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| Birding with Vlad |
Today was our bird watching day with CPAWS! We started the morning by going birding with our expert guide Vlad. Vlad is a very knowledgeable birder who helped us to see some amazing birds today. Here's what we saw: 2 Franklin's gulls, 2 downy woodpeckers, 3 black-billed magpies, 35 common ravens, 5 black-capped chickadees, 1 red-breasted nuthatch, 10 american robins, 1 dark-eyed junko, 1 white-crowned sparrow, 3 house finches, 10 white-winged crossbills, and 4 house sparrows!
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| Can you see the white-winged crossbills? |
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| A brief stop to visit Iain's dog Sandy |
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| Consulting the bird books |
After our hike we met up with Vanessa from CPAWS and played some bird games in the Whispering Woods. The games we played were all designed to help us learn more about birds, what they need to survive, and the challenges they face. Ask me to tell you these things:
1. What are the 4 things birds need to survive?
2. What are the 4 life stages of a bird?
3. What is happening to burrowing owls that has caused them to become a species at-risk?
4. What caused Peregrin falcons to become at-risk. Why are there numbers now starting to grow?
Stephanie from Green Calgary was also here and taught us how to enter information into our eBird accounts. She also shared with us that tomorrow is a very special day in the birder community. Tomorrow is Global Big Day! Global Big Day is a day where birders from around the world try to go bird watching and enter their bird findings into eBird to see if all 10,000 bird species around the world can be seen. Last year almost 7000 species were spotted. This year they are trying to break that record. If you would like to help, spend some time bird watching tomorrow and then enter your findings in your eBird account. If you are interested in participating, here is a link with some more information: A Beginners Guide to Big Day.
Have a great weekend!
Our helper on Monday is: Addison
