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.

Algonquin Park in November

We haven’t been too diligent documenting birds around town lately.

We were, however, up at Algonquin this past week and managed to see a few birds.

Son Ross leads us to a number of regular stops in what has become a regular mid-November routine for him.

At the west park gate a few minutes after having caught a glimpse of a skittish moose we observed eight evening grosbeaks at quite a distance. We struggled to capture them on camera. 

The Gray Jays weren’t terribly interested in us at the Spruce Bog Trail.  Yes, I thought it was our warm personalities and chipped sunflower seed.  But the only two seen were busy on a large suet feeder and barely looked at us as we passed.



Opeongo Lake Visit November 2012

Purple finches were seen at the Visitor Centre, Ross got a couple of Black Backed Woodpeckers on the Opeongo Lake Road and two common loons were about all that could be found at the Outfitting Station. 

The south end of the lake was nearly all
frozen over unlike our visit in 2012.



 

The Gray Jays off the Mizzy Lake Road behaved in more characteristic Gray Jay style as we hiked along the old railroad bed.

As the sun was about to set we caught sight of a Ruffed Grouse flying in front of our car on the Mizzy Lake Road.

Algonquin Park postings can be found weekly at http://www.algonquinpark.on.ca/news/algonquin_park_birding_report.php
 

Cattle Egret

We finally got out of the house to see the Cattle Egret.

It was located, without much effort, with the cows at 8^th Concession and Hazen just before sundown.  That is north and west of the village of Walsingham, which is on Highway #59.

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/cattle_egret/id), the Cattle Egret is originally from Africa and found its way to North America in 1953 and quickly spread across the continent.

You’ll find it in fields, not streams, where it eats insects and small animals.

Most spend their winters in the southern United States where the temperature rarely falls below 5 degrees Celsius. Some find their way to more northern coastal areas where winters are mild. Their North American range is still expanding.

On the way home, we headed west along Lakeshore where we picked up fifty or so Sandhill Cranes on the north side before Port Royal, another 30 on the south side just west of Port Royal.   One individual was grazing at Lee  Browns.

Tundra Swans are moving around town and Northern Saw-whet Owl Banding continues at the Long Point  Bird Observatory Old Cut Banding. Station. (See www.birdscanada.org/lpbo)
    
Banding closes for the season on November 15th


Northern Saw-whet being banded October 30th at Old Cut.
 

 

Thanksgiving Day - Port Rowan

Thanksgiving Day is a gorgeous one here in Port Rowan.

We took a little hike up by the St. Williams Forestry Centre (http://www.forestryfarm.ca/index.htmand ) on the way back home found this Wilson's  Snipe just about 400 metres from Wood B &B.

True to the Sibley Guide this solitary individual bird was found in the muddy stubble of a flooded field south of the decommissioned sewage lagoons.





Graham photographed this Wilson's Snipe on Hunter Drive North about 300 metres north of Front Road.

Notes from Bird Studies Canada Annual Meeting

We attended the Bird Studies Canada (BSC) Annual General meeting last week in Port Rowan.
There was, of course, lots of dry but necessary reporting. But some exciting stuff as well.
The feature presentation came from Dr. Doug Tozer on BSC’s  Lakes Loon Survey  that is now in its 33rd year.  The database for this work is large encompassing  4,550 lakes and 25,000 breeding pairs, I believe. (http://www.birdscanada.org/volunteer/clls/resources/CLLSsummary.pdf)

The work, which looks at loon chicks as reported by volunteers across the country, reveals how our lakes are doing.  Probably because of mercury pollution and acid rain eastern loon chicks aren’t doing that well.  While still producing at levels that will maintain decent populations, birth rates are going down. 

Meanwhile, loon reproduction does much better in Western Canada but these reproduction rates are going down considerably faster than in the east.  I’m not a scientist but what I get from the research is that mercury and maybe acid rain continue to have an effect on our lakes even after their prevalence in the atmosphere has been reduced.  More research is needed.

An exciting development is a $3.5 million dollar research project that will use new technologies to study migratory routes of birds and bats.  BSC President and CEO George Finney briefly described the project in his remarks.
Scientists from Western, Guelph and Acadia  have come together on this.  You can read an undated description of the project written by Mitchell Zimmer at http://www.uwo.ca/sci/news/silent_seasons.html

Zimmer quotes biologist Chris Gugliemo:

“The big overarching goal of this is a twenty year commitment to link all of Canada’s birds to their migration and wintering areas to create a migration atlas which doesn’t exist anywhere in the world.”

In the article, Guigliemo notes that some species have an 80% mortality rate during their extended migration.

“(Y)et those flights are largely a black box. Where do the birds go on their way south, where do they stop to rest and refuel, why do they die?”

The research is important to learn more about species at risk and also climate change.

As I said, this is exciting stuff.

Learn about Dragonflies

Here is an event in our back yard of which we’ve just become aware.
It is one-day course designed to educate and train participants about the conservation, ecology, and life history of dragonflies.

It is being put on by Migratory Dragonfly Partnership.

According to the Partnership’s website, “Dragonfly migration is one of the most fascinating events in the insect world, but also one of the least-known.”

The Migratory Dragonfly Partnership is composed of dragonfly experts, nongovernmental programs, academic institutions, and federal agencies from the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Together, they are combining research, citizen science, and education and outreach to better understand North America's migrating dragonflies and promote conservation of their wetland habitat.

Participants will be trained to become citizen science contributors for the Migratory
Dragonfly Partnership's North America-wide citizen science research projects.

The course, which is free, will run Saturday September 28th from 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM EDT at the Long Point Bird Observatory/Bird Studies Canada.  They’re located just west of beautiful Port Rowan Harbour at 115 Front Rd in Port Rowan.

You can find out lots of details on the event and dragonflies at http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e82tceaj9a685417&llr=tnjebhdab

Labour Day Weekend in Port Rowan

This was the first year we’ve been around Port Rowan for Bayfest weekend.  Originally called Tomato Fest the event highlights the tomato that was packed and processed here in great numbers at Innes Foods from 1963 – 1981.  According to Down by the Bay A History of Long Point and Port Rowan,   local farmers delivered trailers with up to four tons of tomatoes to the plant.   At the plant on the western edge of Port Rowan, the hand-picked field grown vegetables were canned in four hours.  A large parade and fireworks are among highlights of Bayfest



.

Lisa "longball" Vlooswyk drills a 300 yarder.

We were surprised when we moved here that Port Rowan hosted a Canadian Championship.  That would be the Long Drive Championships http://www.internationallongdrivechallenge.com/canadian_nationals.html which is now part of the Labour Day weekend festivities.    We caught the Women’s Final at Stark’s Golf Course where Burlington’s Fareen Samji defended her championship in a close contest over seven time champion Lisa “Longball” Vlooswyk.  Many drives over 300 yards were recorded in the Sunday final.

On the birding front things were  slow at the old Cut Banding Station but staff tell us they should pick up when the cold front comes in later this week.  My niece did get the opportunity on Sunday to hold a Wilson’s Warbler after it had been banded.   


Wilson's Warbler