Red Deer River Naturalists

The Red Deer river Naturalists are a group dedicated to learning about and preserving natural history. They have regular programs with speakers and many field trips.

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Sunday, December 20, 2015

Bird Count Day

    Today was  the Christmas bird count in the Red Deer, Alberta area. It was a great day for counting but most people were disappointed with the number of species and birds that they saw.

     I covered Bower Woods and Kin Kanyon in Red Deer. I found nine species and 58 birds which is about what I usually find. Birds that are in this area that i didn't find were  house sparrows, creeper, hairy woodpecker, white breasted nuthatch, red cross bill 

    My highlight of the day is when a pileated woodpecker found me and surprised me. He hung around me until I got bored and left.

    How was your bird count?








Friday, December 4, 2015

Feeding Bluejays

       In my yard bird feeders I have used black oil sunflower seeds. I've had a regular clientele of chickadees and nuthatches. Yes, I would get the odd blue jay, junco or downy.


      A few weeks ago I decided to try some so called blue jay mix. This consists of peanuts corn and large sunflower seeds. Now by the time I get the seed container put back in the shed a blue jay will be at the feeder. It doesn't matter whether I've seen blue jays recently, they just seem to appear like magic. How do they know I've put out their favorite food?

      My neighbor recently put up a feeder and filled it with mixed bird seed. House sparrows took over and in about five days the feeder was empty...most of it spilled on the ground. Juncos loved this. They've been under the feeder daily to find their food. 

      So this fall has been active around the feeders with more species.

     How about you? Have your feeders been active?


Friday, November 27, 2015

Lu Corbyn Speaks to Red Deer River naturalists

    Dr Lu Corbyn gave an interesting talk to the Red Deer River Naturalists on thinking about the idea of the new natural. His point is that the earth is constantly changing so we identify the present as natural. Of course man is pushing these changes along.

    Corbyn owns a piece of land that was farmed and abandoned in the mid 1940's. He's carefully gone back to see what it looked like before the homesteaders came and of course was able to fairly accurately describe what's happened since the homesteaders left.

    We are changing the earth very quickly and he is worried that some species will not be able to survive these changes.

    It was a very interesting talk.

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