The Most Basic Thing

If you follow pop culture – or even if you don’t – you probably know that the Kardashians are pretty famous. Since you’re reading a nature blog, I bet you’re also disappointed that you just heard me say “Kardashian”. But don’t leave just yet!

Kylie Jenner’s former record-holding Instagram post.

Kylie Jenner – who is Kris and Caitlin Jenner’s daughter, and a member of the Kardashian family – had a baby girl last February that they named Stormi. Their Instagram post announcing Stormi’s birth received the most likes ever for an Instagram post: over 18 million. Someone in London, England, saw this a couple weeks ago and decided they could beat it. With an egg. A brown chicken egg on a white background. And they did! Over 47 million likes later, a plain old chicken egg has received more likes, by a lot, than any other post on Instagram.

The current record-holding Instagram post.

The account’s creator decided to use a chicken egg to beat Jenner’s because it was, in their words, “The Most Basic Thing”. But is it The Most Basic Thing? I recently finished reading a book about eggs entitled, coincidentally enough, The Most Perfect Thing.

The book, written by ornithologist Tim Birkhead, is engrossing, down-to-earth, and conversational. Birkhead uses a career’s worth of experience studying murres – a kind of seabird – in England to frame the eggs’ story. He explains their development, the intricacies of how eggs function, and the behaviours adults use to care for them. Despite describing complex physiological processes, he largely avoids the use of obtuse jargon.

Common Murres in Alaska. Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

One of the most fascinating portions of the book was on brood-parasite mimicry. Several kinds of birds, such as cuckoos, avoid the hassle and expense of raising their own chicks by laying their eggs in the nests of other birds, such as weavers. Of course, the unwitting weavers don’t benefit from raising the cuckoo’s chick – often weaver’s chicks are killed by the foster cuckoo chick. So, any individual weaver that avoids the cuckoo’s brood-parasitism by learning to identify the unwelcome egg will be at an advantage and – all other things being equal – raise more offspring. Eventually, this will put the cuckoo at a disadvantage because the weavers will know how to identify and reject its eggs. But, if a cuckoo has a mutation that changes the colour of its egg to match the weaver’s egg, the weaver won’t be able to recognize the cuckoo’s egg, starting the process over. This creates an arms race between the host and parasite and, spectacularly, that is exactly what was observed in southern Africa. Over the space of a few decades, the egg colour of parasite and host from the same region changed to match each other. It is a stunning example of natural selection at work.

An image from The Most Perfect Thing by Tim Birkhead. Photo credit: Jordan Rutter

The book also describes the largely obsolescent and nauseously destructive hobby of egg-collecting. George Lupton, a British lawyer from the early 20^th century, was obsessed with amassing murre eggs and collected thousands of them over his lifetime. Lupton failed to record any data and his collection was so scientifically worthless a museum nearly tossed the eggs. While the author acknowledges the overwhelming damage that egg-collecting has caused to bird populations, throughout the book he appears oddly fascinated with the hobby and with Lupton, his pet collector. Uncomfortably, Lupton features prominently throughout the book in a largely positive and admirable light.

The Most Perfect Thing. Photo credit: Jordan Rutter

Nevertheless, the book left me solidly convinced that eggs are indeed wondrous products of nature and itching to learn more about them. If you’ve ever taken a second look at an egg, I would heartily recommend reading The Most Perfect Thing.

Wait – scientists are outdoorsy???

An article recently published by DW* begins with a phrase that instantly set the whole of biology twitter into hysterical fits of laughter, or as @ClarkDeHart tweeted, “hold my beer…”. Bob Berwyn begins his DW article on climate change and tourism by saying, “Scientists aren’t known for being the most outdoorsy types”. This statement may be true, since most Americans can’t name an actual living scientist, but it is certainly an enormous misperception.

