This blog post summarizes the second half of the Canadian portion of our trip; my previous post summarized the first half. See my earlier blog post for a summary of the ND part of the trip. The eBird Trip Report for my ND stops can be found at - ebird.org/tripreport/250883
May 31 – Duck Mountain Provincial Park, SK
My original itinerary for SK included 2 days of birding at
Prince Albert National Park especially for boreal species. However, Prince Albert is quite a bit north of
all our other stops which would have added many hours of driving time. Instead, Stan Shadick suggested going to Duck
Mountain PP for our boreal targets. In
fact, since it’s one of his favorite birding spots in SK, I decided to make it
a 2-day stop. And thanks to Stan’s
suggestions we had a great time there!
We rolled into the park about lunch time, and after paying
the entrance fee, we grabbed a quick picnic lunch in the Birch Campground where
we were serenaded by White-throated Sparrows and Ovenbirds. We decided our first hike would be on the
Damselfly Trail which passes through both woodlands and wetlands. And it turned out to be an excellent
choice! We picked up 13 new province
birds on this short trail, with landbirds including Yellow-bellied Sapsucker,
Willow Flycatcher, Blue-headed and Red-eyed Vireos, Black-and-white and
Nashville Warblers, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak.
When we reached the wetland we spotted Common Goldeneye and Common
Merganser on the water, and heard a Common Loon calling from the lake. Swamp Sparrows and a Northern Waterthrush
were calling from the marsh. And then we
spotted a flyover Bald Eagle, which flew to a nest and was joined by its mate.
We even saw a Black Bear, thankfully at a distance. That was quite the stop!
Next we were onto Spruce Campground where we heard the first
of many Blackburnian Warblers and Blue Jays.
While listening to one of the Blackburnians I heard a Boreal Chickadee
call nearby. We eventually tracked it
down and found a pair of birds nesting in the rotted out top of this street
sign.
Our last stop in the park that day was to be at Pickerel Point but the winds were howling from the west across Madge Lake. So we went to the lee side of the Pickerel Point peninsula to be out of the wind and spotted a pair of immature Trumpeter Swans in this protected cove.
And for a nice ending to the day he had a calling
Sharp-shinned Hawk just beyond the hotel parking lot undoubtedly looking for an
evening meal of House Sparrows.
That was the 21st addition to my SK list for the day, now
standing at 174. Not bad for a half day
of birding. Could 200 be within reach?
June 1 – Duck Mountain Provincial Park, SK
Our plan for the 1st was to spend the entire day at Duck
Mountain, especially focused on the road to the ski slope. This 7-mile long road heads south from Madge
Lake passing by numerous beaver ponds and going through excellent deciduous and
spruce/fir habitat. We started at the
north end of the road just after sunrise through this spruce/fir woodland.
Instantly we were surrounded by bird song coming mostly from warblers. We quickly picked out our first Magnolia and Black-throated Green Warblers of the trip. These were joined by the likes of Nashvilles, Tennessees, and Blackburnians. Later we birded excellent deciduous woodlands like these, hearing good numbers of Ovenbirds, Redstarts and Chestnut-sided.
And nearly every beaver pond had at least one singing Northern Waterthrush. Plus we picked up 3 singing Mourning Warblers at these wetlands. Not to mention 9 species of breeding waterfowl.
We kept stopping so many times to count the singing warblers that we ended up covering the area a lot slower than expected. Though we had all day. By the time we reached the ski slope area we had 15 warbler species, including 11 Ovenbirds, 7 Northern Waterthrushes, 9 Nashvilles, 13 Redstarts, and 4 Canadas. Another highlight was a singing Eastern Wood-Pewee near the western edge of its range.
Another attraction along the road was the Calcareous Fen
where relatively impermeable lime deposits have caused the formation of this
rather infertile wetlands which is the home to numerous carnivorous
plants. We didn’t find many birds there
except for a couple Nashvilles and Tennessees, but the wetlands was very interesting.
One of the other attractions to the ski slope road to a “total ticker” like me was that for about 3 miles this generally north-south road ran right along the province line separating Saskatchewan from Manitoba. Along this stretch the east side of the road was in MB while the west side was in SK. My MB list was tiny at 40, so there was lots of potential, though our focus remained on SK birds. For the most part the MB birds we found were the same as those we were finding on the SK side. However, there was one exception – we found a grassy wetlands in MB that had a pair of Sedge Wrens. The marsh was squarely in MB so there was no way we could coax the Wrens across the road into SK (we never did have Sedge Wren in SK). I added 14 MB species that day – not bad for very little effort.
