For the first time in its history (which goes back to 1913), the Pakenham-Arnprior CBC date was moved due to extremely bad weather. Normally held on Boxing Day, the count took place on December 27. With calm conditions and temperatures hovering around zero the entire day, ideal conditions allowed us to confirm that there is very little in the woods this year! Our finch count consisted of 13 Purple Finches, 5 House FInches (lowest count since they appeared in our area), 8 Common Redpolls, 6 Pine Siskins, 547 American Goldfinches, and 96 Evening Grosbeaks. Virtually all of these birds were at feeders. Woodpeckers occurred in near record low numbers, with only 5 Pileateds reported. In total, 49 species were recorded, a bit lower than most counts in recent years. However, there were highlights. Open water allowed us to record water birds not normally seen, with 16 Herring Gulls (9th count), 9 Great Black-backed Gulls (eighth count, new record high), 2 Glaucous (third count), and 1 Iceland Gull (new species) tallied. Mallards also occurred in record high numbers (150) courtesy of open water and free corn. The 16 Bald Eagles was another record high count. A Rusty Blackbird and a Swamp Sparrow were also new species, bringing up our all-time list to 118 species - not bad for an small inland count in Ontario!
Happy New Year! Michael Runtz _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to ONTBIRDS mailing list [email protected] For information about ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/