You have to be outdoors for sights like this. Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

Not only did many biologists – scientists who study how life works – initially get into biology because they wanted a career that would connect them with wildlife and the outdoors, but the best way to collect much of the data needed for biological questions is to go outdoors and sample it. This often involves remote locations, basic accommodations (ie a tent), and all the outdoors you could ever hope to get. Of course, this lack of awareness about science and who does it is hardly non-scientists’ fault, but rather a failure by scientists to expose their work to lay-audiences. The realization of this failure has been growing and has spawned the area of science communication, or ‘scicomm’. Scicomm is scientists communicating their research, both to other researchers and to the public.

‘Basic accommodations’ in Alaska. Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

It’s certainly not just biologists who get outside lots – many different branches of science like geology, astronomy, or archaeology do. When you seek to understand the world around you like scientists do, going outside into it is important! Certainly, a lot of science is done in a laboratory. Labs provide a controlled environment so that you can look at only the effect of the variable you’re interested. But a controlled environment has its limits, since the real world is not controlled. As such, experimental studies in labs and observational studies in the outdoors work together to provide a picture of how the world functions.

“I need a better look at that bird…” Photo credit: Kimberly Pastirik

I’m a biologist who studies how birds behave, and in my short career so far, I have worked in the arctic and in the desert, in the boreal forest and in the prairies, on land and on water, in the northern and southern hemispheres, in summer and in winter. I have been charged by a black bear and a polar bear, I have been dropped off by helicopter and float plane, and I have spent somewhere between six and seven hundred nights in either a tent or a field house. And I love it. I get to see and experience things few other people do, all while collecting information to answer questions no one knows the answer to. It’s incredible!

Bird surveys 100 miles from nowhere. Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

So, hi, I’m Gabriel. I’m an actual living, quite outdoorsy scientist – just like countless colleagues of mine. If you want to meet a few more or hear some truly entertaining stories, try checking out the #ActualLivingScientist, #FieldworkScares, #WomenInSTEM, #HERper, #ScientistsWhoSelfie and #ThisIsWhatAScientistLooksLike hashtags on twitter (you don’t need a twitter account to look at hashtags!). Just be aware that you might find all the #OutdoorsyScientist tweets to be #DistractinglySexy!

I. LOVE. MY. JOB. Photo credit: Andrea Sidler

*UPDATE: The article that sparked this post has been updated and the original quote removed. A screenshot with the original quote can be seen here.

A taste of Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

Matt, my cheerful fieldwork boss, and I woke up early and ate a quick breakfast. We finished up the few chores we had to do, reminding me of Christmas morning growing up. No presents, or anything else fun, until all the chores were done! This typically took until lunchtime, because Mom knew that she had better incentive for finishing chores on Christmas than on any other day of the year, so she made sure to get as many finished as possible. If you’re going to use children to clean, it’s much, much easier when they’re heavily incentivized. Fortunately, Matt was just as eager as I was to get going, so before too long we were in the truck and on our way.

Gemsbok. Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

We were going to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, a 38,000 km² park bordered to the west by Namibia and the South Africa-Botswana border slicing it through the middle. Located in the heart of the Kalahari Desert, it has exceptional wildlife- and bird-viewing opportunities. Our plan was to slowly drive the shortest loop and enjoy both the wildlife we encountered and a relaxing break from fieldwork. We’d been in the field for two weeks now, and while it had been enjoyable, it was still nice to get away from the small house we were staying in.

We got to the park shortly after it opened, paid for a park pass, and lowered the pressure in our tires. If you attempt to drive in sand dunes with normal highway pressure, you’ll almost certainly find yourself sinking into the sand – especially as it heats up – and the Kalahari is full of sand.

Black-backed Jackal. Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

We had barely driven past the park’s gate when we began to see wildlife. Gemsbok and springbok lined the sides of the road, hartebeest and wildebeest stared uninterested at us as we passed, jackals slinked around in the grass, and ostriches just looked weird. Everyone has seen pictures of ostriches and accepts them unquestioningly as one of Africa’s megafauna, alongside elephants, giraffes, and hippos. But when I stopped and looked at them, all I could see was their gangly legs, their oversized eyeballs, their bare legs that looked like a freshly plucked chicken, and that ridiculously long neck. They can’t help the way they look, but watching them take a dust bath is possibly one of the most absurd things I’ve ever seen.