The gate to the ski slope at the end of the road was closed,
and since It was only midday, we decided to turn around and try a couple other
trails closer to Madge Lake. The first
spot was the Fire Tower cross-country ski trail where Great Gray Owls have been
spotted occasionally. As we started on
the hike we got a few of the “regular” warblers, but then noticed that we both
had ticks on us. This didn’t look good
since we still had a long walk ahead of us.
So we turned around and by the time we got back to the car I had picked
10 ticks off me. Yuck…
The next trail we wanted to try was the Pelly Point Trail
near the southwestern part of Madge Lake.
Unfortunately, we never made it to the trailhead – the road to the trail
was muddy and had a sign that said it was impassable when wet. Next we tried the Woodland Nature Trail but
it was quite slow, so we only hiked a short distance.
That made 4 planned locations in a row that we either
couldn’t get to, or weren’t worthwhile to hike.
We had run out of places to bird and it was still early afternoon. At one point I thought about heading east
into MB, but without having done any research on birding sites there, that
would be a pretty inefficient use of our time.
On a lark I decided to try to call Stan Shadick to get his advice. He was available for the call, and I told him
of our key misses, like Connecticut Warbler, Canada Jay, Evening Grosbeak, Ruffed
Grouse, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Wood Duck, and Hooded
Merganser to name a few. It turns out that
Stan was at Duck Mountain a couple days earlier, and had seen most of our
remaining targets. He gave us advice for
all but the Connecticut Warbler which he had missed as well. Most importantly, he suggested we spend more
time on the road to the ski slope where we would likely eventually run into
many of the targets.
But first we followed-up on Stan’s advice with specific
locations for a couple species. The
first was Golden-crowned Kinglets and Olive-sided Flycatcher on the road to San
Benito. We found the small grove of conifers
he suggested for Kinglets but with no luck.
But we did attract a Brown Creeper here responding to Kinglet calls as a
nice addition to the list. We drove a
bit farther to check out a couple wetlands but couldn’t relocate the
Olive-sided. Then we were onto the small
town of Kamsack Beach where Stan had a flock of Evening Grosbeaks coming to
feeders. We slowly drove the streets of
town not finding feeders or Grosbeaks.
But then we finally started to hear a couple Grosbeak call notes, and
eventually found a flock of at least 6 birds coming to a small feeder. Gorgeous birds!
After an early dinner we decided to make another run at the
ski slope road yet that evening, looking specifically for a few of our remaining targets. At the first beaver pond we found a Hooded
Merganser and a couple Spotted Sandpipers – where were they earlier in the day? And while scanning possible Olive-sided
perches we picked out what was likely a migrant Kestrel. Nice addition of 3 birds after dinner.
That gave me 10 new birds, bringing my SK list to 184. Not bad given that several of our preferred
spots were inaccessible. And don’t
forget the 14 new species in MB.
June 2 – AM - Duck Mountain Provincial Park, PM - Estevan,
SK
The game plan for this day was to bird around Duck Mountain
till about noon, then we would make the 4-5 hour drive to Estevan to be in
place for the next day’s birds near the southeastern corner of the province. And taking Stan’s advice we headed back to
the ski lodge road, but this time with a bit of a different strategy – we would
quickly pass through the conifers at the initial part of the road (despite all
the warblers we had there the previous day), instead spending the early morning
in deciduous woods listening and looking for Grouse. Later we would focus on the ponds for Wood
Duck and Olive-sided, and conifers near the southern end of the road where Stan
had Canada Jays.
Despite our best laid plans we didn’t find our targets, at
least initially. But we had several others
as consolations. First our early morning
listening for Ruffed Grouse came up empty.
And we couldn’t find a Wood Duck or Olive-sided at the ponds, though we
had 7 other species of breeding waterfowl.
We also had 4 Winter Wrens at the ponds, 1 singing at each of 4
different wetlands. They must have just
arrived overnight because we certainly didn’t have them the previous day. And when we stopped at one of the best spruce/fir
forests we dipped on Canada Jays but did have several Golden-crowned Kinglets
and a pair of Boreal Chickadees – in both provinces. And stops at the southern end had no Canada
Jays, but we did find 3 calling Great Crested Flycatchers. And speaking of Jays, although we had 18 Blue
Jays (needing details in eBird), we couldn’t scare up a Canada Jay.
On the MB side of the road we added 7 new species, including
a flyby Merlin that stayed well into MB.
It would have been nice if it had strayed into SK since I still need
that one for SK.
When we arrived at the ski hill at the south end of the road
the gate was still closed. So I decided to
take a little walk to check out the area.
The ski hill was pretty small, and not much to look at really.
