Double-crested Cormorant

Early yesterday morning, 18 October 2014, I joined a group of friends for a few hours of birding. We started off at Frank Lake but didn't go to the blind/hide area at all, for safety reasons. We just drove along the short road that goes from half way down the east side of the lake to near the edge of the lake. The last half of this backroad is so very deeply rutted that it's impossible to drive, so we had to walk the last part. It's hunting season and we could hear the shots being fired. We were totally disgusted by the hundreds of empty shells that littered the ground!!! Too bad the hunters don't have such a huge sense of guilt at killing these beautiful birds, that they end up picking up their empty shells out of a sense of guilt and shame - yeah, right! This is my/our opinion only, of course!

From Frank Lake, we drove (carpooled) north to Carseland and stopped at the Reservoir, where we saw this beautiful Double-crested Cormorant with wings spread out to dry. Their wings are not waterproof, so they have to spend time drying them after being in the water. Also spotted a Loon way out in the water and several Grey Partridges on a distant slope.

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Double-crested_Cormorant/id

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-crested_cormorant

The rest of the day was spent driving the backroads east of the city. We called in at Eagle Lake and another lake - I never drive to this whole area, so I'm not sure exactly where we went. Andrew's detailed list will provide me with answers and I will add it here when it is posted. He always does a superb job of his reports, as well as taking us all out on a very enjoyable day. Weather-wise, it couldn't have been more perfect. Thanks so much, Andrew!

Link to Andrew's very detailed account and list:
groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Albertabird/conversations/mes...

Actual account of the day:
"Fifteen participants set off on this trip. The weather was beautiful. The temperature rose from about 10 deg C to 20 deg C by the middle of the afternoon. Sunny all day. Generally light breezes but extremely windy at Chestermere Lake.

The original plan was to spend most of the day in the Frank Lake area. But I had not accounted for the impact of the hunting season. Under the auspices of the Alberta Conservation Association 17,000 pheasants are released at approximately 60 sites in Alberta during October. One of those sites (and the only one in its immediate area) is, of course, Frank Lake. The advertized release dates for Frank Lake are October 15 to November 12. So the scene at the parking area near the blind today featured far more vehicles than usual and many hunters with dogs, all wearing red fluorescent safety gear, and systematically moving to flush pheasants, and whistling as they went. So a couple of problems if you are birdwatching. First you sure need to have your own highly visible safety clothing, second the large number of hunters, dogs, and gunshots tends to scare off the birds. Just, to be clear, I recognize that the hunting community probably contributes much more to the upkeep of areas like Frank Lake then the birding community does. On my scouting trip yesterday I spent some time in fascinating and educational discussions with some of the hunters. But there are just some days when the two do not mix.

So we headed off down to the SE corner of Basin 2. No hunters in immediate evidence, but dozens of spent shotgun cartridges on the ground. We did see some duck hunters, who do not wear fluorescent safety gear, and heard several shotgun blasts. The hunters employed several decoys (both audible and visible), but they had little impact on
the majority of birds on the lake. The highlight here was three late Marsh Wrens found and photographed by Jan Roeseneder.

Next we headed to Carseland, spotting two Rough Legged Hawks en route. At Carseland we parked above the weir. The campsite is still closed but we could see several boats across at the boat launch area.

From there we went to the SW corner of Eagle Lake and had lunch. Looking further east we saw several hundred (at least) Greater White-fronted and Snow Geese, which appeared to have been flushed by some wind surfers. So we headed one RR east and went down to the lakeshore there. There were about four wind surfers having a great time, no geese in sight. The windsurfers only occupied a very small area of the lake. Ken Burton spotted a female White-winged Scoter flying across the lake.

Our next stop was Alkali Lake where we were hoping to see the large flock of Snow Geese reported yesterday by Bill Walker. We stopped at another slough about half a km short and saw a huge cloud of Snow Geese rising from Alkali Lake and flying away. As far as we could tell there were no blue geese and no Ross's Geese in the flock. They did not come
back! We went on to the lake anyway and saw the reason why. There were at least two hunters in and around the lake, who had presumably fired at the geese.