Common Ostriches enjoying a dust bath. Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

Despite their appearance, ostriches are supremely adapted to their desert environment. Their long, thick legs propel them to speeds of 70 km/hr – the fastest running speed of any bird – and these legs are dangerous kicking machines if a predator gets too close. Running efficiency is increased through elastic storage in their tendons. Their feathers’ vanes are loose and unhooked, increasing the cooling capability of wind and giving them their plumed appearance. Ostriches can maintain the temperature of their brain separately from their blood temperature, known as ‘selective brain cooling’. The bright white colour of their enormous eggs, while increasing predation rates, reduces the temperature of the egg by reflecting light. They obtain their moisture requirements from their food. And as if all that weren’t enough, ostriches belong to one of the only bird families to have a penis (the other being ducks and geese).

Common Ostrich. Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

As we drove through the park, we saw an incredible number of raptors. I’m not sure why there is such a high diversity in Kgalagadi, but we certainly enjoyed it. Pale Chanting Goshawks were beyond abundant, Greater Kestrels were common, and we saw a few Tawny Eagles. A Booted Eagle made an appearance, a Black-breasted Snake-eagle (which ironically has a white breast) soared by, and a Bateleur flew by with a juvenile in tow. A perched Black-shouldered Kite gave fantastic views and we watched a Lanner Falcon hunt a flock of Cape Sparrows. Undoubtedly though, my favourite was a pair of Secretarybirds. Secretarybirds are raptors, but they have elongated legs and spend most of their hunting time walking through savannah, stomping whatever prey they find, often snakes, to death. I remember seeing pictures of these in an encyclopedia when I was a kid, and thinking that these were super cool birds. I also somehow got them confused with quail (I’ve never claimed to be the sharpest tool). In the Bible, the Israelites complain about not having meat to eat with their manna so God sends them meat ‘til it comes out their nostrils’ in the form of quail a meter deep, a day’s walk in any direction. Whenever I heard that story, I thought they were eating Secretarybirds…

Secretarybird. Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

Other highlights included a Kori Bustard, the largest bird capable of flight (and it looks gigantic) and incredible looks at Namaqua Sandgrouse. Sandgrouse have special breast feathers that they use to carry water back to their chicks. The desert-specialists nest in locations far from water, and each day fly to a water source, soak their feathers in water, then fly back and let their chicks drink from their feathers. Finally, I had two other lifers, the drabber-than-drab Chat Flycatcher and the smart-looking Black-faced Waxbill.

Namaqua Sandgrouse. Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

We visited Kgalagadi in late winter, so the temperatures were not too hot – somewhere around 30 degrees C. In December, I am spending a full two weeks there with friends and it is going to be HOT, with temperatures in excess of 40 degrees C possible. I’m not sure how my cold-adapted Canadian body will handle this – I might die – but at least it will be in a magical place, surrounded by some terrific wildlife.

Gemsbok. Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

Should you stay or should you go?

“Should we put ourselves down just as tourists, or as taking a training course?” Ryno asked me, referring to the Namibian entrance declaration form we were filling out as we flew from Pretoria, South Africa to Windhoek, Namibia. Ryno, a large man with a deep, Afrikaans-accented voice and a quick smile, is one of my new labmates in Prof. Andrew McKechnie’s lab, and we were both taking a course on biophysical field methods (how to measure the effects of the environment, such as temperature or humidity, on your study species).

“Better to be honest and say we’re taking a training course, I think” I replied.

We landed and went through customs. I smiled at the immigration officer, who true to conventional immigration-officer-form did not smile back. She stamped my passport, then read the declaration form I had signed earlier on the plane.

“A training course? Are you giving or receiving?” she asked.

“Receiving”, I said.

She wrote a date on my passport, and I was through customs – nearly. Someone was shouting and I turned to look back at the commotion, and realized the officers were shouting at me, motioning for me to return. I returned, and noticed Ryno was in a nearby office talking to someone. The officer motioned that I should also go into the office, so I joined Ryno. He was in the process of explaining that he was not here to do research, but rather to be trained how to do research. The officer he was speaking with was a woman whose expression decidedly said she had not woken up on the wrong side of the bed: she had been born there. She had no interest in listening to what Ryno had to say, but only kept repeating ‘You need a visa to do research’.

