Bird Series
In January 2011, I was invited to join a new team competing in the Carden Challenge where teams compete to identify the greatest number of bird species in a 24 hour period. My song ID skills at the time were not great so I spent the next three months studying and listening and practicing. At the time, I thought I was doing it just for the Challenge. Now I realize that those months spent learning have led to some pretty fantastic work opportunities.
I was interested in birds long before I had any clue that geocaching existed. So when it came time to place some caches, what better way to combine the two interests. How many of these birds can you identify?
Loggerhead Shrike
When I decided to move to this area, I had never heard of Carden. When I checked the internet to research the area, I discovered that it was an Important Birding Area and one of the few places in the province where the endangered loggerhead shrike could be found. I signed up to participate in the yearly bird count which would allow me to go into an area that is normally closed to the public and which is now part of the Carden Alvar Provincial Park.
As we headed into the property, I hoped that I would be able to see one of these birds but given the endangered status I thought it highly unlikely. Within minutes of getting out of the truck, the leader of our group spotted a pair of shrikes.
Since that good fortune, an anti-shrike force field fell over me and for years I would be lucky to see a single shrike. Where others were reporting regular sightings, I saw none. This year, things changed for some unknown reason. I was regularly seeing a shrike that no one else was seeing. Eventually it was spotted by someone else. I was also allowed to participate in the captive shrike breeding program, feeding juvenile shrikes in cages, helping out with the pre-release checks of weight and health and finally monitoring the birds when the cage doors were finally opened for good and the birds discovered the great big world they were to live in.
We even managed to find a shrike along here early on in the 2015 Carden Challenge. The bird here was a single male. The locations of breeding pairs is a closely guarded secret so that no one disturbs the nest.
Nicknamed The Butcher Bird, these shrike are songbirds that eat like raptors. They prey on insects, small mammals and birds. Without talons to hold their prey, they skewer their food on barbed wire or, here in Carden, on the needles of hawthorn trees.
