Birding on the way to B.C.

We traveled from Calgary to Fernie, BC last week. This drive gave us the opportunity to do some birding and add a few to the life list. We observed quite a few hawks and Merlins on the drive back to the Calgary airport- we'd guess somewhere around 50 over the 40 hour drive.

New to the life list:

Black-billed Magpie. Such beautiful birds! Love the colours and the long tail. They were in groups along the roadside.



We also saw the Swainson's Hawk. Here's the description from whatbird.com:


Overview

Swainson's Hawk: Large hawk, dark brown upperparts, white throat, rufous upper breast, pale buff underparts. Tail is gray with faint bars, dark terminal band, and white trailing edge. Yellow legs, feet. Alternates series of powerful deep wing beats with long glides. Soars on thermals and updrafts.

Range and Habitat

Swainson's Hawk: Breeds on the western plains of North America and southwest Canada from Texas to the Yukon. In the winter, most fly south to the pampas of Argentina, a distance of more than 5,000 miles. Preferred habitats include prairies, plains, and other wide-open ranges with minimal tree cover; commonly seen perched on poles or fence posts.



Another new to the list is a sub-species of Northern Flicker- the Red0Shafterd Northern Flicker is the Western sub-species of this bird.

Of note is that we saw a Blue Jay, which at the time we dismissed. When going through Sibley's later, we realized that Blue Jays are not very common out west at all, so it was actually a significant sighting. We just took it for granted b/c we see them all the time out here! Sadly we did not see a Stellar's Jay as we had been hoping.

In addition to the new birds, we saw a Yellow-Rumped Warbler, Red-Tailed Hawks, a Great Blue Heron, a Downy Woodpecker, Pine Siskins, a Turkey Vulture (juv), Crows, many groups of Robins and a large group of Ravens. The Ravens were congregating and making such a variety of calls to each other. It was really interesting to observe. We also saw what we think was a Junco, but we can't be sure if it was the Yellow-eyed (which would be new for us) or the Dark-eyed.