Christmas Bird Counting

Snowy drive

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas……………..” And here in BC it certainly is with much of the landscape covered in freshly fallen snow. And as the days tick down to Christmas a birder starts to think of Christmas Bird Counts.

Christmas Bird Counts?

Snowy drive continued

“In 1900, American ornithologist Frank Chapman asked birders across North America to head out on Christmas Day to count the birds in their home towns and submit the results as the first "Christmas Bird Census." The Christmas Bird Count, as it is now called, is conducted in over 2000 localities across Canada, the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. These bird observations have been amassed into a huge database that reflects the distribution and numbers of winter birds over time. 

Christmas Bird Counts are conducted on any one day between December 14 and January 5 inclusive. They are carried out within a 24-km diameter circle that stays the same from year to year. Christmas counts are generally group efforts, though single-observer counts can and do happen. They are organized at the local level, usually by a birding club or naturalists organization.

  As well as adding an exciting and fun event to the holiday season, the Christmas Bird Count provides important information for bird conservation. Data from the Count were used in assessment reports that added Western Screech-Owl, Rusty Blackbird, and Newfoundland Red Crossbill to the Species at Risk Act lists, and the general database was used extensively in the recent State of Canada's Birds  report.” 

Gary Davidson skillfully talked me into participating in three Bird Counts over three days in the Okanagan Valley. Friday saw the Lake Country Bird Count. Saturday Kelowna’s was held and then on Sunday, Vernon at the northern end of the Okanagan. I reluctantly agreed to bird and count in all three.

So on a naughty Thursday afternoon, with the temperature hovering just below the zero mark and a light snow falling, we headed west across the Monashee Mountains towards the Okanagan. The snow was falling quite heavily as we crossed the highest parts of the crossing and the temperature outside went to minus six below however we were safe and warm inside the 4WD.

We were very lucky to be hosted by Pam and her husband Jim who had a beautiful home near Winfield that was large enough such that my snoring failed to wake them, secreted as they were in another part of the house. It is worth another sentence to emphasise how comfortable and charming Pam’s house is and I’m sorry we didn’t have more time to enjoy its eclectic art and decorations, its music and conversation.

Gary at our first rendezvous. Where else but Tim Hortons?

So Lake Country birding began at Tim Hortons where we picked up our fellow birder, Loraine at 8 am and then the games began. It was cold, about zero and snow was softly falling. And the birds were, not surprisingly playing hard to get. A walk around a small sanctuary revealed little save Mallards, 2 Bufflehead, a lazy song Sparrow that had to be pished into life and a few juncos and BC Chickadees. Canada Geese and a few Gulls flew past. And there were Flickers. Flickers are quite a handsome woodpecker however they are suffered a little, perhaps like Rainbow Lorikeets or Galahs in Australia, because they are so common. ‘Oh, another flicker”, is usually intoned with a rather sad and defeated tone completely lacking in any joy. WE saw a lot of flickers on this day. And the next. And the next.

Our first Lake Country site

A trip to the nearby Lake yielded many coot, 3 shoveller, some Herring Gull, Hooded and Common Merganser, Loon, many Western and a few Horned plus a single Red-necked Grebe and a few other waterfowl; Gadwall and American Wigeon. Kingfisher and ‘Oh, another Flicker’.

The Lake Country Reserve under snow

The day was spent happily driving around our area checking for birds and obviously counting them.

Lake Country Lake with foreground Mallards

We had a section of Beaver Lake Road which Gary walked some of while we re-checked some of our previous sites for species missed. In this way we saw a wintering Marsh Wren that we had missed earlier in the day. All in all we saw just over 50 spp for the day. Our highlights included Merlin, Hooded Merganser, Harrier, Marsh Wren while Gary on his lone trek saw some Northern Pygmy Owls that responded to his calls.

It was not long after this we met Doug Brown, a birder from the southern Okanagan that Gary described merely as a ‘character’. He was. Doug had an invisible, let’s say, aura around him that it was not wise to penetrate. He had a deserved reputation for finding birds and on Birding count days he was given far-flung routes where mere mortals would be forced to pause. At any rate on this day he was given the higher and colder and snowier parts of Beaver Lake Road and he had seen spp not recorded by anyone else; Grouse, Three-toed Woodpecker and White winged Crossbill – the latter would have been a lifer for me. To top it off he had a low-land section to bird as well and there he encountered the bird of the day – Say’s Phoebe – a very late record indeed. So excited was he that he immediately came to find us so that we would verify his record. Soon we were panting and puffing along the railway track, Doug leading the way, his left hand working anxiously placing and removing a cigarette from his lips, smoke and steam pouring from his mouth in equal quantities while his right arm waved excitedly in the general area where the bird was seen. It may have looked, from a distance at least, that we were re-enacting the last steam train’s run. At any rate we failed to see the Phoebe but we did find a good day bird in the form of an American Kestrel.