‘Oh dear’, I thought. Eventually, they changed the date on my passport to match the three days on Ryno’s passport, and instructed us to go and get a visa or we would have to return to South Africa.

When we told Berry Pinshow, the brusque course instructor, our new problem he was highly unimpressed. In fact, I think his response to our honesty was something like “flipping idiots” – although perhaps less politely. Evidently, we should have entered as tourists. We emailed the research station that would be hosting the course and asked for a letter stating that we were students in that course. They promptly replied, and faxed a copy through.

We clambered into the bakkie, or pickup truck, along with Berry and his unflappable field tech, Stu, and drove into central Windhoek to begin the visa application process. Ironically enough, the immigration office was directly beside one of the places we had hoped to go birding while in Windhoek…there would be no chance of that now.

We rushed in, anxious to get the application in before the office closed. Fortunately, there was no line and we strode up to the counter.

“Good day”, Ryno said, “how are you?”

There was no reply. The clerk did not even look up.

“Hello”, Ryno repeated.

Slowly, as though it was an enormous hassle, the clerk raised her eyes and looked at us, disinterested and annoyed. Ryno showed her the letter and explained that, now that the miscommunication about us receiving a course rather than conducting research was cleared up, he hoped she could stamp our passports and send us on our way.

“Impossible” she said, “You must apply for a visa”.

We asked for the appropriate forms, and what other information we would need. We were told we would also need a letter from our university saying that we had been sent on this course, and to come back tomorrow between 08:00 and 12:00 to apply – they did not accept applications after noon. We still weren’t sure whether we needed a research visa (which didn’t actually seem to exist), a work visa, or a student visa – the terms were bandied about interchangeably by the extraordinarily unhelpful clerk.

“And you will be able to process it tomorrow?” we asked.

“Impossible. It takes at least a week to process a visa. It is impossible to do in one day.”

“Right…but we were only given three days to get a visa”

“It is impossible to do in less than one week. You must come back after a week.”

We both asked the clerk multiple times if she was certain this was even possible – our passports clearly indicated we had three days in Namibia. Each time the reply was that yes, we could stay in the country until the visa had been processed. If it was rejected, we must leave immediately. Otherwise, our stay could continue as planned.

“So, we’ll call you in a week to learn the outcome of our application?”

“We have no telephone.”

I glanced at the smartphone sitting on her desk, the one she had been Facebooking on while talking to us.

“Right. Well then. I guess we’ll just come back in a week.”

We returned the next morning, fighting through Windhoek traffic…the wrong way. Once we realized our mistake, we turned around and eventually arrived at the immigration office. We had left an hour early, but arrived just as it opened and were grateful to see the place empty. We would be out in minutes! We went up to the clerk and handed him our completed application. He glanced at us, clearly annoyed that someone was interrupting the process of plugging his mobile phone in. He told us we would have to pay the application fee at the cashier’s window before we could submit the application. The cashier’s window was empty, and it was another 15 minutes before he arrived. And another 10 minutes before he was set up. Finally, we paid the N$80 application fee, returned to the visa window, gave the bored clerk our paperwork, and we were out the door.

When we arrived at Gobabeb, the hosting research station, we discussed the situation with the station’s director, Gillian. Gillian had sandy-brown hair and warm, kind eyes, and reassured us that there was nothing to be concerned about. This situation happened somewhat routinely. She suggested using a private immigration agency to follow-up on our visa application and save us the five-hour trip back to Windhoek. The fees were modest, and the convenience huge. We agreed.

A week later, the agency assisting us checked the status of our applications. Why we were surprised when we found out the applications were lost, I’m not sure, but we were. We at least had the receipt of submission, so we sent a copy of that to the agency and they proceeded to repair the situation. We proceeded to go look at birds, as one does. Three days later, we heard the situation had been rectified and the visas approved. I, somewhat futilely, resisted the urge to wonder if the applications had been lost or “lost”.

