A cold and windy day faced the teams for the 2024 Christmas Bird Count.
This volunteer driven monitoring program has been running since 1900, adding to an understanding of how wild birds are doing across the country. People in more than 2000 locations throughout the Western Hemisphere participate in the CBC each year. Birds Canada oversees the CBC program nationally, in partnership with National Audubon Society.
We have nine teams who cover the different regions, and some of the teams split their regions into two. Here are some notable highlights:
- 6,107 individual birds, which is a low count if you compare to the last two years but not really far off prior to 2021 (6,905)
- 59 total species counted
- 63 species on list that were not counted
- Good counts on hawks and woodpeckers over all
- Two species that we can usually count on seeing but didn’t this year was American Robin and Cedar Waxwing.
Even with the cold temperatures, we still managed to surpass some previous species counts and have four new records, including one new species added to the list.
- Green Heron (new!), 1.
- Turkey Vulture, 16. Previous record, 1 in 2018.
- Red-bellied Woodpecker, 33. Previous record was 19 in 2023.
- Hairy Woodpecker, 53. Previous record was 52 in 2020.
Plus 1 Long-tailed Weasel, also new to the list.
Recording data on effort is equally important to the recording of bird species and numbers. The team lead also records the following information:
- Number of feeder counts
- Start and end time
- Total time in hours
- KM travelled by car
- KM travelled by foot
- Time travelled by foot
Thanks to everyone who participated or contributed feeder counts!
FULL SPECIES LIST:
Canada Goose
Mute Swan
Trumpeter Swan
American Black Duck
Mallard
Greater Scaup
Long-tailed Duck
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Ruffed Grouse
Wild Turkey
Horned Grebe
Red-necked Grebe
Green Heron
Turkey Vulture
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper’s Hawk
Bald Eagle
Red-tailed Hawk
Rough-legged Hawk
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Iceland Gull
Glaucous Gull
Great Black-backed gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Barred Owl
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
American Kestrel
Northern Shrike
Blue Jay
American Crow
Common Raven
Black-capped Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Northern Cardinal
Golden-crowned Kinglet
European Starling
Snow Bunting
American Tree Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco – Slate coloured Junco
House Finch
Purple Finch
Common Redpoll
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
Evening Grosbeak
House Sparrow
Red Squirrel
Gray Squirrel
Black Squirrel
White tailed Deer
Otter
Coyote
Cottontail Rabbit
Meadowvole
Long-tailed Weasel
