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Eastern Meadowlark at the (former) Port Rowan Sewage Lagoons
December 28, 2013

Found at (the Former) Sewage Lagoons

Graham found an Eastern Meadowlark at (the former) Port Rowan Sewage Lagoons late this afternoon.

When he went back with a camera he got this shot.


Great Horned Owl - December 27th Port Rowan

Christmas Bird Counting on A Wintry Day in Port Rowan

Diamond the Dog and I wandered over to Bird Studies Canada (BSC) earlier today.
 
You could hear, but not really see,  the Tundra Swans, in the Inner Bay which is ice covered as far as you can see through the snow. 

It is pretty much blizzard conditions here. 

As I write, the BSC weatherboard says it is minus 7.9 with a wind chill making it feel like minus 15.9.  Winds of about 25 kilometres per hour mean I’m going to do my birding from indoors today.

That is not the case for the hearty Christmas counters.  Two of them departed from our home around sunrise this morning.  Early reports include sightings of an Eastern Towhee and a Catbird.
 
Some of you will undoubtedly know the history of the Christmas Counts.

Not that long ago the Christmas holiday season was an occasion to haul out your gun and go out and shoot as many birds as you could find.

In 1900 ornithologist Frank Chapman came up with an option to killing birds that, if not sport, at least seems more sporting. 

Toward the end of the 19th century the conservation movement was starting to grow and Chapman developed the idea of a bird census for Christmas Day that year.   That first Christmas event was held in 25 different locations around North America.  Apparently there were 27 counters covering these 25 locations suggesting an extremely solitary pursuit for most participating counters.  A total of 89 species and about 18,500 individuals were recorded when all the counts were combined.

The list from 1900 includes at least two species that aren’t in good shape 113 years later.  The Greater Prairie Chicken, for one,   was once abundant in Ontario is almost gone due to habitat destruction.  Another bird, the White Headed Woodpecker is on the threatened list in Canada with only a few birds breeding in the South Okanagan.  Unlike woodpeckers that we are familiar with it likes seeds (not insects) and prefers ponderosa pines for its habitat.

Two of these first counts were in Canadian locations – Toronto and Scotch Lake, York County, New Brunswick (near Fredericton.)  At Scotch Lake William H. Moore spent an hour on Christmas morning and recorded 36 birds representing nine species. (See The Christmas Bird Count:  A Long Tradition by David Christie at http://www.elements.nb.ca/theme/winter/david/david.htm)

Find out more about the Christmas counts at http://www.bsc-eoc.org/organization/bscnews.html

Sightings from the last Couple of Weeks

Here are some birds family members have seen over the last couple of weeks.  Maybe the counters will find them today.

We've had some different sightings lately.

Some you could expect.  Others maybe not.

In the expected category there are, of course, lots of Tundra Swans and Sandhill Cranes around these days.  Usually we are seeing them in large numbers west of Highway #59 along the Lakeshore toward and beyond Lee Browns.

Graham got a shot of this American Pipit on November 30th on our way to look for Yellow Headed Blackbirds.

We didn't find those blackbirds on that occasion but later on December 7th Graham and Ross photographed one on the First Concession. The picture was good enough for ID purposes but not to include here.




Around the same time three Snowy Owls were observed.  Here is one in flight.

The same day we had the Pipit we had this guy.  A Pigeon (I believe called a Roller)
                   

on our back porch could be called unexpected.