Though I did find a couple Eastern Bluebirds which were new for my list. While walking back I passed by a nice wetlands with a calling drake Wood Duck. And twice while looking for Olive-sided Flys I spotted birds singing from high exposed perches. But they turned out to be a Northern Waterthrush and a Tennessee Warbler – couldn’t turn them into an Olive-sided or Connecticut despite my best efforts. Though I did spot our only Ruby-throated Hummingbird also perched at the top of one of these dead snags. And while looking at the Hummer a Ruffed Grouse called from nearby. That was 4 new birds at the ski slope – that was quite a nice stop after all.
We finished with 96 species at Duck Mountain PP – 37 of them
were new for my SK list. And I ended the
small MB portion of the trip adding 21 new birds, bringing my list to 61. But the day wasn’t over yet…
We had 3 key targets for the afternoon. The first was Pied-billed Grebe, which
amazingly we hadn’t yet spotted, or at least recorded, despite seeing dozens
(hundreds?) of prairie pothole ponds and other wetlands. But luckily David spotted one in route to Estevan. It actually was the first of several we would
end up with.
Our next targets were Nelson’s Sparrows reported just the
day before from a small grassy marsh just outside Estevan. These birds are notoriously late migrants, so
they may have just arrived. And chances
are they kept on migrating, because we couldn’t find them despite playing some
tape.
The last targets were Merlins, which were reported numerous
times from what appeared to be two separate private residences in town in
Estevan. Although I hoped the Merlins
were nesting at these sites, it was more likely that they were just passing by these
birders’ houses as they birded from their yards. My long-shot strategy was to just drive up to
the 2 houses and hope a Merlin would pass by.
We pulled up to the first house and not surprisingly there
were no Merlins in sight. But within
just a couple minutes a car pulled up to the house. I walked over to the folks who got out of the
car, introduced myself, and asked about the Merlins. (I don’t think I would have ever done that in
the US, but this is Canada where everyone is much friendlier.) It turns out they didn’t live there, and were
just visiting. But the driver said that
he saw them often at his house nearby, and thought they were nesting near a
retirement facility that was across the road. He gave me his address and I thanked him for
his very friendly advice.
A couple minutes later we arrived at the retirement facility
and parked along the road to start our second Merlin vigil in suburban Estevan. There were no Merlins, but there was a fair
amount of Merlin food – House Sparrows, House Wrens, and Chipping
Sparrows. Plus several White-breasted
Nuthatches which were new for my list.
After about 30 minutes of waiting I heard an odd raptor call and had a
brief look at a Merlin flying into one of the trees lining the street. It later flew to a planted spruce right above
me and disappeared in the middle of the tree into a nest that was barely
visible. Then a second bird came in and
perched cooperatively just a short distance away, providing the opportunity for
this phonescoped picture.
What an amazing turn of events where such a friendly local resident just happened to know where the Merlins were likely to be nesting. And he just happened to arrive while we were there.
That was my 10th new species for my list, bringing the total
to 194.
June 3 – Southeastern SK, Late PM Drive to Minot
Our plan for the day was to bird in the southeastern corner
of SK southeast of Estevan until mid-afternoon when we would head back into the
US on our way to Minot. We had numerous SK
targets whose ranges just barely make it into this southeast part of the province.
Our first stop was just after dawn at
the Roche Percee Campground hotspot. We
hadn’t even stopped the car when we heard the key target for this spot –
Yellow-throated Vireo. We finally caught
up with Downy Woodpecker there too. The
park was quite birdy featuring many Yellow Warblers, House Wrens, and Least
Flycatchers. Though we listened
unsuccessfully for Field Sparrows reported last year in the grasslands across
the river.
We were next headed to the area west of the little town of Roche
Percee, but before we even made it into town we spotted our first Wild Turkeys for
SK – another species limited to this part of the province. Once we got west of town we found nice
patches of riparian woodlands, pastures and brush.
Our first addition was a singing Black-headed Grosbeak, another species that barely reaches SK. And then in a distant pasture we spotted a Say’s Phoebe that stayed perched on a fence just long enough to allow us to confirm the ID with the scope. Later a Cooper’s Hawk flew low over the field, which was a surprising miss for us earlier in the trip.
One of our key targets known to be in this area was the
Yellow-breasted Chat, and we seemingly were in great habitat for them. But despite driving west several miles
through this area we couldn’t scare one up. We eventually ran out of habitat when the riparian vegetation was replaced by huge mounds of nearly sterile overburden from local coal mining operations - it looked like a moonscape! We turned around to head back east, and revised our strategy to just
focus our search on brushy areas rather than the riparian sites. And at our second brushy stop we coerced a
Chat to come in to meet us. Other good
birds for the area were Eastern Pewee (luckily singing) along with a brief view
of a Lazuli Bunting.
