Dear BirdNews subscribers, The 99th Toronto Christmas Bird Count was held on Sunday, December 17th under rather dreary conditions with steady rain throughout the duration of the count. Despite this, our 124 counters and 15 feeder watchers still managed to tally a record 97 species across the circle, including two new species for the count - the overwintering Dickcissel at the Brickworks and a Greater White-fronted Goose on Toronto Islands.
An Ovenbird found at ET Seton Park was only the second record for the count, a Black-and-white Warbler at High Park was only the third, and it was only our third ever count with Eastern Phoebe. Likely owing to the mild temperatures and open water across the board, waterfowl and other waterbird numbers were up across the circle with all-time high counts for American Wigeon (147, prev. 68), Hooded Merganser (197, prev. 172), Wood Duck (24), Green-winged Teal (12), Horned Grebe (9), Great Blue Heron (12), and Black-crowned Night-Heron (11). While Tundra Swan was missed this year, the overwintering Harlequin Duck in the east end and all three scoter species were tallied for a total of 28 species of waterfowl. A number of common landbird species were lower than average, but this was perhaps not unexpected given the poor weather and general difficulty in finding and pishing out passerines noted by many teams. American Robins, however, put on a strong showing with a new high count of 1782, and White-throated Sparrow and Golden-crowned Kinglet numbers were significantly higher than average (109 and 46, respectively) but in line with a steady overall increase over the years and mild autumn temperatures. Many thanks to everyone who counted and the Toronto Ornithological Club Records Committee (Gray Carlin, Mark Field, Emily Rondel, Howard Shapiro, Owen Strickland, and Ivor Williams) for helping with logistics and compiling. The preliminary results can be found at the following eBird Trip Report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/176815 Happy holidays and good birding! Amanda Guercio TOC Records Councillor -- Ontbirds and Birdnews are moderated email Listservs provided by the Ontario Field Ornithologists (OFO) as a service to all birders in Ontario. Birdnews is reserved for announcements, location summaries, first of year reports, etc. To post a message on Birdnews, send an email to: birdnews@ontbirds.ca. If you have any questions or concerns, contact the Birdnews Moderators by email at birdn...@ofo.ca. Please review posting rules and guidelines at http://ofo.ca/site/content/listserv-guidelines During the COVID-19 pandemic, all Ontario birders should be taking extra precautions and following local, provincial, and federal regulations regarding physical distancing and non-essential travel. To find out more about OFO, please visit our website at ofo.ca or Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/OntarioFieldOrnithologists.
