We had 'Little Big Day' last week on May 28th. Congratulations to the the team 'Dipperette’s' for seeing the most species seen ever recorded by a single team: 130 species! The Dipperette’s consisted of Gretchen W, Helga K, Jo Ellen F. and Wendy H. Well done! The closest year to them was in 2007, when a single team saw 128 species (seen by team ‘Stalkers 4’ which consisted of Cathy, Al, Art and Lois).
 
Together, all the teams this year saw 148 species, the 4th highest year recorded. There were 3 teams in total. The other 2 teams were the Three-toed Muskateers (Greg R, Jim H and Katrin P) and the Ruthless Birders (Ruth G, Lyle G, Dianne C, Emma B).
 
Little Big Day is a fun birding competition to see which team (up to 4 people) see the most birds (teams need to stay together and at least 2 people from each team need to see each species). Birding takes place between 6am and 6pm, although you can bird less if you want and you don't really need to 'compete'. It's all for fun. Teams contribute $25, which goes to a worthy nature related cause.

This year, the money is being donated to the 'Elizabeth Lake Shoreline Restoration Project’, being done by the Rocky Mountain Naturalists.
 
A combined list of what we saw:
Canada Goose
Trumpeter Swan
Wood Duck
Blue-winged Teal
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Shoveler
Gadwall
Eurasian Wigeon
American Wigeon
Mallard
Green-winged Teal
Canvasback
Redhead
Ring-necked Duck
Greater Scaup
Lesser Scaup
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Barrow's Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Wild Turkey
Ruffed Grouse
Pied-billed, Horned, Red-necked, and Eared Grebes
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Mourning Dove
Vaux's Swift
Black-chinned, Calliope, and Rufous Hummingbirds
Virginia Rail
Sora
American Coot
Black-necked Stilt
American Avocet
Killdeer
Long-billed Curlew
Wilson's Snipe
Wilson's Phalarope
Spotted and Solitary Sandpipers
Bonaparte's and California Gulls
Black Tern
Common Loon
Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Northern Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Bald Eagle
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-naped Sapsucker
Lewis', American Three-toed, Downy, Hairy, and Pileated Woodpeckers
Northern Flicker
American Kestrel
Merlin
Peregrine Falcon
Western Wood-pewee
Willow, Least, Hammonds, Dusky, and Pacific-slope Flycatchers
Say's Phoebe
Western Kingbird
Eastern Kingbird
Cassin's Vireo
Warbling Vireo
Stellar's Jay
Blue Jay
Black-billed Magpie
Clark's Nutcracker
American Crow
Common Raven
Black-capped and Mountain Chickadees
Northern Rough-winged, Tree, Violet-green, Bank, Barn, and Cliff Swallows Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned Kinglets
Red-breasted, White-breasted and Pygmy Nuthatches
House, Pacific and Marsh Wrens
American Dipper
European Starling
Gray Catbird
Western and Mountain Bluebirds
Townsend's Solitaire
Swainson's and Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Cedar Waxwing
House Sparrow
American Pipit
Evening Grosbeak
House Finch
Cassin's Finch
Red and White-winged Crossbills
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
Dark-eyed Junco
Chipping, Clay-coloured, White-crowned, White-throated, Vesper, Savannah, Song and Lincoln's Sparrows
Spotted Towhee
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Bobolink
Western Meadowlark
Bullock's Oriole
Red-winged Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Brewer's Blackbird
Northern Waterthrush
Orange-crowned, Nashville, and MacGillivray's Warblers
Common Yellowthroat
American Redstart
Yellow, Yellow-rumped, Townsend's, and Wilson's Warblers
Western Tanager
Lazuli Bunting

RDEK / RMN Bird Checklist updates to Oct 2018
Edited 14-Oct-2018 (now 314 species)
By Dianne Cooper
 
With the recent publishing of the Checklist of British Columbia Birds by British Columbia Field Ornithologist (BCFO), and the sighting of another new species in the East Kootenay, I thought I would tally up the changes over the past 2 ½ years to our newest bird checklist published in 2016.
 
The East Kootenay Bird Checklist was published May of 2016 in preparation of the BCFO meeting that month in Cranbrook.  Every BCFO member in attendance received a free copy.  Our 2016 checklist replaced the previous one published in 2003.  The earlier one covered the traditional Rocky Mountain Naturalist birding area from the US border to Canal Flats and from halfway to Creston to the Alberta boundary.  The new checklist, with the advent and popularity of eBird, covers the Regional District of East Kootenay, the “administrative” area used by eBird.
 
The BCFO checklist records 301 species in Ecoprovince #4, which includes the RDEK.  The Southern Interior Mountains ecoprovince goes north almost as far as Prince George and west to the other side of the Monashee Range, bordering on the Okanagan.  There are many species further west and north that we haven’t gotten yet.
 