When we arrived back in Windhoek the day before we flew out and a couple days after hearing the visas had been approved, we visited the agency helping us. We expected to pop in, grab our visas, and be on our way, but we’re slow learners. We learned that although the visas had been approved, they had not been picked up. The agency jumped to it, and proceeded to get an image of the visa “WhatsApped” to them (no phones at the immigration office…or email or fax, apparently) and we double-checked it for errors.

“Ach”, Ryno said, exasperated, “the issued and expired dates of my passport are mixed up.”

The error was communicated back to the immigration office, but they were in a meeting. Meeting, or “meeting”, I wondered, noticing how close it was to 16:00. The agency told us we’d have to wait until the next day to get our visas, but helpfully offered to drop them off to us first thing in the morning.

The next morning a single sheet of paper was handed over to us. I folded the sheet up and put it in my coat pocket, and we drove to the airport. After passing through airport security, we walked to the customs desk, where an exceptionally friendly agent joked with us, barely glanced at our paperwork, stamped our passports, and motioned us through.

We were off to South Africa, short our donation to the Namibian government but with an excess in bureaucratic education.

Nightjarheads tackle Saskatchewan in 24 hours

Birders sometimes do ridiculous things, for apparently ridiculous reasons. I’m a birder, and I am guilty of ridiculousness. The latest episode of this occurred last month, when a friend and I tried to see as many species of birds in Saskatchewan as we could in 24 hours. I had just wrapped up leading The Great Canadian Birdathon for Nature Saskatchewan, but wanted to do something more…intense. A Big Day. A real midnight-to-midnight Big Day. Maybe even taking a run at the provincial Big Day record. That was the thing to do. I met my good friend, James Villeneuve (@jimmynsw), for coffee and pitched to him that this was a good idea. He’s also a birder, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised that it didn’t take much convincing.

Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

We picked a date, May 24, based on our schedules, the weather, and the expected migration patterns of birds. Then we began researching our route. We needed a route that would take us to places to identify as many potential bird species in as short a time as possible. We pored over maps and books and listservs and eBird, and eventually decided that the thing to do would be to start in the boreal forest, in Prince Albert National Park specifically, and work our way down to the pine forests of Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, a mere 1,200 km away. We also coded the likelihood of detecting each species from 1-5, where 1 represented certainty and 5 impossibility. Finally, we picked a team name, the Nightjarheads (brainchild of Erin Baerwald, @girlborealis), and James even designed and printed team booklets for us!

Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

We left for Prince Albert NP the afternoon of the 23^rd, and arrived in time for a couple of hours of scouting. Ideally, we would have liked to have spent at least a few days scouting things out, but both our time and financial budgets for this trip were limited. On the drive north, our excitement was difficult to contain. We didn’t dare say it out loud, but both of us were thinking about the possibility of tackling the existing provincial record. Using our likelihood codes, we had come up with the idea that 150 species was nearly guaranteed, 180 was a solid goal, and that 200+, a near perfect day, was within our reach. Tom Hince and Paul Pratt set the current Big Day record for Saskatchewan of 202 species on June 1, 2008. We danced around actually verbalizing breaking the record – it felt as though saying it would be jinxing it – but we discussed every possible way we could exceed the lofty 202 mark. Expectations were high.

Photo credit: James Villeneuve

At 22:00 on May 23, we began scouting for owls. We drove park roads, stopping every 0.5 km and listening for 3 minutes, then continuing down the road. We found a pair of calling Barred Owls within the first 30 minutes and marked their location with my GPS. We would return after midnight to add them to our list. Finally, my watch hands both pointed directly at the 12, and we officially started our Big Day.

The first bird was a White-throated Sparrow singing, followed by Common Loon, Sora, and then our marked pair of Barred Owls. We continued listening for owls, rushing back to the warmth of the car after each stop. The night was calm, but clear and chilly. We heard a distant Boreal Owl calling, then strained to hear what was almost certainly a Great Gray Owl. We stopped breathing, listening for the deep hoots, but it was too far to ID with certainty, so we let it go and moved on. We added Wilson’s Snipe, Le Conte’s Sparrow, and Swamp Sparrow before the grey light of dawn appeared. Once there was enough light to see, we started walking down the park’s Bog Boundary Trail. We heard Ruby-crowned Kinglets, American Robins, and Cedar Waxwings singing, and then! A Great Gray Owl called. The low hoots thumped into us and we both froze midstep, eyes wide and smiles broad. We silently high-fived then continued down the trail.

