Episoder
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Alberta’s triumphant Trumpeter Swans have come to represent through the past century a story that blends conservation, admiration and beauty to all of us who find promise and purpose in the Birds of Alberta.
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The American Dipper puts on an exhibit of unequal energy - among all our birds. Their robust personality, instagrammable habitat choice and accessibility make the American Dipper the greatest avian champion for the Birds and birders of Alberta.
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Manglende episoder?
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Canada Jays are perfectly Canadian. Low key, soft spoken, resilient and enduring. They are a companion with whom we share a landscape and they serve as a symbol to ourselves.
They are a much-talked about survivor that plays by the rules of the bush and they win by always being up to something – even if it means getting the best of us every now and then. All of this makes the Canada Jay one of the most perfect - Birds of Alberta.
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Snow Geese are exceptional birds in Alberta and those of us lucky enough to experience their erratic cacophony will long remember their snowy, showy spectacle that is unmatched by any of our other Birds of Alberta.
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Here in Canada, the Common Loon is a singular bird that has migrated from our distant remote northern areas into the very heart of Canadiana. It magically straddles a line that intersects with the romanticism of solitude and the comforts of companionship. It is both distant and intimate, remote and personal, lonely and reassuring. It has become a symbol for all this is good and pure and those feelings are reinforced whenever it is seen or heard in our province.
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Western Painted Turtles are our our ultimate summer souls and wild sun bathers – soaking up the rays only in our sunniest and southernmost areas. But the ways in which our turtles populated the various areas of this northern place, are insightful lessons of modernity and ancient movement corridors. For a species that may only number a couple of hundred individual, their presence and story outstrips their mere numbers and makes Painted Turtles a surprisingly iconic member of our Alberta wildlife community.
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The Calliope Hummingbird is a legendary species our Alberta list - not for the frequency it is seen, but how its story mesmerizes our concept of birdom. No other Alberta bird combines fierce fragility with boldness & a beauty seemingly painted on by a psychedelic artist from the '60s. The Calliope Hummingbird brings a ton to our home identity - even though it weighs only a few ounces.
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How lucky are we that that our most common warbler is also one of our most incandescent? Yellow Warblers are special. They are our most visible wood warbler, catching the eye and ear of anyone who hangs out in Alberta's river bottoms, urban parks or upland aspen stands. Yellow warblers offer a song that is the most reliable and reassuring voice of any of the Birds of Alberta.
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Great Blue Herons are well known birds that defy convention. Sometimes solitary, sometimes social; piscivores with a taste of mice, muskrats and salamanders; a bird of summer that arrives and leaves with the snow, and a modern elegant bird with hints of the dinosaurian!
They are never so common here that they escape our attention or admiration and as a result we feel quite a bit of pride in knowing that the Great Blue Heron is one of our very own Birds of Alberta.
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Red-winged Blackbirds are certainly amongst the most common birds we have in Alberta. They know how to put on a show for everyone to enjoy whether they are watching birds or seeing them new for the first time.
They do interesting things with an interesting look and with an interesting voice that just might get many more of us to develop an interest in the Birds of Alberta.
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Decades ago, we had to search out Osprey in Alberta's northern lakes. Nowadays, they are a daily summer sight in Calgary and throughout the waterways of Alberta. Their presence and conservation have informed the way we see our hometowns - and how our lives are shaped by the Birds of Alberta.
Link to Brian Keating speaking on the 30th anniversary of the Calgary Zoo Osprey nest platform from CBC Homestretch:
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-97-the-homestretch/clip/16057321-brian-keating-osprey-anniversary
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The Song Sparrow is perfectly named, having a tune that tops the charts on Alberta summer soundtrack every May. And even though most Albertan know nothing of the singer, they know that the song means that spring is here again and so too is one of the most musical of our Birds of Alberta.
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The Peregrine Falcon was a symbol of the conservation movement of the 1980s and since that time - and through its hard won recovery, it became a symbol of much else. No bird shows as much self-confidence in its all out mastery of air but the story of how Albertans rallied to its cause has made it one of the most legendary and inspiring Birds of Alberta.
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Our wetlands host mesmerizing crowds of life that mingle and mix and that fight and flux. But among those bobbing birds, there is a standout without equal – an Emperor that rises high above the rest of its waterfowl court. It rules these waters crowned in ruby splendour and is even elegantly draped in a pristine white toga.
The Canvasback is a Cesar and the rest of the birds are simple waterfowl.
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There’s no better time to get the feels for our Wood Frog than in April - appropriately known by the Cree as ayîkipisime the month of the Frog Moon. Find a clear frog pond know that somewhere in the lands surrounding that pond that there will be the beating heart of a Wood Frog going about their simple business – even if that heart beat is nearby frozen down for more than half the year.
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Red-tailed Hawks are our everywhere, every day raptor in our province and in our lives . They express the soul of Alberta while soaring, screaming and showing off their preference for a life lived on edge.
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The white-throated sparrow has a singing voice as iconic to Canada as Gordon Lightfoot. But in spite of its acoustic imprint onto our lives, there remains quite a few mysteries involving the "Canada-Canada-Canada" bird including whether it might be now singing a new tune altogether.
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No matter how many times you seen it before, that first flash of blue in the spring always catches the eye and triggers a jolt of adrenaline. Mountain Bluebirds are the first of our guests to arrive at our springtime party and they simply thrill us with the colour-infused juxtaposition of incandescence and quiescence.
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While we have ducks and geese that are well-known, loved (and hated) elsewhere, there is one duck that Albertans may know better than anyone else. The Common Goldeneye does not really fit the duck prototype, but the way it moves and makes its living here in the province makes it a quirky stand-out among the quacking classes.
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In Alberta, the first true colours of spring are purple and yellow. These are the colours that flowering prairie crocus display when they emerge from still-frozen soils but they are also worn by Sharp-tailed Grouse showing swollen purple neck sacs and Ru Paul-level yellow eyebrows as they dance among our first spring flowers.
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