Day 3: Tuesday May 8, 2012

Birding by Golf Course

On Tuesday we decided to do something a little less active and take a cruise around the golf course in the morning to look and listen for birds. My father drove in a golf cart with another visitor while I got to drive my mom around! It was really fun and the only thing that was pretty bad was that I ran over some big decorative rocks while rounding a corner :) Whoops. I think the people behind us gave us a little more space after that!

First we saw a few mallards and other common wildlife but it got better. Some Northern Flickers were building a home in a tree nearby and so were two Bald Eagles.

Bald Eagle

After looking at the eagle I heard a song off in the distance. I recognized it (thanks to my ecology class) as the Western Meadowlark. I’d never seen one before and they were smaller than I’d pictured. They were also too far away to get a good shot of but I’ll put the best one here …

 Western Meadowlark

Going on this early morning adventure around the golf course, most of us expected to have more fun driving golf carts than actually seeing rare birds but it turned out pretty good! Other than the fact that my fingers were freezing and I tried driving without hands because they were so cold at some points ... we also saw two American Dippers and a Red-listed Lewis’s Woodpecker.

Lewis's Woodpecker

American Dipper

Lewis's Woodpecker are unique woodpecker because they sound, look and fly nothing like other woodpeckers. I was very excited to see this bird and when my camera ran out of batteries I was not thrilled :/


This event was well worth my getting up in the morning!

Old Coach Trail Interpretive Walk

At 1 o'clock we explored the Old Coach Greenway trail located within the provincial Wildlife Management Area. This was a long (kind of hard) hike that lasted for about 4 hours! It was crazy! I wish the guide would've talked to us more about the plants and landscape we were looking at, but it ended up just being a fitness hike. We still saw lots of cool scenery and some up-close-and-personal Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep!

Rocky Mountain Trench Wetlands

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep

At the end everyone was tired and happy we didn't have another outdoor event that day.

The Birdsong "Sing-a-long" Dinner

This was advertised as the "favourite festival event" at Wings. It definitely was! There was a 3-course 'foul' meal followed by the Valley Voices Choir who sang some beautiful songs along with some "well-known" bird oriented songs. I say well-known because I didn't know them, but everyone else seemed to! It is also known for it's dress-up competition. I wore my owl gloves, but didn't at all compare to the crazy ladies who went all out with feathers and masks and capes! All in all it was a fun experience and good to know that the locals of the area also want to be a part of the Wings festival.