CBC season is almost over, but not quite

Only a few more days until the Christmas Bird Count period is over for another season. In recent days, local counts I've been on included the Wallaceburg count on Dec 27th, the Skunk's Misery count on Dec 30 and tomorrow, Jan1, 2019 will be the St. Clair NWA count.

For my area, the Wallaceburg count includes a good chunk of the St. Clair River as well as a few inland areas. The diversity of waterfowl on the river makes a huge difference in the number of species I am able to tally for the day. This year the river was entirely open, and many ducks had left. There was an average diversity, although nothing in really large numbers.

Some years there are huge rafts of Canvasback....

 ....and Redhead.

This year there were a few Redheads around.

Redhead with Greater Scaup

.....and I only saw a single Canvasback.

A mixed group, including the single Canvasback

There was a small number of Greater Scaup.

Redhead and Greater Scaup

 ....and the ubiquitous Mallard, although even this species was not abundant in my area.

Landbirds were noticeable by their absence, but I caught this Great Blue Heron skulking along the wet edge of a woodlot.

In between counts, I spent a bit of time at Rondeau on one of the nicer days, always on the lookout for the Barred Owl that Josh and I had found on the Rondeau count. I wasn't able to come up with that owl on this visit. As I returned to the truck on one occasion, a male Northern Cardinal was checking out its reflection in the mirror.

I scanned the lake for the ongoing Red-throated Loons. Sure enough, I saw 9 scattered in small groups here and there.

I went to the Skunk's Misery CBC, but was only able to spend part of a day due to a family commitment.  (There are one or two stories behind the Skunk's Misery name, which I may expand on in a future post.) The day started off quite dull, and even being out in good habitat before 8 a.m. I thought I got going before the birds were up. At my first stop, a nice mix of grassy field, forest, a mature conifer plantation, a  ravine and along the Thames River, I could only rustle up three species of birds, including a couple of immature Bald Eagles. As the day unfolded, in other parts of my territory a few more things came along at forest edges, roadsides and in the large Mosa Twp forest. Horned Larks were more plentiful on this day than I had seen in the previous several weeks. A nice adult Red-shouldered Hawk gave me perched and flying views. An American Robin literally fell out of a large tree, landing briefly in the snow before recovering and perching on a small twig and eventually scooting off. I ended up with 23 species for my shortened day. I didn't have my camera with me while I was out on foot, so I have no photos of this count to post.

In preparation for the SCNWA CBC, I wandered about parts of the former Dover Twp, almost all of which is within the count circle. With all of the water completely open, there is lots of habitat for waterfowl. However with the cold spell in the late fall, some of the birds left the area. There is still a reasonable diversity around, but we won't know until the count results are in just how good, or poor, they are. In a good year we will get at least 20-25 species of waterfowl.

At the NWA itself, there are lots of geese and ducks. With hunting season still on, the safety of the NWA is definitely an attraction for them! I saw a mix of puddle ducks, including Northern Pintail and American Wigeon among others. I noted a number of small white geese, and was pleased to find about 65 Snow Geese. There were half a dozen blues mixed in with them.

 It wasn't until I got these photos on the computer that I realized that there were two Ross's Geese among them. They are on the far right of this next photo. Their small size compared to the nearby Snows, along with a shorter stubby bill, a straighter feather line at the base of the bill, the lack of a grin patch and a hint of a bluish colour at the base of the bill all point to Ross's Goose, a species that not that long ago was considered a real rarity but in more recent years, is found to be a bit more regular, albeit in very small numbers.

Since Lake St. Clair is entirely open, eagles in the area can be found perched in trees along the lake shore. Without searching too hard, I saw 16 of them, sometimes as many as 3 in a single tree.

I wanted to drive up to Wallaceburg, to see if the Northern Rough-winged Swallow which Blake found on that CBC a few days earlier was still around. Although the weather had cooled off considerably, I found the swallow without any trouble. It would fly down in the water treatment cells and then perch on a wire or ledge for a few minutes. Clearly it was an unusual bird for the time of year!

Here is a bit of trivia that was passed along to me a few days ago: the Northern Rough-winged Swallow, with 26 letters in its name, has the notoriety of having the longest name of any Ontario bird species!

Happy New Year!