Hub Staff

It was a new high for the number of individual birds sighted for the 12th Annual Saugeen Shores Christmas Bird Count December 30. The count was coordinated by MacGregor Point Provincial Park.

A total of 64 species and 12,353 individual birds were counted in the area, which covered a circle with a 12 kilometre diameter that centred on the Blind Line and included the mouth of the Saugeen River, the southern boundary of MacGregor Point Provincial Park and the northern half of Paisley.

A team of 36 plus 10 'feeder watchers' consisted of mostly volunteers - members of the Bruce Birding Club, their families as well as MacGregor staff.

Saugeen Shores Christmas Bird Count Coordinator, Norah Toth reported in an email to The Hub that new birds to the count were Barred Owl, Cackling Goose, Tundra Swan, Harlequin Duck and Canvasback with most finches being absent or low in numbers. Snow Bunting numbers were low and Herring Gull and Canada Goose numbers were high.

“There were not any trends that were a concern and from all accounts our increases or decreases in numbers for certain species were being seen at other counts this year as well,” wrote Toth. “The warm weather in December has certainly had some affect on the speed at which some birds move to their wintering areas. The sighting of Tundra Swans, Harlequin Duck and Canvasback is unseasonably late.”

Christmas Bird Counts started in 1900 and is North America's longest-running citizen science project with counts happening in over 2,000 localities throughout the western hemisphere. They are all carried out on a single day between December 14 and January 5 within a 24 kilometre diameter circle that stays the same from year to year.

The information gathered forms one of the world's largest sets of wildlife survey data with the results used by conservation biologists and naturalists to determine such things as species-specific migration patterns and population size estimates.

2015 Saugeen Shores Christmas Bird Count Sightings:

Cackling Goose 2, Canada Goose 5058, Mute Swan 7, Tundra Swan 16, American Black Duck 44, Mallard 204, Canvasback 5, duck sp. 2, Redhead 1, Harlequin Duck 1, Bufflehead 12, Common Goldeneye 119, Hooded Merganser 14, Common Merganser 45, Red-breasted Merganser 3, Ruffed Grouse 3, Wild Turkey 132, Horned Grebe 9, Red-necked Grebe 1, Great Blue Heron 1, Northern Harrier 2, Sharp-shinned Hawk Cooper's Hawk 1, Bald Eagle 36, Red-tailed Hawk 26, Rough-legged Hawk 24, Buteo sp. 6, Raptor sp. 1, Bonaparte's Gull 2, Ring-billed Gull 31, Herring Gull 1457, Glaucous Gull 2, Great Black-backed Gull 23, Gull sp. 1, Rock Pigeon 609, Mourning Dove 94, Barred Owl 1, Belted Kingfisher 2, Red-bellied Woodpecker 10, Downy Woodpecker 45, Hairy Woodpecker 25, Pileated Woodpecker 3, Woodpecker sp 2, American Kestrel 5, Merlin 1, Northern Shrike 4, Blue Jay 167, American Crow 587, Common Raven 27. Horned Lark 17, Black-capped Chickadee 458, Red-breasted Nuthatch 24, White-breasted Nuthatch 26, Brown Creeper 2, Golden-crowned Kinglet 2, American Robin 5, European Starling 1503, Cedar Waxwing 8, Snow Bunting 227, American Tree Sparrow 68, Dark-eyed Junco 181, Song Sparrow 1, Northern Cardinal 39, Common Grackle 3, House Finch 17, Purple Finch 5, Common Redpoll 2, Pine Siskin 2, American Goldfinch 578, Finch sp. 50, House Sparrow 134.