Kelowna Bird Count

 

The wrap up was held at a local Golf Club House that sold cold beer. And within a warm building at last, with a cold beer in my hand it finally felt like a Friday arvo.

Dipper

Kelowna had us join a group of three other birders and we scored a good view of a perched Sharp-shinned Hawk as we met them.  It was minus three and snowy and it had snowed quite a bit before our arrival so it was a little bit of a wade through snow for our first foray which was in a local forested creek side. Again birds were a little slow but eventually we saw a few birds – BC Chickadee, Pine Grosbeak, Dipper, Californian Quail, Red Poll, Raven, Mallard, Clark’s Nutcracker on a flyby, Pacific Wren, Juncos and, perhaps best of all, White–throated Sparrow. We also got great views of an angry Musk Rat who was strolling around the ice chasing some Mallards.

Dipper again

We had some interesting territory; a range of suburbs and farmland so we saw quite a decent range of species with some good numbers of many. Solitaires of the Townsend variety were seen with a Northern Shrike, Mountain Chickadees, Caifornian Quail by the dozens and a variety of raptors. A few white crowned Sparrows accompanied the more common Songs and there were plenty of Juncos.

Dipper habitat

The birding highlights of our day came at our last birding site, Chichester Marsh. Here we added many Mallard, a few Green-winged Teal, Red-winged Blackbird, more juncos and goldfinch, more Red-tailed Hawks, Collared Doves and Virginia Rail. Now this rail would have been a lifer for me and the frustrating thing was that I saw it – a hurried scurrying back end view of a rail flying the short two metre distance between reed beds before a skidding landing and dash into the cover of reeds. I saw it but I saw nothing except a bird’s dark bum disappear. It must have been the Virginia Rail but the id is based almost solely on the process of elimination. Dam. Meanwhile Gary scored a few more day birds, a few waterfowl spp plus a nice view of a perched Cooper’s Hawk plus a Swamp Sparrow – another good bird. And a great one to finish with as it was only the second time I had seen the species.

The wrap up was at an environmental centre and it was here that Okanagan birding royalty had assembled; Chris Charlesworth, Dick Cannings and, of course, Chris Siddle – to name a few. Birds were tabled and tallied and tales were traded. Chris Siddle, who had birded alone, began by boasting just that, and he claimed that it,” reduced but did not eliminate arguments.” It was a good line, that I now look forward to using.  Chris also boasted that he had rediscovered the force of gravity, having fallen from a high fence.  Annoyingly Chris got Virginia Rail too – long, long looks of a statue like rail staring back at him from a ditch.

Post wrap up we made our way back to the Siddles for a night’s sleep before Vernon’s count.

Vernon had me joining an older couple, Peter and Hilda, who, before the day was out admitted that this would be their last count. They were a nice couple and a pleasure to spend the day with. WE were to have had another Peter accompany us however he failed to show at the rendezvous point so we eventually left without him.

Again it was cold and there was a strong wind blowing. Waterfowl and songbirds were difficult to find. Canada Geese, Mallard and a few Red-necked Grebe were about the only thing on our side of the lake. There were many Gulls not too far away from us and I had a quick look, noting Herring, Glaucous-winged, Ring-billed and Californian however I didn’t worry about having to count them. A large flock of Bohemian Waxwings flew past.

Angry Musk Rat

Not long after we began Peter took a tumble on an icy road. I helped him up and thankfully he was okay. WE soon added Downy Woodpecker, BC and Mountain Chickadees, Northern Shrike, Red-breasted and Pygmy Nuthatches plus the ubiquitous Juncos and House Finches. The day was particularly notable for raptors; many Red-tailed Hawks, amazingly only one Rough-legged Hawk, many Harriers, a few Merlin and Bald Eagles and perhaps best of all – a nice soaring Golden Eagle.  

