Every year we get surprises, this year it has come from the parklands. The prairies, not so much, since the most common bird we have seen this year is a Swainson's hawk, typically an open country bird.  There are two reasons this is notable. The first is because it has'nt happened before, at least since we have been at this (1983),  and second because the numbers have changed so dramatically. Every year, and I mean every year, the most common bird we see is the ubiquitous, Great Horned Owl.  Alberta's provincial bird, found literally everywhere there are farms or food in Alberta. Here all year round, notoriously faithful to territory, these "silent hunters"  are a top survivor of whatever comes its way.  Not this last year, so it seems, in fact as I write this the numbers of admissions have dropped here 80% from last year.

Red-tailed hawks numbers have dropped as well although not nearly as dramatically. Reports of Goshawks being down as well have not really held out here. We have what could be considered a spike in Gos's although they are not common and we can go a year without seeing one.

  On the other hand the Swainson's hawk, migrating as far south as South America and finding nestsites here on the prairies and in Edmonton industrial areas has had at least a normal year.

The most likely cause of this devastation? A severe spring of alternating warm and very cold weather causing nest failure among the earlier nesting raptors, Swainson's hawks are among the last to lay, coming off that long migration. That weather perhaps coupled with a crash of the rodent population has triggered the loss.

Anyone who has any more information on this phenomenon we would appreciate hearing from you. You can reach us at asibp@tic.ab.ca.

  Although there have been reports of Snowy owls as early as mid-October (3 reports) we haven't had any at the Shelter.  On the other hand there have been a recent flurry of Goshawks (2), young Red-tails, (4) a Great Grey owl , a young Golden eagle found hungry on the reserve at Hobbema and a young Bald Eagle found shot near Slave Lake.  We don't get many birds that are shot.  The last Bald was probably 1988 and is still here.  Over the past 10 years the popular target has been Merlins in the city although that too seems to have lost its popularity.  This Bald, a large young female appears to have picked up some bird-shot that broke her wing and grounded her for maybe 10 days before we got her.  The surgery on October 31 applied a plate to the break. It will be some weeks before we know the outcome.

In other news,after 26 years heating with propane we will be shifting to natural gas the first week of November.  It will be an interesting change considering it costs $100 a week to heat the building in winter.  I have to say that Apollo Propane has been good to us over the years and we will continue to be a customer for some of the outbuildings, old habits never die.

Our ever popular Saturday work crew has been busy, fixing aviaries, administering to our mouse colony, moving shaking  and keeping things up-to-date.  Many thanks to the guys who come out for those.We will be starting some basic roof repair soon.

On a sad note the Imperial Bingo Association has been forced to close the Flamingo Bingo hall at Millbourne Shopping Centre.  There will be a void for many of the ardent bingo fans in that area.  Many thanks to all our volunteers there that helped through these past few months and years, Ron, Rena, Flora, Danny, Ellie, Leona in administration, thanks to everyone past and present. We wish hem success when they reopen in their new yet-to-be-announced venue.

KG

Further to last year's nest, this year the eagles laid again, this time on March 23rd. It was in the same place but with two eggs.  They were doing really well until the heavy snow storm hit on April 21st and destroyed the netting in the aviary.  They continued with the eggs for another two days until we put them inside and collected the eggs which were unfertile. Maybe next year....

Since then we have been busy rebuilding the aviary which lost one corner pole.  We will replace it as soon as the frost is out of the ground.

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On March 27 of last year we were feeding in the large aviary when the Bald Eagles started acting strangely. The large female was defending an area underneath some scaffolding (courtesy of Spar Aviation) that was used as a feeding area. Eva announced that she thought they were making a nest. It didn't seem likely.

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