New Year's Day Birding

the frozen marsh!

Quite often, the St. Clair NWA Christmas Bird Count occurs on New Year's Day, and this year was no exception. It is a good way to start the birding year, as you can see lots of good things for your list.

snow drifts caused by phragmites

It has been an early and harsh winter so far, and perhaps that had a bearing on the results of today. There simply were not many birds around! This count relies heavily on waterfowl, and that family of birds was rather scarce. Certainly the frozen landscape did not help in that regard. There were very few geese, and not many ducks. Sometimes there are tens of thousands of ducks on this count of many species.

find the Great Blue Heron............!

The most notable species of this count today was White-winged Crossbill. Several parties had them and it was a new species for the count history. With the lack of vegetation, and in particular spruce trees in this area, it is an excellent bird for this count.

mouse trails and coyote tracks (?)

It appears that Common Redpolls are moving farther south. Several people, including myself had them. They had not been around previously.

Three Peregrine Falcons were recorded--a new high for this count. Hawks were fairly low in numbers.
A few decent sightings were made for the count including Hermit Thrush, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Marsh Wren, Eastern Towhee and Eastern Bluebird.
Total species found was 74, rather low!

recent evidence of a beaver

I had my camera along and took some photos just for fun around the marsh that I surveyed.

late afternoon SE corner of Lake St. Clair