Alberta 2024 - Bonus Days (September 11 - 14)

I should have been back home in Barbados on September 11. Instead, thanks to Air Canada canceling our flights from Alberta to Toronto and then onward to Barbados, our vacation stretched by four extra days. The detour took us through Grenada—yes, Grenada in the Caribbean—because that was the only available routing.

White-throated Sparrow

We were hosted at a hotel near the Calgary airport. The weather was miserable—rainy and freezing—but I managed to squeeze in a few minutes of birding during breaks in the showers. At the pond close to the hotel, a Horned Grebe (Podiceps auritus) put on a nice show, while a resident pair of White-throated Sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis) kept me company both days at the hotel. From my room window, I also spotted a pair of Wilson’s Warblers (Cardellina pusilla) flitting through the shrubs. That was the extent of it; the rain kept me from exploring further. 

Our next stop was the Marriott Airport Hotel in Toronto where I saw my first Maple Leaf. After the issues we faced at the Calgary hotel—including missing items—we arrived skeptical. But the Marriott quickly erased those worries with excellent service and food. I was excited to spend a little extra time in Toronto, hoping to finally see the iconic Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), a bird I’d been told was common there. Despite my efforts around the city, the cardinal remained elusive. On the morning of September 14, we boarded a five-hour Air Canada flight to Grenada. 

Stepping off the plane at Maurice Bishop International Airport, the Caribbean heat hit me like a wall—a stark reminder that the vacation was truly ending. After weeks away, I hadn’t felt temperatures like that in over a month. With four hours to spare before our connecting flight, I wandered around the airport and was rewarded with my final lifer of the trip: a Yellow-bellied Seedeater (Sporophila nigricollis). That sighting was a fitting finale to the journey.
Eventually, we boarded our last flight—a short 45-minute hop on Caribbean Airways—and finally touched down in Barbados. Bring an end to and eventful and rewarding trip to Alberta, Canada.

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