Flocking to birdwatching
Growing up on a farm, Barb Dick was fascinated by the many birds that she would see nesting in the area or passing through.
“I always enjoyed it, seeing the red-winged blackbirds and meadowlarks and everything else that came along,” Dick recalls.
But she never really had much time for birding until many years later when she retired and became involved with the FLC Seniors Outdoor Club in Calgary and their regular birding trips. That was about 10 years ago, and since then she has really embraced birding as a way to get outdoors, socialize and view the incredible variety of birds in our area.
“It’s great to see a bird you haven’t seen before,” says Dick, who keeps track of each new species in her bird book.
Dick recalls someone playing her a recording of a bird called a sora, a shy waterbird that tends to hide in the cattails that surround marshlands.
“They told me: ‘This is the sound of the sora, but you’re not very likely to actually see one.’ ”
That was eight years ago, but last year Dick was birding near Frank Lake and heard a sora’s distinctive song.
“I was walking along the grasses and got a wonderful picture of one. That was the high point of last season for me. You just have to be at the right spot at the right time.”
Barb Kowalzik, a birding enthusiast and program co-ordinator with the City of Calgary Parks, says all you need for birding “is to open your eyes and then listen.”
But most birders eventually get a field guide to identify birds and a pair of binoculars, with Kowalzik saying a pair rated as 8x42 will provide a nice bright image with a decent field of view.
“Calgary is a great place to go birding because we have a really unique opportunity to see northern migrant birds, as well as southern migrants,” says Kowalzik.
The Inglewood Bird Sanctuary is an oasis for birds in the city, while other parks that are popular with birders include Carburn Park, The Weaselhead area and Confederation Park in the northwest, Kowalzik says.
Birding is a popular pastime for Canadians, with a survey by Biodivcanada reporting almost one-fifth of adults having participated in birding, on average more than 100 days per year.
The Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society in Calgary offers birding courses in spring, fall and winter, with each attracting several hundred participants, says society volunteer and birder David Mitchell.
A typical birding session will see participants head out with a volunteer leader for about three hours at locations both in the provincial park and also other area parks, Mitchell says.
“We’re using a traveling protocol,” says Mitchell. “We’ll stop when we see something interesting, then we head onward.”
His own interest in birding started in a roundabout way.
“I retired quite a few years ago and got into birding as a hobby, primarily as a photographer at first.”