The best bit of birding happened late in the day when we found a nice scrubby field that was attracted to me by a dark Red tailed Hawk standing guard in a tree in the middle of the space. A bit of pishing caused a heap of Song Sparrows to appear before a few White-crowned and then the bird of the day -  a Golden-crowned Sparrow! Apparently this is the first CBC record for Vernon so an ‘award winning’ bird. There is actually a trophy for the best bird however it is a perpetual trophy and perhaps people of Vernon would be disappointed if I spirited it away to Australia! [The second best spp of the day and perhaps the best was a record of Barn Owl. Also, at the same site, there were a few House Finches and Goldfinches plus Juncos.

My personal spp list for the long weekend is as follows;

Canada Goose

Gadwall

American Wigeon

Green-winged Teal

Mallard

Northern Shoveler

female Greater Scaup

Greater Scaup

Bufflehead

Common Goldeneye

Hooded Merganser

Common Merganser

Ring-necked Pheasant

California Quail

Common Loon

Horned Grebe

Red-necked Grebe

Western Grebe

Great Blue Heron

Bald Eagle

Golden Eagle

Northern Harrier

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Cooper’s Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Rough-legged Hawk

American Kestrel

Merlin

Virginia Rail

American Coot

Ring-billed Gull

California Gull

Herring Gull

Glaucous-winged Gull

Rock Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

Mourning Dove

Belted Kingfisher

Downy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Northern Shrike

Steller's Jay

Clark's Nutcracker

Black-billed Magpie

American Crow

Common Raven

Black-capped Chickadee

Mountain Chickadee

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Pygmy Nuthatch

Pacific Wren

Marsh Wren

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Townsend's Solitaire

American Robin

European Starling

Male Mallard

Bohemian Waxwing

Cedar Waxwing

Spotted Towhee

Song Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

Golden crowned Sparrow

Dark-eyed (Oregon) Junco

Red-winged Blackbird

Pine Grosbeak

House Finch

Common Redpoll

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow

69 spp

Plus Coyote, White-tailed and Mule Deer, Musk Rat for mammals.

Night drive home

More Nakusp November Birding

Most Saturday mornings some birding is attempted and the last few weekends were no exceptions.

Most mornings reveal something interesting.  The last weekend we did a little trip around Nakusp before a trip to both Summit and Box Lakes. It is - thank the maker - a mild winter thus far and both lakes, usually ice by this time of year were 100% liquid. The birds had decided that Summit was a little risky however a few birds had decided on Box Lake; Common Mergansers, both Goldeneyes, Bufflehead and, most surprising, a pair of Trumpeter Swans. These were only the second sighting this year in the valley for this specie.

Female Cassin's Finch outside the main street Coffee Shop

The weekend before the best birds were mammals - black bear still slumbering in the 'tree at Spicer's' plus great views of Otter at the main pier at the Nakusp Waterfront. The best bird occurred when we had finished birding and were sitting sipping coffee. A bird fluttered into a tree just outside and a quick glance revealed a relative rarity; a Cassin's Finch. Again only my second sighting for this species this year in Nakusp.  Bonus. Perhaps best of all it allowed some pics.

A walk to school

delicate dead leaves with ice encrusted edges - good laptop background.....

patterns in puddled ice

frosty fungus

Last night the town froze and this morning the grass, the roads, our steps were covered with a thin, yet beautiful, veneer of ice. And as a continuing stranger in a strange land I allowed myself to appreciate the subtlety of the ice before the temperature rose to greater than zero. 

[maple] leaf skeleton embossed on the roadway

So here are a few photos taken on the way to school this morning.

Ice edges again

view from the front of the school

And a couple of birds taken near a feeder enroute to school.

male Evening Grosbeak

male Evening Grosbeak in a Xmas tree

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Red-breasted Nuthatch

poor photo of a Mountain Chickadee

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[yet] More November birding

Saturday morning is birding morning here in Nakusp. Through the week there is little time to see anything before school and straight after school one needs to be motivated as the sun is going down by about 4-30.

Saturday morning starts about 8am and the schedule roughly is as follows; Kuskanax River mouth, Sewerage Ponds [where would we be without them?], Scanning the Lake from a variety of positions along the Nakusp water front, Spicer's Farm, Crescent Bay and Brouse Loop Roads, [if time permits Summit and Box Lakes] and then a cruise around town, in particular checking out the feeding stations of note.

