Canada: Castlegar Airport

Coming in from Switzerland, Wolfram and Dorena are the farthest-flung of the relatives to gather this weekend for Alison’s father’s birthday. We picked them up Saturday afternoon at Castlegar, and took advantage of a brief fog-occasioned delay to bird the perimeter road around the airport.

Lower and drier than Nelson, Castlegar harbors quite a few species that are more typical of the Rockies than of the western ranges. Killdeer breed abundantly on the runways, desperately seeking to distract the cars that rush past them on the airport drive.

Western Kingbirds are fairly uncommon west of the Creston Valley, but a pair was vigorously defending a territory along the airport fence, chasing every American Crow, Common Raven, and Bald Eagle that had the misfortune to appear in sight.

Castlegar airport was where Alison saw her very first Mountain Bluebirds lo these many ago, and we came across a couple of fine males, making up for the gray skies with their own celestial blues.

I was surprised to find fresh juveniles out and about, too, faintly spotted beneath with just the most delicate wash of yellow on the throat.

The only birds more colorful are Violet-green Swallows, abundant everywhere here.

And Castlegar always holds a surprise or two. On Saturday it was the sweet song of a Vesper Sparrow, my first ever in British Columbia, and eventually giving great views alongside the airport fence.

Airport birding has been difficult in the US for years now; I remember being forbidden the wader-rich pools at a small municipal airport in east-central Illinois during the “first Gulf War,” and now during the second (of how many?), we can barely think about airports without being set upon by those responsible for the security of our homeland. But here in Canada, the response of the airport guard to Alison’s question about bluebirds was to direct us through the employee parking lot and onto a private road behind the airport; the only thing more amazing than his helpfulness was the birds we found!