Sunday, December 27, 2009

Wallaceburg CBC December 27

Scene along Chenal Ecarte at Stewart Wetland (mid afternoon)
The Wallaceburg CBC was held under fairly decent weather. It was cloudy most of the day, but the sun did pop out for a while in the afternoon after some heavy flurries at noon.
Results showed low numbers of birds which was not surprising. It may be a sign of the times. I kept saying there were low numbers of birds all fall, and this had carried on.
Total species tally at time of this writing is 79. Not too bad considering many absent birds.
Common Loon (photo courtesy Dawne Mudford)
We did record two Common Loons on the St. Clair River. Usually we miss that species, but there seem to be a few around. I know there was one at Sarnia yesterday. The above photo was one of several on Lake St. Clair last summer.
New species (finally!) were recorded for the count history. A Sandhill Crane was sighted by Keith Burk on Walpole Island.

Sandhill Crane (from Rondeau last spring)

Other notables included a Green-winged Teal, two Black Scoters, two Long-tailed Ducks and a Ruddy Duck. The Ruddy Duck is actually a new count species. We have had it on count week three times before, including last year. Long time coming!

The only warbler species was a Common Yellowthroat.

Woodpeckers were rather low in numbers, but perhaps next year with all the dead ash trees, there will be more. Pileated was not found this time around.

Two Merlin were found, a new count high. Merlins seem to be increasing their winter presence in recent years. The usual St. Clair River Peregrine Falcon was again seen.

White-breasted Nuthatch

Sparrows were noticably absent this time. Two "Oregon" Juncos, both female were tallied. I saw one of them with a good flock of birds on private property. It has been a long time since I have seen a good male though. There seem to be so many "intergrade" types of juncos, so one has to look closely. I had good looks at mine, and determined it was a female "Oregon".

3 comments:

  1. I'm always so nervous about Oregon Junco ID'ing. Some female Slate-colours just appear so brownish.

    Do you mostly cement the ID with a noticeable hood and brown in the flanks?

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  2. Jeremy, you are right. I had good looks at this bird to make sure it had a distinct hood, etc.
    Coincidentally, I was looking up references about Juncos a couple of days before. Especially after Andrew Keaveney's posting.
    I seen so many "in between's" over the years, I think there is a lot of hybridization going on.

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  3. I know what you mean Blake, after reading Andrew's post I have been doing a little more research myself about Juncos. Happy Holidays!

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