This huge ecoregion is almost entirely Canadian, with just a tiny extension into the US. It essentially is a broad transition zone between the prairies and the boreal forests to the north; WWF includes it in the Grasslands major habitat type. A disjunct area to the northwest covers the Peace River Valley of Alberta. It intrudes slightly into British Columbia, including the towns of Dawson Creek and Fort St. John.
The largest part of the ecoregion arcs over the prairies extending from central Alberta eastward through central Saskatchewan, through southwestern Manitoba and jutting slightly into North Dakota.
Description of the Ecoregion
A detailed description of the ecoregion can be found at WWF’s site (the map above is a screen shot from that Wildfinder site). There may also be additional information to be found on this ecoregion’s page at Wikipedia.
Briefly, the ecoregion is characterized by… [under construction]
Birds of the Ecoregion
The avifauna of the ecoregion… [under construction].
Although no bird species are endemic to this ecoregion, the following are noteworthy as being quite characteristic of the ecoregion and relatively difficult to see in other ecoregions:
[list under construction]
Resources for the Ecoregion Birder
Without any pretense to completeness, the following resources have caught my attention and would be of value to the birder traveling to this ecoregion:
- Cannings, Russell and Richard Cannings, 2013. Bird finding in British Columbia. Greystone Books (see review at http://blog.aba.org/2014/07/birding-british-columbia.html). This guide should have good information on the BC portion of the ecoregion.
163 spp. (August 1, 2014)