36 species found in Ecoprovince # 4 have not yet been found in the RDEK.  Perhaps some of these are more likely to show up here?  Watch for:
 
Prothonotary Warbler
Crested Caracara
Northern Parula
Lucy’s Warbler
Summer Tanager
 
What will show up next!  There’s always something new!
 
The BCFO records 265 species of what we do have.
EK birds not on the BCFO checklist number 48 species.
 
At time of publishing our last checklist, we had 303 species.
Now (12 Oct 2018) we have 313 species.  We also have 4 hybrids, but we won’t count those.
Now (14 Oct 2018) we have 314 species! (see below: Species not on eBird but seen prior)
 
Species that were seen after May 2016 are:
 
Black Scoter
- Oct 2016, Wasa Lake, Dean Nicholson

Anna’s Hummingbird
- Nov 2016, Wycliffe, Lil McPhail (Dean Nicholson)

Northern Cardinal
- Nov 2017, Cranbrook, Katrin Powell (Greg Ross)

Curve-billed Thrasher
- July 2018, Canal Flats, Gord Littlejohns

Ovenbird
- Aug 2018, Fernie, Mike Bentley, Liz Creighton

Lesser Goldfinch
- Oct 2018, Wycliffe, Dianne Cooper, Joe Rothermund

 
Of course, these are all classified as “accidentals” – one or two individuals sighted in the past couple of years.  They are all recorded on eBird.
 
Species documented after May 2016 – but seen before then
 
a.  Now on eBird
These are historical records entered into eBird by people documenting their own or others’ birding journals, much like I did with Mildred White’s records.  The oldest “new” species (added after May 2016) goes back to 1984 (Pacific Golden-plover, Harmer Ridge, 26 Sep 1984, David Fraser).  The oldest “first” record on eBird goes back to 1930. 
 
Pacific Golden-plover
- 1984, Sparwood, David Fraser

Costa’s Hummingbird
- 1992, Fort Steele, Doug Brown

Connecticut Warbler
- 1997, Richard Guillet

Chestnut-sided Warbler
- 1998, Michael Preston

Black-throated Sparrow
- 1984, Mildred White

 
 
b.  Species not on eBird but seen prior
eBird records 301 species in the RDEK but not all species on our checklist are on eBird.  Missing on, or not included on eBird are:
 
Ring-necked Pheasant
- escapees, sightings discouraged on eBird

Least Bittern
- 2010, Ta Ta Creek, reported to the Breeding Bird Atlas

Yellow Rail
- 2010, Columbia Lake, Jason Rogers

Upland Sandpiper
- 1919, Newgate, Birds of British Columbia

Arctic Tern
- 1944, Columbia Lake, Walter B. Johnstone, specimen, Royal BC  Museum (RBCM)

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
- 1915, Cranbrook, unknown collector, specimen, RBCM

Eastern Phoebe
- 1976, Spillimacheen, Birds of BC

Chestnut-collared Longspur
- 1930, Tobacco Plains, R. M. Anderson, specimen National Museum of Canada (NMC)

McCown’s Longspur
- 1930, Tobacco Plains, Rand, specimen, NMC

Mourning Warbler
- 1996, Spillimacheen River, unknown obs, Birds of British Columbia

Black-throated Blue Warbler
- 2002, Kimberley, Ruth Goodwin

Black-and-white Warbler
- 1971, Wasa Park, Neil Dawe, in Dawe 1971

Grasshopper Sparrow
- 1997, Cranbrook, G. Ross, G. Ross, J. Lawrence, G Davidson, in Am. Birds, Vol 51 No 4 Fall 1997

 
The BCFO Checklist lists 522 species for British Columbia and eBird records 517.
We have contributed some eBird firsts for the province.
Go to https://ebird.org/canada/region/CA-BC?yr=all and click on “First Seen” to see the BC list on eBird. 
 
There was the Northern Cardinal last winter of course, and the Curve-billed Thrasher last July.  Also (but maybe more, and it’s always changing as more people upload historical data):
 
Broad-tailed Hummingbird
- 1992, Fort Steele, Doug Brown

American Avocet
- 1967, Forst Steele, Tom Briggs

Red-headed Woodpecker
- 1998, Dutch Creek, Cam Gillies

Lewis’s Woodpecker
- 1930, Newgate, Ian McTaggart-Cowan

 
In summary, changes to our checklist to date are:
 
chart section of RDEK 2016 checklist   245
 

accidentals                                      58
 

RDEK 2016 checklist total                        303

seen and added after 15 May 2016              6
 

seen before, added after 15 May 2016         5
 

RDEK total to 13 Oct 2018                     314

 
PS  EXPLORE!
If you have an eBird account, for some fun online browsing of birds of the world, head to the eBird “Explore” tab at:
https://ebird.org/canada/explore
- hit the “Surprise me!” link under the box: “Enter species name”, to see a randomly selected world species.
- hit the “Change species” link at the top right, then in the popup, again hit “Surprise me!” to see another.
It’s so fun!  I didn’t know there was such a thing as a “Melancholy Woodpecker”!  It lives in Ghana.  Or a “Quailfinch Indigobird”.  What the heck is that!  There are only a handful of records of it on eBird and no photos.  It is from Cameroon.
 