We next headed back east of Roche Percee on Souris River
Road past the campground and through heavily wooded riparian areas. A colony of Bank Swallows was a nice find
along this river bank. I don’t get to
see many Bank Swallow colonies these days.
One of our stops was the Taylorton Heritage Cemetery, where we hoped for Rock Wrens on the nearby rock formations. Although the Wrens were a no-show, we did have several Mountain Bluebirds, including this one perched at the top of the cemetery sign in the distance.
We soon came to a grassland with nice native short-grass prairie on both sides. Although our focus initially was on grassland birds, that soon changed when we came upon a long narrow wetland near the road. The central and likely deeper part was dominated by cattails (towards the right side of this picture with the blue arrow). But the drier ends were vegetated by short greener grasses shown in the left side of this photo near the black arrow.
This looked like a good spot for the Nelson’s we missed the day before, and maybe even LeConte’s. We got out to listen, and within seconds we could hear marsh sparrows calling, and perhaps we were even hearing 2 different songs. We listened intently and finally could pick out the two buzzy trills of the Nelson’s Sparrow. And then from a bit drier area we could discern the softer song of the LeConte’s Sparrow, which was somewhat reminiscent of Grasshopper Sparrow to my ear. What a successful stop with 2 unexpected species!
We were trying to decide where to go next when a pair of
birders drove up who turned out to be local to the area. They had tips for several of my targets
including Blackpoll Warbler at the campground, Black-crowned Night-herons just
south of Estevan, and Purple Finches at the local Woodlawn Regional Park. We decided to head back to chase after these
targets rather than continuing east along the Souris River. We rather quickly heard a singing Blackpoll
in the Campground (of course it stopped singing by the time I turned on
Merlin).
Next we headed to Woodlawn Regional Park but our hopes for
the Purple Finches were greatly diminished when we got to the entrance and saw
how large the park actually was. We
didn’t have any specific locations for them, and as we drove in we tried to come
up with a strategy to look for our targets without taking the entire
afternoon. We had only driven a couple
hundred yards into the park when we heard a finch-like song right along the
road. We hopped out and it was indeed a
Purple Finch singing from these pines. We
were in the park less than 5 minutes - talk about luck!
Unfortunately, our luck ran out when we went after the Night-herons – we just couldn’t find them despite several stops in lakes south of Estevan and with another stop at the sewage treatment plant. But we still got 2 out of our 3 targets the local birders suggested for us.
We ended the day with 12 new species, bringing my SK
province list to 206. #200 was the Cooper’s
Hawk.
SK and MB Highlights
I had conservatively hoped for 100 new species for my SK
list and I ended up with a whopping 158!
The eBird Trip Report for the SK stops can be found at – ebird.org/tripreport/249186
And I can’t forget adding 21 birds in MB. Maybe I’ll head there next summer to work on
that province list in a more thoroughly.
Plus my SK total of 206 has some significance as well. My life-long passion for state birding was
centered on an objective to see at least half of the total species ever
recorded in each state in the mainland. I’ve
recently met that goal for all 49 mainland states plus the District of
Columbia. (Hawaii is just not feasible
given the number of species that have gone extinct there and the difficulty in
accessing many of those that remain.)
Over the last 15 years or so I expanded my horizons to
include the Canadian provinces in this quest, but I haven’t been able to exceed
the threshold of half of the all-time totals in any province. That is until SK. The last time the American Birding
Association published those thresholds the SK total list was at 412 – so that
threshold at the time was 206. With some
research on the Nature Saskatchewan website(naturesask.ca) I found the existing
total of confirmed species has dropped to 393, with half the total now at 196.5. In any case, SK is my first province where my
total is greater than half the total province list.
Overall ND, SK, and MB Trip Summary
The objectives of the 13-day trip were to add birds to my ND
state list and SK and MB province lists.
I added 204 state and province "ticks" -
- North Dakota - 25 new ticks, 159 species total, state list now at 230
- Saskatchewan - 158 new ticks, 204 species total, province list at 206
- Manitoba - 21 new ticks, 35 species total, province list at 61
I also added 7 new species to my Canada list, bringing it to
385. I’d like to get to 400 in Canada
some day.
Our route enabled us to find 223 eastern, western,
grassland, shorebird, and boreal specialties.
Here are the species by the numbers -
- Ducks and Geese - 23 species
- Shorebirds - 28 species
- Raptors - 11 species
- Woodpeckers - 9 species
- Flycatchers - 11 species
- Sparrows - 16 species
- Warblers - 17 species
The eBird Trip Report for the entire trip can be found at
- ebird.org/tripreport/246436
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