The proliferation of bird song during May and June mornings makes it sound like the forest is singing.
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I closed my truck door, the metal thud harsh in the dawn stillness. It was the last human-made sound I’d hear for a long while. As I padded along the wood-chip covered trail, birdsong floated across the morning air. I stopped and peered up, way up, at the tall sentinels of the boreal forest. The “swee swee swee” of a yellow warbler drifted down from a nearby birch tree, in an alder bush an American Redstart called “tseeta tseeta tseeta tseet”, and over my shoulder I heard the trill of a warbler I couldn’t identify.
Blackburnian warbler is a rare sighting at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory.
– All photos by Carol Patterson
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Most bird lovers are familiar with spring migration through Point Pelee National Park, an avian spectacle as large numbers of birds reach land after a punishing flight across Lake Erie, crowding onto a narrow peninsula. Fewer bird watchers realize a similar phenomenon occurs in Northern Alberta near Lesser Slave Lake Provincial Park where migrating birds are funneled between Lesser Slave Lake’s expansive waters and Marten Mountain. I’d traveled north to see if this migration funnel offered all the thrills of its famous eastern cousin.
Each spring scientists estimate . . .
Between one and three billion birds migrate to Canada’s boreal forest.
During peak migration millions can cross from the US to Canada in a single evening!
The proliferation of bird song during May and June mornings makes it sound like the forest is singing. I couldn’t see many birds at first glance but my ears told me many had arrived in the forest surrounding the Boreal Centre for Bird Conservation in Alberta’s Lesser Slave Lake Provincial Park.
The Boreal Centre for Bird Conservation houses exhibits and programming.
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The proliferation of migrating warblers here was discovered in the 1990s by Alberta Parks naturalist Frank Fraser. Fraser and Stefan Jungkind and Steven Lane, bird banders from eastern Alberta, set up a ten-day bird banding pilot project in 1993 and revealed enough activity to merit a permanent bird observatory. Six years later they formed the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory (LSLBO), one of very few located in the boreal forest gathering important information on nesting of neotropical birds. LSLBO partnered with industry and government to create The Boreal Centre for Bird Conservation with exhibits, educational programming and events.
Songbirds avoid flying over the lake, contributing to the “Point Pelee effect”.
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Patti Campsall, Executive Director, LSLBO, explained, “We’re known for warblers. We’re up in the boreal forest so we’re monitoring birds coming up to the boreal to breed. You’re seeing warblers and other songbirds on their breeding habitat.”
While the area doesn’t have the same volume of birds as Point Pelee it has similar diversity. She elaborated, “There’s obviously some species difference because some of their species are eastern Canadian and are different than those here in Western Canada. You also have some timing differences. Our fall migration starts much earlier than theirs (and in spring it goes later).”
Alberta’s Lesser Slave Lake Provincial Park features bird watching without crowds.
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The area doesn’t have the human crowds found in Point Pelee during migration. I’d seen few people on trails I’d explored. For my daybreak walk I’d picked the Songbird trail dedicated to former bird bander, Sara Scobie, killed in a car accident a decade earlier. Less than a kilometer long it should be a brief walk but for a bird lover surrounded by one of the richest forests I’d found this spring, it would take me more than two hours to complete.
White sand beaches in northern Alberta may come as a surprise to some.
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Campsall confirmed my experience wasn’t unique, “We have great diversity of birds and the boreal forest is a selling feature. I was just out there teaching students bird songs. It’s sort of magical when it all comes alive, there’s so many bird songs.”
The Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory bands birds each spring and fall.
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There were several other bird-dense sites I wanted to investigate. I wandered down to LSBO when banding was over for the day (the area is closed to the public during banding) but it was easy to see the appeal for the birds – grass-covered corridors sheltered by tall deciduous trees. Later Campsall described the research happening, “At lot of what we do is visual migration counts. That’s where a lot of data comes from. We’re not considered a high-volume banding station. We’ve banded about 107 different species and we’ve observed more than 255 species in the park.”
Lesser Slave Lake is the second largest lake in Alberta.
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Lesser Slave Lake Provincial Park, a three-hour drive northwest from Edmonton, isn’t well-known to many Canadians but it holds Alberta’s second-largest lake, natural white sand beaches, ancient sand dunes, and Marten Mountain, a cobble-rock-covered peak, towering 400 meters over the lake.
Overlooking Slave Lake from the Marten Mountain viewpoint.
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I drove up Marten Mountain to see this eastern barrier for songbirds, and found several warblers flitting along the ridge under a fire lookout. After looking up all morning at warblers, my neck rejoiced as I gazed down at the forest canopy. My bird appreciation was interrupted by a lumbering black bear near the gravel road but, wary of people, it quickly disappeared back into the bush.
Lesser Slave Lake offers great fishing, swimming and boating, and perhaps even some spiritual enlightenment.
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Serviced sites and bird songs are both in good supply at the Marten River Campground.
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Also recommended for spring birding is the Marten River campground and the 1.75-kilometer Jack Pine trail that weaves through the campground. Leaving the trail for another day, I settled into my lawn chair at camp, a white-throated sparrow scratching the gravel at my feet, my ears alone hearing its spring chorus. I thought back to Point Pelee and the huge crowds I’d seen there years earlier. This migration route was less well-known to humans but birds were finding it with no problem. I found my heart singing along with the forest.
Don’t tell too many people about Lesser Slave Lake. Let’s keep it a northern secret.
Glen, I appreciate your sentiment, but judging by the remoteness of Lesser Slave Lake, a general disinterest in celebrating Canadian Amazingness, and the high cost of travel for Canadians WITHIN Canada, I sense we are unlikely to see this area overrun with Tourists. Privy to these secrets will be intrepid explorers like Carol Patterson and yourself.
BTW, your piece on the Gray Homestead was very good.
Thank you – Glenn, Roadstories.ca
Perhaps you’re right. The provincial park campground was very full last year but then again all provincial park campgrounds were full last year. The Province “fixed” that by raising fees. Lesser Slave Lake remains the only accessible large lake in Alberta. The populations of both Edmonton and Grande Prairie have certainly increased to the point where people will drive further for a chance to catch big fish or even to own a lake property. Time will tell.
Thank you for your comment about my Gray Homestead Post. Personally I think it was my best work but it was also one of my least read posts. Perhaps it was too long.