Hello Everyone, The 32nd Wallaceburg CBC took place yesterday, December 27th. MAN, was it cold! (insert "How cold was it?" joke here). The day started out at -22 degrees Celsius and "warmed up" to a balmy -11. At least the winds were relatively light and there were beautiful sunny skies all day to reflect off of the recently fallen snow (up to 30 cm in some spots). There were quite a few birds to be found, especially waterfowl and gulls.
Here's a brief summary: Nineteen participants and 4 feeder watchers found 86 species on the count day, which is well above the average of just under 80 over the last 10 years, and only 3 short of our highest of 89 species in 2005. A new specie to our CBC this year was GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE - 2 were found in the area 5 days earlier and they were seen late on this day. An immature GOLDEN EAGLE was also seen, upgrading it from a count week only species in the past. This brings our cumulative total for the 32 years to 141 species. We found high counts for the following 5 species this year: WOOD DUCK 3 ( previous high of 2 in 1997) WILD TURKEY 155 (previous high of 127) PIED-BILLED GREBE 36 (previous high of 22 in 1998) PILEATED WOODPECKER 3 (previous high of 2) LAPLAND LONGSPUR 23 (18 in 2004) and we tied four others: GREEN-WINGED TEAL (1 - only the 5th record) LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL (2) BELTED KINGFISHER (4) MERLIN (2) So far, we have tallied 3 species that were seen during Count Week only (3 days prior and 3 days after but not seen on count day): GREAT BLUE HERON, CEDAR WAXWING and PINE SISKIN. Perhaps there will be more waterfowl or other species seen in the coming 3 days. We had very few notable misses this year, thanks to the hard work of those searching. Those that stood out were: GREAT BLUE HERON (only the 3rd time missed ever) WINTER WREN (only the 4th miss since 2003) Finally, a few thank you's are in order. Thanks to Cindy Cartwright who came to participate in our count for the first time. She traveled south almost 4 hours through snow squalls and closed roads and seemed to enjoy her day. Thanks to Wendy and Becky Cornelis for once again providing a fantastic hot meal after our long count day. Finally, a big thanks to Georgette Cornelis for again providing her house for the meal and compilation and also for being such a welcoming host. Steve Charbonneau Compiler for the Wallaceburg CBC _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists (OFO) - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to birdalert@ontbirds.ca For information about ONTBIRDS including how to unsubscribe visit http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdssetup Posting guidelines can be found at http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdsguide Visit the OFO Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/OntarioFieldOrnithologists