This feature is in development on eBird and hopefully will soon be available to the general public.
 
And don’t forget the RMN Photo page at:
http://www.rockymountainnaturalists.org/nature-photos-by-us.html
 
Happy birding and um, er, naturing!
 
Dianne C.

Posted by Dianne C.

Here are some new maps of both the Cranbrook and Kimberley Christmas Bird Count Circles.

Each circle is 24 km in diameter; and we traditionally include some areas outside the circle, as shown.

So, if you are a feeder watcher, you can double check which circle you are in!

Thanks!

Check out our Christmas Bird Counts tab for details and results

The outskirts of Cranbrook provide many opportunities for a quick evening walk on an early June evening. Marianne and Daryl led naturalists on a mini adventure, a short distance from the north end of Wilks Road.  The first goal was an unusually dense patch of Calypso Bulbosa, (Fairyslipper, Venus-slipper or Calypso).  Although one of our smallest orchids, this is the most exquisite as well as the most elusive.  It’s favourite habitat is in Pine woods where it grows in the damp litter of the forest floor.  This true member of the orchid family, grows from a corm, or tuberous rootstock, which is all that remains after the plant flowers and seeds in early summer.  As with all orchids, this flower grows only in association with a certain type of fungus.  As a result, it is virtually impossible to transplant.  This plant suffers from over-picking by collectors. Picking of this flower will kill the plant, so it is best to remember to leave this, as well as all flowers, to mature unimpaired. Earlier, we counted over 100 orchids in an area of about 1 square meter.  This patch may be successful because of continuous shade, abundant rotting material and it’s secluded location.

Leaving the dense, north facing forest, we walked up a south aspect, grassy slope. The yellow arnica and balsam root were amazing, interspersed with numerous, fragrant, light yellow bitterbrush flowers. These small, rose-like flowers attract night flying moths which provide an important food supply for the Common Poorwill.  A small nightjar of the arid West, this Poorwill is the smallest member of it’s family in North America.  It is one of the few birds known to hibernate in the winter.  It is very well camouflaged, colored in browns, black and grey.  This medium-sized bird is large headed with a tiny bill and very tiny feet.  This bird can slow it’s metabolic rate and drop it’s temperature, going into a hibernation-like state known as torpor.  In periods of cold weather, when insects are inactive, a poorwill may stay in torpor for several weeks.  These birds hide during the day, emerging at dark to feed.  They are very difficult to see, but several were heard during the week of the outing, flying past our house on Wilks Road near midnight.

Submitted by Daryl Calder

Another 'Little Big Day' has come and gone. boohoo.  Twelve hours of 'speed birding' to see which team can get the most species is so very much fun!

About the Date
This year was a little different because we held the day two weeks later than usual.  In the past, it was always held on the second weekend of May, around Mother's Day.

"Would not we get more songbird species if Little Big Day was a little later in the month?" some wondered. "Yes", we thought, but then we might miss late wintering species such as Rough-legged Hawk.  And also, if we changed the weekend then we wouldn't be able to compare the species list from year to year.

Well, this year, since some of the team leaders were not available on the usual weekend, we DID change the date; Little Big Day 2014 was held 24 May 2014 and, indeed, in those extra two weeks of spring, several migrant species were recorded which were rare on previous Days. Just off the top of my head, these include Lazuli Bunting, Gray Catbird, Lewis' Woodpecker, Least Flycatcher, American Redstart, Northern Waterthrush, and Bobolink, to name a few.  Yet we also got Rough-legged Hawk! So, go figure.

About the Participants
But it is not all about the birds, nor the competition between the teams. It is about sharing this experience and having fun.

This year we welcomed our first ever team from up the Valley! The Columbia Lakers, consisted of Elaine, Sandi, Peter, and Randy all from Fairmont. Yay!  And we had some first-time LBD'ers too! They were George, Audrey, Candace, and Helga. I hope we didn't blow them away with our awesome 'ear-birding' skills and I hope they had a really good time. (PS - a really good app I highly recommend for learning bird songs is Larkwire)

We missed terribly Lois, Art, and Dean - long-time LBD'ers who could not take part this year, and Tony, of course. This year, we also didn't have a 'biking' team, who have taken part in about the last three Little Big Days and had done very well for themselves. Some of them joined / returned to the gasoline-powered teams, and that is just fine! And we were happy to welcome back many of the regulars. Way to go, teams!

