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Canada 2025 Election Results on page 3 Your LOCAL Media since 1918! VOLUME 107: ISSUE 35
www.tofieldmerc.com
KARI JANZEN & LISA PRIESTLEY PHOTOS
Kari Janzen Staff Reporter
Tofield was a busy place on the weekend, as many from the city and surrounding areas travelled into town to catch a glimpse of the celebrated snow geese. Six twohour bus tours, seven three-hour bus tours, and six three-hour field hikes were offered on both Saturday and Sunday, and while Town of Tofield Recreation and Facilities Coordinator Vanita Eglauer said she had not yet looked at the final attendance numbers, it was up from last year. “We seem to be growing and that has been our goal from the beginning. We resurrected the festival in 2023, and each year we are seeing more people. It was a really good weekend. Despite the cool weather on Sunday, the tours actually had some really good sightings and everybody that I spoke to was very happy,” she said. The trade show was held in the curling rink this year and there were 17 vendors with many interactive booths including the Beaverhill Bird Observatory (BBO) who had burrowing owl Nina along, with whom many had the opportunity to pet and take a photo with. Claystone Waste’s photo cutout board was also a popular attraction,
which was the perfect height for the young bird enthusiasts wandering by. Geoff Holroyd of BBO said a south wind the day before the festival began brought in a lot of snow geese for the weekend, which was very fortunate. “We were really lucky. There was a very strong south wind on Friday that brought the geese in large numbers. I was watching one flock of a couple thousand on the ground, and every couple of minutes, a flock of 100 or so would just fall out of the sky, joining them. We have lots of options for the busses driving around. There are also many other birds beyond the geese. There is one spot that had over 100 white-faced ibises,” he said. Berta Beltran who came to Tofield from Edmonton agreed, and said she saw many other bird species. “We saw a lot of Canada geese, white fronted geese, of course the snow geese, but then also normal ducks and coots. And we saw a coyote and some mule deer too! We really enjoyed it, and it was such a perfect day, beautiful and sunny,” she said. Free kids activities were hosted by Nature Alberta and Nature Kids, where kids could make their own mini snow goose, test their wildlife knowledge with interactive quizzes, Continued to page 18
Wednesday, April 30, 2025