Now, believe it or not, no matter how many times you do this there is always the serious risk of discovering something new, rare, uncommon or interesting or most of the above. Today's effort produced new birds for my Nakusp list; Mountain Chickadee and Northern Pygmy Owl. It allowed me to see White-throated Sparrow, my first winter record for the season. It produced a nice Hooded Merganser on Arrow Lake itself; this merganser usually a little more happier on smaller bodies of water. And we saw a Dipper not dipping but swimming in the shallows of the Lake near Spicer's Farm.

Female Evening Grosbeak

These feeders around town I'm going to have to seriously start to haunt so i can get some final happy snaps of some of the common bird species. One feeder in particular had Collared Doves, Steller's Jay, Evening Grosbeaks, Juncos, House Finch, Nuthatch, Three species of Chickadee - Black-capped, Chestnut-backed and Mountain plus American Goldfinches. Quite a reasonable list.

Here is my list for Saturday morning past – 17 Nov

C Loon

W Grebe

H Grebe

Bufflehead

C Goldeneye

Scaup spp

Canada Goose

Poss. Cackling Goose

C Merganser

H Merganser

Mallard

A Wigeon

RT Hawk

RL Hawk

Herring Gull

C Dove

NP Owl

N Flicker

A Crow

Raven

Stellers Jay

P Wren

M Wren

GC Kinglet

RB Nuthatch

M Chickadee

BC Chickadee

CB Chickadee

Dipper

House Finch

A Goldfinch

Evening Grosbeak

DE Junco

White-throated Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Starling

Snow covered Mountain Ash tree on the Nakusp water front

Some of the beaver ponds between New Denver and Kaslo have started to ice up

Beaver Ponds

Beaver Lodge

Sunday saw the return of Sunday drives and we made Kaslo and Ainsworth Hot Springs our destination. It is strange for us [still] to be time travelers; departing Nakusp in the Fall and within an hour coming face to face with winter. Snow, while not falling had fallen and was heaped up on road sides and smaller upland lakes were confidently beginning to ice. Birds, clearly afraid of winter were scarce. A few Pine Grosbeaks feeding on a road were perhaps the highlights. At Kalso it was cold and windy - allegedly 3 degrees Celcius however with the wind in your face it seemed considerably cooler. An adult Mew Gull in winter plumage, its small size, clear yellow legs and thin yellow bill distinguishing it from other spp was seen well on the Kaslo waterfront.

Bench overlooking Arrow Lake

Our front yard - post snow fall

Earlier this week we saw our first winter snow in Nakusp. We awoke to a decent covering and the town looked beautiful in an English xmas card kind of way. I woke the kids because i wanted to witness their response and their comments were great, 'Happy Snow day Dad!' from Tom and from Matt a semi serious, 'Am I dreaming?' By the afternoon the temperature had risen and the snow had gone.

Canada Geese pretending to be Snow geese - a view from the school windows

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New Nakusp Bird

Jan Dion, one of the Teacher Aides at work came to my class today with a bird question. She described a bird she saw earlier in the morning at the water front. It was clear she had seen a pair of Snow Buntings.

Pair of feeding Snow Buntings on the Nakusp waterfront.

So almost straight after school [I had to pause briefly to enjoy a rare table tennis victory over Dom Raso] I went down to check them out. Pleased to say that they were still there and easy to find. I had seen my first ever Snow Buntings only a short while before so these were nearly as good as this was the first time I had seen them through binoculars.

One of the best of a lot of bad photos of a Bunting

A classic bad blurry Bunting - the little devils can move quite quickly!

As I said they were easy to see but quite difficult to photo as they ran around so fast and the afternoon was fast getting away and it was getting dark. At any rate attached are some snaps.

There is a Bear in there.........

There is a great little birding spot about 100 hundred metres away from our home here in Nakusp - Spicer's Farm. The Farm or simply 'Spicer's' as it is known, acts, to some degree, as a migrant trap. Birds are attracted by a small flourish of deciduous trees, a range of habitats in a small area and, best of all, a large compost pile. This pile, which is amply fed from leftover food from Overwaitea [the local grocery], provides heat and food for insects which, in turn, provide food for birds.

Now I've known for a while that the compost attracts not only birds. A few weeks ago there were a couple of large poo piles that could only have come from one source.

One Big Black Bear!