My Team and Our Day
We had a GREAT day! Not too hot, not too cold, no dead car batteries, no getting stuck in the mud or dust, no really short tempers, nor distracting injured Burrowing Owls needing rescue, yet lots of good species and really good company.

Ruth set out a really good plan, having scouted out some warblers earlier in the week up at the Nordic Trails at the Kimberley Ski Hill, so we went to get them first - and we got them all! PLUS we got what I consider my bird of the day - Hermit Thrush, and indeed, no other team got it. We just heard it, didn't see it, but such a beautiful bird and song. A couple of species we dipped on were Long-billed Curlew and Calliope Hummingbird, if you can believe that. (shakes her head). The Sage Thrasher spotted earlier in the month has not been seen since.

Count-up Dinner
The count-up dinner this year was held at The Heritage Inn, Cranbrook, BC.  The dining room was comfortable, pre-ordered menu items meant our dinners were prompt in arriving - something well appreciated after a long day, and the food and service were great!

Here, I COULD put a list of all of the amazing, whopping, outrageously fantastic 139 species all the teams saw; or I could just give you the link to the document online. Yes, you read that right - one-hundred and thirty-nine (man we're good).

Team Results:
Friends of a Feather - 112 sp
Dianne, Ruth, Lyle, George

Deaf & Dumb - 107 sp
Peter, Audrey, John

Birding Trio - 103 sp
Alan, Kathy, and Candace

Columbia Lakers - 95 sp
Elaine, Sandi, Peter, Randy

Merlin Wantab's - 95 sp
Greg, Sue, Glenda, Helga
_

Extra photos
It can be lonely out there in the dry fields, but the pickin's are good.

I wasn't too attentive at the count-up dinner after 13 hours of driving or birding and missed writing down everyone's following:

How was your Day?  What was your Best Bird? Biggest 'dip'? Leave a comment!

Photo credits: Lyle Grisedale and Greg Ross

Blog post by Dianne C.

Here is Helga's tally from this weeks Tuesday, early morning birding outing at Elizabeth Lake.  George, Audrey, Helga, Tara and Greg were out.  A couple from Crowsnest joined us for a little while as well.  The Bullock's Oriole near the parking lot being the highlight I would think.
(In this Picture, Audrey is seen crossing her new bridge)

42  Canada Goose (includes 4 goslings)
1    Pied-billed Grebe 
8    Mallard (many more hiding in the cattails, no doubt!)
4    Blue-winged Teal 
14   Cinnamon Teal
1    Northern Shoveler
6    Redhead
33  Lesser Scaup
10  Ruddy Duck
16  Eared Grebe
1   Sora  (only heard but not seen)
38 American Coot (probably way more, but those were what I counted)
4   Killdeer (one pair caught in the act!)
1   Spotted Sandpiper
2   Solitary Sandpiper
1   Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
1   Northern Flicker
12  American Crow
2   Common Raven
10  Tree Swallow
2   Violet-green Swallow
2   Black-capped Chickadee
4   American Robin
2   Common Yellowthroat
4   Yellow Warbler
1   American Redstart
5   Song Sparrow
1   Dark-eyed Junco
12  Red-winged Blackbird
12  Yellow-headed Blackbird
4    Brewer's Blackbird
1    Bullock’s Oriole

Here's the combined list from this week's "Early Morning Birding at Elizabeth Lake", 13 May 2014:

1 Barrow’s Goldeneye - one flew into a nest box and then right back out again
1 Horned Grebe
2 Common Yellowthroat
2 Marsh Wren
12 Lesser Scaup
9 Ruddy Duck (6 males, 3 females)
136 American Coot
98 Canada Goose (includes 49 adults and 49 goslings – actual count, so that’s a weird coincidence)
2 Solitary Sandpiper
2 Northern Flicker (1 male, 1 female)
15 Red-winged Blackbird (mostly males – only saw one female)
2 Green-winged Teal (1 male, 1 female)
1 Blue-winged Teal
12 Tree Swallow (estimate) - two separate nest boxes appear to be actively being used
1 Northern Shoveler
1 Osprey
6 Cinnamon Teal (5 males, 1 female)
6 Yellow-headed Blackbird
6 Brewer’s Blackbird (5 males, 1 female)
12 Mallard (one female may have been on nest)
5 Killdeer
1 Common Raven
6 Song Sparrow
7 Redhead (4 males, 1 female)
1 Bald Eagle
5 Eared Grebe (1 male & 1 female in courtship display)
1 Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle male)
2 American Crow
...............................................................

2 unidentified snakes, brownish, about 40 – 50 cm long

HK report and photo