St. Clair NWA 40th Christmas Bird Count

This year, on Jan 1, 2020, we held the 40th St. Clair NWA Christmas Bird Count. I've been involved as a participant since it began in December, 1981 and as the compiler since 1988.

This 24 kilometre diameter count circle was originally centred at the SCNWA headquarters, as it was Canadian Wildlife Service staff who organized the first few counts. It was moved slightly a few years later, to include the western fringe of Chatham, where one of the largest crow roosts in North America occurs, as well as to give the Wallaceburg/Walpole Island count circle, which began in 1986, a little better positioning.

Much of the SCNWA count circle includes agricultural land, which has limited benefits to many species of birds. The main attraction for the greatest diversity of birds is the extensive wetland area along the east side of Lake St. Clair, and of course included the National Wildlife Area. However the majority of the other wetlands are privately owned by hunt clubs. The waterfowl hunting season, which used to end in late December but now extends for some species into early January, makes some of these hunt clubs busier with member's hunting opportunities, so some of the best private wetland areas are off limits entirely, or at least much reduced.

Nonetheless, the results of this CBC, even towards the end of the count period, have some impressive results, often tallying in the top 10 of all of the counts in Ontario. In 2019, we tallied 93 species, which was the third highest total in Ontario. This year did not result in quite as many species, with only 83 noted.There were 17 people out counting, about half of whom are residents of Chatham-Kent, but with great assistance from fellow birders from Essex, Middlesex and Lambton counties.

Downy Woodpecker

In terms of total individual birds, I believe that this count is consistently the one with the greatest number in Ontario. There are two reasons for this, the first one being the presence of the absolutely huge crow roost which numbers anywhere from about 110000 to almost 160000 birds. The second reason is for the sometimes huge numbers of waterbirds. The latest count did not disappoint as there were almost 62000 individuals of 33 species. That included 23 species of waterfowl, six species of gulls, plus Great Blue Heron, American Coot, Double-crested Cormorant and Belted Kingfisher. Our total number of individual birds was 198597, slightly below our all time high of over 202000 a year ago.

American Coot

Since most of my territory included walking and carrying a scope and tripod, I did not have my camera with me.  Most of the following photos are from previous times.

Canada Geese are often abundant, and this year we tallied almost 10,000. However in spite of all of the geese, there was only one individual of another species: Snow Goose.

Tundra Swans were also abundant, with over 3200 counted, and were found in the NWA or foraging out in fields elsewhere.

 There were only 20 of the non-native Mute Swan, a far cry from the record number of 227 seen a few years ago.

 Mallards were the most abundant duck by far, with more than 46000 counted. A much smaller number of Am Black Ducks was recorded.

Am Black Duck in foreground, with parts of Mallard in the upper left corner.

 Diving ducks were not abundant, but reasonably well represented. Redheads numbered only 10.

 For Northern Pintail it was feast or famine. Our group had one male, whereas another group had a flock of 200 males, and the other groups had none! The official total of 201 birds surpassed the previous high of 172 birds. Interestingly in spite of so many individual birds of 83 species, we only set a new high number for this one species.

Bald Eagles were abundant, and we counted 39. This was lower than our all time high of 50 birds seen last year.

One of the reasons for this encouraging number was that this species is doing well throughout its range, compared to the dismal years of last century. Most of the 12 years this species has been missed on this count were in the first 10 years of the count. We have only missed it once this century. Another reason is that Lake St. Clair was completely open, and the eagles spent a lot more time around the edges of the lakes and therefore fairly visible rather than sitting way out on the ice.

Snowy Owls have been pleasantly abundant these last few years. We tallied 7 on this count, certainly lower than our all time high of 18 a few years ago, but a far cry better than so many years when it was difficult to even find one.

On a nice sunny calm day, these owls will often be found perched on top of a hydro pole or something similar. But on this quite windy day, they were all on the ground, and usually well out in the field.

A couple of woodpecker highlights included a single, young Red-headed Woodpecker, only the 6th time in 40 years one has been counted......

.....and 7 Northern Flickers.

Another highlight was a single young Yellow-headed Blackbird, only the third time one has been recorded in spite of a regular breeding location at the north end of the count circle.

As mentioned above, American Crows are by far the most abundant species. It really is quite a sight to see the thousands of birds congregating on fields and in trees.

There are various reasons for the Chatham part of Chatham-Kent being so popular for wintering crows, and for a fairly thorough discussion of this phenomenon, check out a previous blog post.