2024-01-10

Results are in from a few bird counts

Last year was a strange year for me. I try to see 200 species for the year in Nova Scotia and usually get pretty close to that target or over that amount.

This past year, I was only able to find 191 species and missed a number that I normally see. These include the northern saw-whet owl, gray jay, boreal chickadee, Tennessee warbler, Lincoln's sparrow, Baltimore oriole, white-winged crossbill, mourning warbler, and for the second year in a row, rose-breasted grosbeak.

I also keep a yearly Lunenburg County list and missed some species that I see every year. The most surprising of those was the ring-necked pheasant. On the Lunenburg Christmas Bird Count my team in Blue Rocks would always find pheasants. This is the first year ever that they could not find one. Thankfully, teams elsewhere in the field did come up with a few of these birds.,

The Broad Cove Christmas Bird Count took place on Dec. 29. We had nasty weather, with rain most of the day and winds between 40 to 60 km/h. I completed two routes.

On the first one at Broad Cove, I found an amazing 101 ring-billed gulls. There likely were more as there seemed to be a constant fly by of this species, but I still had a lot of territory to cover, so I could not linger. The other route that I ran was inland and I located eight ring-necked ducks at Crooked Lake. Over the winter this is not an easy species to find and usually there are only one or two of them about for the whole winter period.

Lise Bell found a fox sparrow in Petite Riviere and two chipping sparrows were good birds also. The final tally is not yet ready for the Broad Cove count, but at this point the species list sits at 55, which is excellent considering the weather.

The Lunenburg Christmas Bird Count took place Dec. 30. The weather was much better with it being -2 to -3 degrees with very low winds. In the afternoon it was somewhat difficult birding with huge white flakes of snow coming down. I don't have a full picture of how the count went yet, but species numbers look high.

I do know that a lot of species that we knew about could not be found on count day. We did find some of them three days before the count and three days after so they can at least be included for the count week. From my perspective, at this point, it looks like it will be a larger list then we have ever had for species seen during the count week and not on count day. I have not yet received all of the data, so I will write more about the final results in a future column.

Fulton Lavender found two female Barrow's goldeneyes at Back Harbour Lunenburg. He located five swamp sparrows, an orange-crowned warbler and a yellow-breasted chat along the Silver Point Road in Garden Lots. He also had an orange-crowned warbler at Stonehurst. He located four species of owls which were great horned, northern saw-whet, barred owl and long-eared owl. I was pleased to locate two pine warblers in Lunenburg. David Currie found a gray catbird in Oakland.

The first birds I photographed in the new year were Canada geese with the pink-footed goose. I had 41 species on Jan. 1. At the Back Oler Farm Marsh in Garden Lots eight green-winged teal were great birds to see for this time of year Kevin Lantz had an eastern phoebe show up at his house in Front Centre.

Barbara McLean of Lunenburg saw three pine warblers in her yard. She also reported a brown creeper. The house sparrows in Lunenburg, which disappeared and could not be relocated between Dec. 26 and Jan. 2, were found again by Eric Mills. On Jan. 2, Eric located a yellow-breasted chat at Upper First Peninsula. David Bell found a clay-coloured sparrow at the same location. Pat Watson of East LaHave reported 10 evening grosbeaks.

On Dec. 28, Ervin Olsen sighted an orange-crowned warbler and two hermit thrushes at Cape Forchu. Logan Lalonde reported a marsh wren, two ruby-crowned kinglets, a pine warbler and an orange-crowned warbler in the vicinity of the Harvest Moon Trail in Wolfville.

On Dec. 30, two marsh wrens were a great find at Egypt Road for Paul Gould and Alix d'Entremont. Ronnie d'Entremont located a snowy egret at Pubnico. Andrew Bates had an amazing 350 red-winged blackbirds and 300 common grackles in Lawrencetown. He also saw a snow goose at the Bridgetown Sewage Lagoons. Richard Stern spied a Eurasian wigeon at the Windsor Sewage Pond. Logan Lalonde located a gray catbird at Red Bank Road.

On Dec. 31, Logan Moore saw a great egret at Daniel's Head on Cape Sable Island. He had a hermit thrush on Jan. 1 along the Sherose Island Trail. David Bell discovered two Nelson's sparrows at Conrad's Beach. Mike MacDonald found a fox sparrow at Clam Point on Cape Sable Island. Mark Dennis reported a pied-billed grebe at Stumpy Cove in Clark's Harbour on Cape Sable Island and Lori Buhlman saw a red-shouldered hawk in the valley close to Grand Pre.

On Jan. 2, Mark Dennis located a northern mockingbird at Chebogue Point and he saw the grey heron at Argyle. On Jan. 3, two eastern bluebirds were found by David Bell at Falmouth. Diane LeBlanc saw the black-throated gray warbler, still in Barrington.

You may reach me at 902-693-2174 or email jrhbirder@hotmail.com.