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Nature Link

With Blake Mann

BIRD COUNTS ARE HERE (MOSTLY)

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

This past weekend saw the start of the annual Christmas Bird Counts (CBC). It was a crap shoot all week as to what the weather would be like. As usual, the long-range forecasts completely changed every day predicting every type of weather possible. It wasn't until late Friday that we knew something was about to hit us late Saturday and into Sunday. You know the rest!

However, Saturday was pretty good weatherwise...just cold. The Kettle Point CBC was held, and ended up at 69 species. Highlights included Red-throated Loon, 5 Gadwall, 6 Bald Eagles, a Merlin and a Golden Eagle. The Golden Eagle was spotted by me at Rock Glen, soaring over the Ausable River. It was an adult bird and nice to see this time of year.

Common Redpolls were high in numbers, as was expected. All the counts have been reporting many redpolls. Practically every count so far is getting Hoary Redpolls, the rarer species of redpoll. Kettle Point was no exception, and three were tallied for it. It appears that this will be a record year for Hoary Redpolls in southern Ontario.

Sparrows were very scarce this year. Strangely, the only sparrow I saw at Rock Glen was a Song Sparrow!

Sunday was supposed to be the Rondeau/Blenheim count. Needless to say with the weather, it eventually had to be called off. A storm like that concentrates birds, especially at feeders. On the other hand, many birds will disappear and take off because of the storm. So, there may be fewer birds by next Sunday when the count will actually take place.

The Port Huron CBC takes place this Saturday, and included the city of Sarnia. Rondeau is the 23rd now. Wallaceburg is the 27th.

The attached photo shows birds out my window here in Wallaceburg during Sundayís storm. On the feeder is a Pine Siskin, a decent bird for this area in the winter. The other photo shows a Sharp-shinned Hawk that visited a couple of times. At one point it took a Mourning Dove.