Today I saw the source -  a large black bear half way up a conifer. He was doing his best to sleep. Practicing, no doubt, for a lengthy winter slumber that must soon be starting. So our hello today was probably also our goodbye.   

More November Birding

LIFER - HARRIS'S SPARROW!

I’ve just had a great morning birding south of Nakusp; at the village of Fauquier to be precise [and a few places in between]. 

Gary Davidson had had the heads up the day before. A past student had phoned him up and reported a very interesting bird at a feeder at her house. Gary had quickly gone down south to Fauquier, saw the reported rare bird and while excitedly digesting its appearance, discovered another rare bird in the same yard! Now obviously excited about these ornithological oddities, he wrote emails announcing them to the Kootenay bird chat community and the BC interior bird chat community and was sitting on my couch waiting for me to arrive home from school on Friday afternoon…. Now, oblivious to all this excitement I went to the pub as one does on a Friday pm. So it seems I had my celebratory drinks early….

So Saturday morning, the temperature hovering at the zero mark, Gary gallantly and graciously agreeing to return, we made our way to Fauquier to try to rediscover the said rare birds. Now I was quietly confident although we had had a few times where these little twitches didn’t work out exactly as planned. Today worked wonderfully well. 

Anna's Humminbird

Anna's Hummingbird - just starting to reveal a little pink colour on the ear coverts

Again Anna's!!

We stopped at the assigned address and there was action at a feeder on the side of the house. Song Sparrows were the obvious dominant species. Black-capped Chickadees were also noisily attending as were some vocal Steller’s Jays. And then, on the ground, my target, a larger, paler sparrow with a pink bill. A Harris’s Sparrow -  a rare bird for the lower BC and a lifer for me. 

Harris's Sparrow

Harris's Sparrow

Harris's Sparrow showing breast pattern of a typical wintering bird

After a while enjoying this bird we went deeper into the same backyard for the other target.

And it, too, was astonishingly easy. Perched conspicuously on a vine bush was a Hummingbird. To be more precise an immature male Anna’s Hummingbird was perched there, occasionally flying to the nearby feeder by the back wall. Anna’s is a resident species further west in southern Vancouver Island and the adjacent areas of the extreme south western mainland and there are even a few hardy residents in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley. But here in the wet and cold Kootenays they are practically unknown – so a great bird indeed.  It seems the bird has been in and around the village for at least a fortnight – visiting a series of hummer feeders that the locals had optimistically and fortuitously left up. Certainly without artificial feeding the bird would have died. Gary left instructions on how to rig up a heated feeder for the bird in the hope that the bird can last the winter with a little bit of local help. 

Cackling Geese in among the much larger Canada Geese

Tiny darker Cackling Geese

Strange Cackling goose with strange white 'head-dress'.

After trying to photograph the birds we went down to the nearby Golf course to count the Geese and see what else was aboot. There were a couple of Coot, some Mallard and a few Bufflehead, a pair of Flickers and the ubiquitous Song Sparrows in or adjacent to the Sewerage Ponds. A few Juncos darted into some bushes as we drove in. And on the course itself there were some 300 Canada Geese, one with a pretty amazing head dress of white feathers. But with them were six Cackling Geese – yet another uncommon species. 

For Jim Andrews - a Golf Course - Canada style!

A quick final cruise around the streets of Fauquier revealed a couple of Robins who were feasting on some bright red Mountain Ash berries but with them were some seventy five Bohemian Waxwings – my first for this winter.

Flock of Bohemian Waxwings

The trip down also revealed a Hairy Woodpecker – my first for my Nakusp list. The trip home revealed another new Nakusp bird – a Northern Pygmy Owl, that rudely flew away after I tried to take its picture.

Burton had a number of Mallard, Bufflehead, Common Mergansers and with them a lone male Hooded Merganser, both Goldeneyes – Common and Barrow’s, Canada Goose, a lone Tundra Swan and a lonely Herring Gull plus a dipper.   

Close-up of Anna's

Spicer’s Farm, our final destination before calling it a day, was quiet – a Pacific Wren or two and a few Golden-crowned Kinglets being the highlights.

Harris again because I can...

Snow Geese at Crescent Bay - from last weekend!

More Geese! - Greater White-fronted Goose [Geese] at Brouse - pic by Gary Davidson.

Gary Davidson's superior photo - yes it is the same Anna's Hummingbird!

 All in all a great morning!!
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