09/21/2026
We had a great time yesterday leading a beginner bird walk for the city of St. Albert Culture days ! It was a gorgeous fall morning , 🍂we met up with participants at 9:50 AM behind the Arden Theatre at the Stewart Steinhauer sculptures for our land acknowledgment and introductions. Binoculars ready one of our participants 😊, spotted a Greater Yellowlegs on a muddy spit in the river for an awesome start to our day. We had fun identifying eclipse plumage ducks together , great job David spotting a raft of all brown Blue-winged Teals ! Fall warblers are always fun to ID since they are just as bug hungry non-stop as spring time migrating warblers but they don’t waste energy singing very much or putting on any breeding displays so they’re much more elusive ! We had to take a break mid-way to rest our Warbler necks . We all had a good look at some Yellow-Rumped Warblers. A Dark-eyed Junco and a White-throated Sparrow played peekaboo with us for a few minutes in some poplars and underbrush. We spotted a couple of Sandpipers under the pedestrian bridge and had fun identifying them together as Solitary Sandpipers based on their plumage , size and behaviour. They looked pretty dainty near the Greater Yellow Legs they shared the shore with. This a really nice urban trail along the Sturgeon River with lots of native plants . We spotted some “Li paabanan “ , Michif word for high bush cranberries and had a good talk about different names for groups of Robins . Thanks so much to the participants who made it really fun and the birds who always show up ! 🙏🌲😊. After the walk Mel and I always ask participants their favourite moment and everyone was most excited about the shorebirds we saw. Thanks so much to St. Albert Culture days for inviting us to lead this walk ! 🙏We love coming to St Albert to bird and explore good eats . After the walk we headed over to the Turkish Coffee House right beside the trail behind the Arden theatre and tried a Borek which is a savoury pastry , we tried the potato and onion and it was so good we had to go get another one 💖. We will definitely be back here to try more Turkish foods and more birding! I also noticed a cool sculpture of a Cocoon or a Pupa inside St Albert place by the library, if anyone know the name of the artist I would love to know. 🦋 Here is the link to our Ebird list.
Happy birding 🦅
