Richard Chamberland (On bird 160 of 332)'s photostream  

I live 15 minutes south of the capital city of Alberta (Edmonton) in a Town called Beaumont. It's a great area to take photos of birds with lots of ponds and open fields all around. If you haven't noticed from my photo's i'm a big fan of birds. My wife calls me and my buddy,(Corey) bird nerds.

I bought my camera in aug 2008, but didn't really start taking photo's until the spring of 2009. That's when I started doing some research on how to really use my camera. I'm still learning and i'm always looking for tips from other people.

I'm currently working on My Project which you can have a look at, its under my collections. My goal in My Project is to get a photo of 332 bird species in Alberta that have been confirmed at least 10 times. There is no timeline on My Project, and some photos will be of high quality and some will not. But remember the goal is to get a photo of every bird in Alberta. I started My Project in the spring of 2009 after I bought my camera. I took an interest in birds after my encounter with a Great Grey Owl in St. Paul Alberta at the Lake. Since than I enjoyed watching birds of all kinds. In the summer of 2008 my good friend Corey and I started to identify and keep track of the birds we encountered. It's a great hobby that I get to enjoy with my family. ( I'm now turning THEM in to bird nerds )

Enjoy, and thanks for looking at my site.


THE OWL GUYS:

The owl guys consist of my life long buddy Corey and myself. We both have a scientific permit to capture and band Raptors in Alberta. We live very busy lives with managing businesses and having fun with our families. We both have two kids under the age of 5 so that right there keeps us pretty busy. The kids are still pretty young but we involve them as much as can and they just love it. Getting picture with them and the owls is priceless. As our hobby we are into our thrid year of research on the nesting habitats of central and northern Alberta owls. We build and install nesting boxes and platforms for Saw-Whet, Boreal, Pygmy, Barred, Great horned, Great Gray and Long-eared owls, with our main focus being on the Northern Saw-Whet owl. To this point we have installed a total of 122 nesting boxes and platforms which are installed in the County of Leduc and St. Paul. We have a total of 100 Saw-whet nesting boxes installed, 42 in Leduc County, 40 in the County of St. Paul and 18 others around the Edmonton area. We also have 10 nesting platforms in St. Paul along with 8 Barred owl nesting boxes. In Leduc County we have 4 Barred owl nesting boxes. As of right now we are the second largest owl cavity nesting project in Alberta, only behind Ray Cromie who has 350 plus nesting cavities out there. This summer our plan is to build and install 50 more Saw-Whet boxes, 10 Barred boxes and 10 more nesting platforms. That all depends on how much more ¾ inch plywood that gets donated to us. All of our nesting boxes have been made from donated wood, Thanks so much. We meet once a week to go through our data that we collect from the field. We have a lot of data that we have to keep up with such as:
~Habitat characteristics
~Local distribution and abundance
~Roosting habitats
~Hatching and fledging success
~Age of owls with banding
~Food habits

Corey and I have a scientific permit to capture and band Raptors in Alberta. Our goal is to become Master Raptor Banders. We are in our thrid year of training with 2 more years to go with Ray Cromie (40 plus years exp.), Rick Morse(15 plus years exp.) and Hardy Platz (30 plus years exp.) Ray is our main banding teacher (a man with tons of knowledge about owls. If you need to know something he has the answers.) Ray is spending time teaching us about banding, nesting locations, and everything else about owls. (Saw-Whet, Great Gray, Barred, Pygmy, Boreal and Long-eared) We will also be training Ric and Hardy on Great Horned, Snowy owls, Hawks and Falcons. It is such a great opportunity to be training with these guys.

I would like to thank Christine Mytrunec (Corey Winkelmann's wife) for the design of mine and Corey's logo that I use for my buddy icon.