Birds and Flowers at Banff and Jasper

There are over 250 types of birds in the mountains. The forest is so vast it is not easy to spot them. The common birds we saw are gray jays - which were noisy, and flocked at parking lot or restaurants waiting for free food from tourists.




The other common bird is Black-billed Magpie - there are a lot of them in the town of Banff.




We saw this pheasant like bird on the trail to plains of six glaciers - which is sooty grouse



The most pleasing and good looking bird we saw on the trails was white crowned sparrow. When we were near the plains of six glaciers, flocks of these sparrows scurrying through brushy borders and overgrown fields - just as "All About Birds" described, a few of them kind of followed us, jumping from tree top to tree top just slightly ahead of us, making short chirping sound. I thought that it was due to the fact that a big dog was on the trail just tens of yards ahead of us with a hiker. The next time we saw the sparrows was on Mt Edith Cavell. I heard this beautiful bird sound, and eventually located the bird on the top of very tall pine tree. The sound is best described by the website All about Birds - "The song of the White-crowned Sparrow is one of the most-studied sounds in all of animal behavior. Different subspecies across the country sing clearly different songs, but they’re all recognizable by the sweet, whistling introduction, a succession of jumbled whistles, and a buzz or trill near the end. Songs last 2-3 seconds. " - Despite back light, Lily recorded this beautiful sound on camcorder. It was really a pleasure to hike in the beautiful mountain, with spectacular scenery and now beautiful music!!





Typically the flowers in the parks, are small and close to ground due to high altitude and cool weather. There are too many type of flowers to name for me. Here are some of the flowers I captured on my camera. There are flowers then there are bees and butterflies - but butterflies barely rest on flowers by the trails.