A beautiful, sunny day today, Saturday 27 April 2024. Just looked at the weather forecast for the next few days and found that after tomorrow, the next five out of six days are forecast to have snow/rain.
Yesterday, 26 April, I managed a short drive SE of Calgary. Thought I had better make the most of clear roads before the bad weather arrives. All familiar, much-travelled roads this time, around the Frank Lake area and while heading back home.
I bumped into a huge group of people who were on a special outing to Frank Lake, led by Greg Wagner, who takes care of the lake areas and does a tremendous job of recording every bird seen, all year round and for many years. Not just once a day, either! Yesterday, he was showing the participants the various viewing points around the lake and I happened to see the cars coming towards me along one of the roads. I turned around and caught up with them. They had just one more location to visit, but one had to drive on a rough, non-road to get there. I would have been almost the last person to get there if I had gone, with a long walk to get to the lake edge. I knew I couldn't do that, with painful sciatica or bursitis in my right side, so I continued on my own journey. Good to see you, Greg, even if for just a few moments.
A bit of information about Greg:
ebird.org/region/CA/post/greg-wagner-march-ebirder-of-the...
So many birds in the area are far, far away - and I still don't possess a pair of binoculars after about 18 years of birding! (By the way, the birding blind area at Frank Lake is still extremely flooded.) However, I was happy to spend a bit of time watching and taking a few photos of the closer birds on my way home. Mainly Yellow-headed and Red-winged Blackbirds, plus a few Coots and European Starlings. At one point, there was an absolute frenzy of a group of Starlings and both species of Blackbirds on the ground, all mixed together. I had to take a bit of video, through the windscreen so poor quality.