Photo credit: James Villeneuve

The forest was oddly quiet for the crack of dawn. The lack of auditory competition made identifying each song straightforward, but it was disappointing. This was the two-hour period, from 4:00-6:00, when we expected to get the lion’s share of our birds. The minutes ticked by, but the birds never showed up. By 6:00, our list only held 42 species. We had hoped to be well over 100 by then. We did hear a pair of Sandhill Cranes, a few Bay-breasted and Cape May Warblers, which was wonderful, had stunning views of a Spruce Grouse trio, heard a single Winter Wren belting out his song, and saw a Brown Creeper marching up a tree trunk. However, there were no vireos, flycatchers were represented by a single Eastern Phoebe, and most of the warblers were absent. Even finding a Common Raven took until nearly 7:30 that morning. It seemed we had, unfortunately, mistimed the bulk of migration.

We left the park, but decided to break our tight schedule and make a 10-minute stop at a creek flowing under the road. There the species we added included Blue Jay, Black-and-white Warbler, and a calling Pileated Woodpecker. A few minutes later, a Sharp-shinned Hawk glided across the road and into a yard. By the time we had left the boreal forest, our species tally was up to 76, which included most of the waterfowl we were likely to get.

Photo credit: James Villeneuve

We pressed on to Saskatoon, where we made our biggest blunder. Each stop, and the drive to it, was precisely timed. We couldn’t afford not to follow our schedule, or we wouldn’t reach our final destination in time to find the target species. However, what was supposed to be a 5-minute stop at a power station to check for gulls turned into nearly half an hour. I had misread the map during planning, and the route to the station was much longer than anticipated. We did pick up the day’s only Spotted Towhee there, but the long shot gulls we were crossing our fingers for weren’t around.

At 10:15, an overhead Peregrine Falcon became our 100^th species. We celebrated entering triple digits with a high five, but we knew that 200+ was well out of our reach. It was startling to realize that many common species still weren’t on our list: Marbled Godwit, Wilson’s Phalarope, Horned Lark, Northern Harrier…even Black-capped Chickadee was missing. We had only seen a single Red-tailed Hawk, and Swainson’s Hawks were scarce. Things did not look promising, and our “guaranteed” goal of 150 species seemed awfully distant.

We had settled into a tired silence, but the monotony of empty tilled fields was broken when I shouted at flurry of nonsensical words at James.

“Golden! Stop! Wow! Plovers! Turn! Holy crap! Back there! Plovers!”

Neither of us had ever seen American Golden-Plovers in Saskatchewan, and the stately birds with their bronzed backs, dark bottoms, and disapproving stares blended in almost perfectly with the landscape. I set to counting the flock of a half dozen, no a dozen, no a score, wow, they just keep going, a flock of no less than fifty golden-plovers! I found it difficult to tear myself away from such a terrific sight. James found it difficult to resist pulling out his camera. Although he appropriately reminded me of how behind schedule we were already, and so we then moved on, he has since expressed regrets that the schedule wasn’t sacrificed just a tiny bit more for the sake of a picture or two.

Photo credit: James Villeneuve

The unexpected sighting provided a needed surge of energy and morale boost, and we welcomed the stop at Douglas Provincial Park. We were here to check for two more long shot species, Lazuli Bunting and Yellow-breasted Chat. Neither was present, but we did see a Piping Plover running along the beach, as well as a Common Tern and a Least Flycatcher.

