Fisherville CBC

Today was the Fisherville CBC and my brother Matt and I spent most of the day scouring the lakeshore and fields for every little bird we could find. We worked over two areas with Jim Heslop and Bob Stamp. This count is a remarkable count in my opinion in that it doesn't seem to have the best habitat, doesn't seem to have the most participants, but often turns up great birds.

I can remember one count when our party found (or re-found) a Brant, a Harlequin Duck, a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and a Grasshopper Sparrow (3rd winter record in Canada I believe... or something like that). We showed up to the round-up only to be upstaged by Jeff Skevington's Least Sandpiper and Gray Flycatcher!!! That was a doozy of a count.

Anyways, no Mega's today for us but our group did have a good list of birds, reaching the 72 species mark. Tonnes of sparrows and waterfowl made for a fun day picking through them for the goodies. Highlights for us - for this count - were:

Short-eared sitting out midday was nice.

Savannah Sparrow (1)
Cackling Goose (1)
Snow Goose (3)
Ruddy Duck (1)
American Wigeon (3)
Ring-necked Duck (2)
Canvasback (4)
American Coot (3)
Hermit Thrush (1)
American Pipit (7)
Northern Shrike (3)
Northern Mockingbird (2)
Rusty Blackbird (4)
White-crowned Sparrow (3 for us) (10 as a party)


Killdeer (2)  - Jim and Bob only - I maintain they flew in after we left the shoreline :)
Meadowlarks (2) - Jim and Bob only, but we saw 3 after we left the circle.



Still reading this far down the blog? We came across a Bald Eagle's nest being LEGALLY taken down by a wind energy company! Can you believe it? Wow. A google search will turn up more info but I hope to do a blog post on it in the next day or two.