Our final stops were along the east side of Chestermere Lake. We were unsuccessful in locating the Red Throated Loon. We were the "other group of birders" that Mark Conboy mentioned the Little Gull sighting to. After meeting Mark we looked carefully at the the gulls, but could only identify Ring Billed, Franklin's and Bonaparte's. The wind at
Chestermere was really strong making solid ids challenging on many of the far off water birds.

Apart from the Great Horned Owls, Harriers and the Rough Legged Hawk, we did not see any raptors. And we did not see any of the 17,000 pheasants that are being released! This did spare us the ethical challenge of deciding whether or not they were countable. The closest we came was some Gray Partridges at Carseland.

However, a very enjoyable day. The complete checklists, which likely underestimate most of the waterfowl numbers, are summarized below.

Number of Checklists: 6
Number of Species: 49

Checklists included in this summary:
(1): Frank Lake--Basin 2 (Southeast Corner)
Date: Oct 18, 2014, 9:15 AM
(2): Carseland Weir
Date: Oct 18, 2014, 11:15 AM
(3): Blackie
Date: Oct 18, 2014, 10:45 AM
(4): Eagle Lake SW corner RR 250
Date: Oct 18, 2014, 12:20 PM
(5): Alkali Lake
Date: Oct 18, 2014, 2:20 PM
(6): Chestermere Lake
Date: Oct 18, 2014, 3:25 PM

750 Greater White-fronted Goose -- (4)
2750 Snow Goose -- (4),(5)
21 Canada Goose -- (1),(6)
4 Trumpeter Swan -- (1)
40 Tundra Swan -- (1),(4)
10 Trumpeter/Tundra Swan -- (5)
43 Gadwall -- (1),(2),(4),(5)
150 American Wigeon -- (1),(4),(5)
129 Mallard -- (1),(2),(4)
1 Blue-winged Teal -- (1)
11 Northern Shoveler -- (1),(4)
28 Northern Pintail -- (1),(4)
6 Green-winged Teal -- (5)
302 Canvasback -- (1),(4)
100 Redhead -- (1)
2 Ring-necked Duck -- (1)
32 Lesser Scaup -- (4),(5)
1 White-winged Scoter -- (4)
50 Bufflehead -- (4),(6)
55 Common Goldeneye -- (2),(4),(6)
1 Hooded Merganser -- (2)
82 Common Merganser -- (2),(6)
180 Ruddy Duck -- (1),(4)
15 Gray Partridge -- (2)
5 Common Loon -- (1),(2),(6)
4 Horned Grebe -- (1),(4)
6 Eared Grebe -- (1),(4)
9 Western Grebe -- (1),(6)
1 Double-crested Cormorant -- (2)
6 Great Blue Heron -- (2),(4)
3 Northern Harrier -- (1),(4)
1 Rough-legged Hawk -- (3)
350 American Coot -- (1),(4)
13 Killdeer -- (1)
1 Greater Yellowlegs -- (2)
3 Wilson's Snipe -- (1)
106 Bonaparte's Gull -- (1),(4),(6)
1 Franklin's Gull -- (6)
1333 Ring-billed Gull -- (2),(5),(6)
23 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) -- (1),(2)
2 Great Horned Owl -- (1)
13 Black-billed Magpie -- (1),(2),(5)
1 Common Raven -- (1)
3 Marsh Wren -- (1)
12 European Starling -- (1)
20 American Pipit -- (1)
13 Lapland Longspur -- (1),(5)
12 American Tree Sparrow -- (1)
10 House Sparrow -- (1)"

Andrew Hart, Calgary

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not sure what I did in the last two or three days, but the very painful inflammation of the rotator cuffs in my shoulders is back in full force. I can barely lift my right arm even an inch, which makes it impossible to do most things, once again. All I can think of is that I went food shopping and finally bought a pack of bottled water (12 small bottles?), I had avoided doing this for months, because of the weight. I always like to have one pack in the house in case of "emergency". Hard to believe that just this one heavier thing would be enough to end me right back at the beginning with many months of healing ahead, though, but I can't think of anything else that might be the cause. Once the snow arrives, I'm not going to be able to clear the snow off my vehicle, which is one of my biggest concerns. Last winter, I had to stay home and miss so many things for the same reason. Argh!!!