Woodhouse Christmas Bird Count (December 2019)

Report by Adam Timpf

American Goldfinch, Winter (Photo by Larry Monczka)

These are the results of the 33rd Woodhouse CBC held on Sunday, December 15^th, 2019. The Woodhouse CBC is centred seven kilometres east of Simcoe, at the crossroads of Highway 3 and Cockshutt Road at Renton in Norfolk County and roughly covers from Port Dover to Waterford and just west of Simcoe to east of Jarvis.

First of all, let me thank all 45 participants for spending their time and energy and contributing important data to this count. It wouldn’t be possible without you and I hope I can count on you all again next December. Also, let me thank the NFN for sponsoring the count and to my mom Tresa for putting on a delicious wrap-up dinner at her house. Nourishment is always needed after a full day in the field!

Weather: The weather this year was relatively good, considering the day before was a wet and soggy mess. Temperatures started out around 0 with some light snow, and the wind was mostly calm or light from the northeast. The lack of precipitation made for comfortable birding conditions, but the lack of snow cover made it tricky to find the birds and observers had to work for every bird they counted.

Total Species: 84 with no additional Count Week species (average for the last 33 years = 82; average for the last 10 years = 86)

Hooded Mergansers (Photo by Diane Salter)

Total Individuals: 14,555 (average for the last 33 years = 25,575, average for the last 10 years = 21,745)

Number of participants: 45

The relatively low total number of individual birds seems to be a theme for many of the bird counts in Southern Ontario this year. Weather is likely the main culprit as perhaps the cold snap in November helped incentivize more birds to migrate south of the province this year. Also, the lack of snow cover means that birds are not concentrated near open water or roadsides and feeders looking for food. We can only count what we can find!

NEW SPECIES TO THE COUNT: None

RECORD HIGH: (previous high)
Common Raven             3            (2)
Brown Creeper             21          (18)
Winter Wren                12          (10)

RECORD LOW: (previous low)
European Starling   532      (740)
Rough-legged Hawk       1          (3)

NOTABLE ABSENTEES
Mute Swan          1st year missed since 2001

ALSO WORTHY OF MENTION
Cackling Goose   20  (2^nd highest count)
Peregrine Falcon  2  (3^rd time on count, ties previous high)
Golden Eagle         1 (3^rd time on count)
Eastern Phoebe    1  (5^th time on count)
American Green-winged Teal        2  (8^th time on count)
Fox Sparrow        1  (9^th time on count)
Turkey Vulture    1  (10^th time on count)
Wood Duck           1  (11^th year on count)
Hermit Thrush     1  (12^th time on count)

FULL SPECIES LIST AND TALLY