding the marsh as we were already near Kananaskis Country. We ended up on the Sibbald Creek trail, a place I was more familiar with.

Our first bird in this area was a Meadowlark, truly a photogenic bird.

Western Meadowlark - Sibbald Creek Trail AB

There was some activity in the area such as the common Savannah Sparrow.


Savannah Sparrow - Sibbald Creek Trail AB

We spent the rest of the afternoon stopping at a few points of interest, but didn't see much in the way of bird life.

I drove Mary-Jean back to Calgary, and then headed back to Cochrane to have dinner with my cousin Cathy and her husband Bob. We were sitting out in their yard when a very large moth appeared in their garden. They had seen it before and identified it as a Sphinx Moth. I took some photos and also a short video.


Sphinx Moth - Cochrane AB

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is thought of as an Eastern species, but I see them at Cathy's place every time I visit. The East-West distinction with birds really means on which side of the Rockies they are seen. So, an eastern Hummingbird in Cochrane is not really unusual.

According to Cathy, the male of this pair had an unfortunate collision with a window a few days before and did not survive.


Ruby-throated Hummingbird (F) - Cochrane AB - 2018 Bird #178

After dinner I said my good-byes and headed back to Calgary. On the way, I saw this adult Swainson's Hawk and was able to stop and get a shot.

Swainson's Hawk - Near Cochrane AB

This ended a disjointed day. Tomorrow we'd be birding in Calgary, and I'd be on a plane home in the evening.

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