Good Neighbours are Hard to Find
If you keep a bird feeder in your yard and fill it with generic mixed seed from the local Mega Mart, then you are probably familiar with the various ground feeders who scratch around beneath your feeder looking for spilled seeds.
Pigeons, Dark-eyed Juncos and squirrels are amongst the most common daytime visitors at this time of year. In the summer, Mourning Doves and Chipping Sparrows will typically replace the juncos.
After sunset, the mammals take over. Spilled seed attracts mice and voles. It will also attract the occasional skunk and, depending on where you live in Calgary, it may even attract the odd Northern Flying Squirrel.
Residents of Oakridge, Lakeview, Bay View and other valley-side communities in Calgary will also be treated, on rare occasions, to a glimpse of an exotic Chukar. Nobody can say exactly how the national bird of Pakistan came to reside in Calgary’s Elbow River Valley, but we do have a small resident population and they do appear beneath somebody’s feeder nearly every spring and fall.
Of all the species, common and uncommon, that appear beneath feeders in Calgary, though, my personal favourite is the Ruffed Grouse.
These quiet, slow-moving, secretive birds do not migrate. They live their entire lives within a few hectares of where they are born. They are not averse to sharing space with humans. In fact, when they are not bothered by roaming cats, Ruffed Grouse will sometimes spend several weeks in a single urban backyard.
Three years ago, while resting on a bench in South Glenmore Park, I spotted a roost with seven birds in some shrubs directly across from me. They were less than five metres away. Between us lay a heavily used pathway along which joggers, walkers, bikes and dogs would pass every few minutes.
As traffic approached, the birds would melt into the scattered leaves and snow clumps of the forest floor and become perfectly still. Their mottled colouration made them nearly invisible.
Once the traffic passed and was 10 metres further down the pathway, the grouse would resume their slow and purposeful search through the shrubbery for seeds and sleeping insects.
These seven Ruffed Grouse remained across from that bench, sharing that same small stand of shrubs, undisturbed and invisible to passers-by for more than six weeks. Then one day in early March, I stopped by for a visit and they were gone … I think.
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Brent Johner has been writing about urban wildlife since 1998. Many of the articles here first appeared in the Calgary Herald, Calgary Gardening magazine or on Talk About Wildlife. Brent has also done dozens of radio, television, newspaper and magazine interviews on the subject of urban wildlife.