We were now halfway through our Big Day, but only at 109 species. We consoled ourselves that we would pick up some much-needed species at our next stop, where we hoped to find shorebirds. Our hopes were dashed however, when we arrived and found the wind to be fantastically strong. We’d been in the car so much we hadn’t noticed the increase in wind speed, but here it was so strong I had to shout to talk to James. James found a single Red-necked Phalarope near the shore, while I noticed a handful of Western Grebes on the lake. Beyond that, the place was virtually empty. This was a major disappointment, and the stop I’d been looking forward to most on our route. We decided to drive up to a corner of the lake that looked slightly more sheltered, but we weren’t expecting very much. Surprisingly, we found a small mixed-species shorebird flock huddled together. We picked out Black-bellied Plovers, – always a good find in Saskatchewan – Semipalmated Sandpipers, Sanderlings, a Marbled Godwit, and a beautiful flock of Red Knots. Again, neither of us had viewed Red Knots in Saskatchewan and their plump, rosy bodies added a moment of real excitement to the stop.

Photo credit: Gabriel Foley

Our next destination was Grasslands National Park, where we were hoping for prairie specialties like Sprague’s Pipit, Baird’s Sparrow, and Chestnut-collared Longspur. These grassland songbirds are among the fastest declining birds in North America, largely due to the immense habitat conversion of native grass to tame grass or cropland. It was two hours of steady driving before a Wilson’s Phalarope flew overhead and became our 120^th tick, and another forty minutes before we entered the park and began to find grassland songbirds. A Chestnut-collared Longspur bobbed across the road and perched on a rock, a Baird’s Sparrow sang from somewhere in a tangle of native grasses, a Golden Eagle drew its wings together and dived towards the ground, and a Bobolink’s song burbled from the male’s black and white flight display, visible a few feet above the ground.

Grasslands National Park is stunning. Westbound tourists often pass by Saskatchewan in a hurry to reach the obvious majesty of the Rocky Mountains, but in doing so they miss the subtle beauty of the grasslands. Perhaps this isn’t surprising, but it is unfortunate. Many people, even people born and raised in Saskatchewan, don’t realize the significance of native prairie to the ecosystem. The grasses and the wildlife evolved together here, and the mosaic of native grass species provide a structure and function that introduced grass species can’t. A field of grass is not just a field of grass, and a visit to a hayfield compared to unbroken prairie will provide an obvious, visual demonstration of this. Grasslands National Park, managed for decades by local ranchers, is one of the most outstanding representations of native landscape in the country and well worth a visit.

Photo credit: James Villeneuve

We moved on from the park, collecting check-marks for Loggerhead Shrike, Say’s Phoebe, Lark Sparrow, and Lark Bunting as we left. We cruised the poorly maintained highway to Eastend, and intercepted a lone Ferruginous Hawk carrying a Richardson’s ground squirrel. We added Long-billed Curlew, Gray Partridge, and Eurasian Collared Dove, but struck out on Cinnamon Teal. We then climbed a series of gravel roads to an outstanding vista, Jones Peak, named after a local palaeontologist. We hoped to find Rock Wren, Violet-green Swallow, and perhaps a Prairie Falcon, but the incredibly strong winds made that impossible. I saw a small bird flit in between some rocks. It was quite possibly a Rock Wren, but I couldn’t be sure and eventually we abandoned the site.

Photo credit: James Villeneuve

It was growing dark when we finally reached Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park. We heard a Common Yellowthroat singing, a Black-capped Chickadee called, and we flushed a Northern Flicker. As the sun faded behind the pine-covered hills we began to search for owls, just as our search had begun nearly 24 hours earlier. Despite our effort, we failed to turn up any new species and Northern Flicker was sealed in as our final species of the day, landing us at 135 species.

Photo credit: James Villeneuve

We certainly fell short of our goal of 150 species, and failed laughably at any attempt at breaking 200 species, but it didn’t really bother us. Sure, seeing more species (and more individuals of those species…) would have been wonderful, and that was the goal we set out to accomplish. But ultimately, the adventure was deeper than that. It was about two friends doing an activity together that they enjoyed, and doing it to the max. We’ve already begun preliminary plans for another try, perhaps even one without an inland cyclone. It’s something that we’ll remember for a long time, one of those ridiculous things birders occasionally do, and for an apparently ridiculous reason: why not?

Photo credit: James Villeneuve

My bird blogging journey is taking flight!

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