Woodhouse Christmas Bird Count Report
Featured Photo (above): Horned Lark (photo by Sue Drotos)
Article contributed by Adam Timpf
Bonaparte’s Gull (Photo by Charles Mitchell)
The 38th Woodhouse Christmas Bird Count was held on Sunday, December 15th, 2024. The Woodhouse CBC is centred seven kilometres east of Simcoe, at the crossroads of Highway 3 and Cockshutt Road at Renton, and roughly covers from Port Dover to Waterford and just west of Simcoe to east of Jarvis. Thirty-seven field birders covered the count area. Eleven feeder watchers also contributed data.
Conditions were comfortable to start the day with temperatures above 0, light southeast winds (11-16 km/h), zero snow on the ground, and plenty of open water with little ice cover. Some light rain after lunch made for a quiet afternoon, but didn’t affect the count to a huge degree. The mild temperatures leading up to the count meant waterfowl diversity and numbers were high, but we could have used some snow cover to bring more sparrows to the roadsides and feeders.
The day resulted in an incredible 10 record high counts. Hardy insect eating birds are benefiting from our warming climate with wrens and kinglets being found in higher numbers than usual this year. Between the inaugural count in 1987 and 2004, Carolina Wren was never recorded in double digits. Numbers began to rise modestly, and now the counts for the last few years are 35, 16, 24, 26, and the new high this year of 46. This is just one interesting example of the power of doing these yearly counts and building a long-term data set alongside all the other Christmas Bird Counts done across North America and beyond.
We tallied 88 species on the day, one more than the average of the last 10 years, and above the 38-year average of 83. No new species were added to the all-time count list, and I’m not aware of any additional count week species. A single White-winged Scoter is the first one since 1990, which sounds long overdue for a count on Lake Erie.
Total Individuals: 22,105 (top 3 species were Canada Goose, Mallard, and Greater Scaup)
Average over all 38 years = 24,688
Average for the last 10 years = 18,700
New Count Highs:
5 Wood Duck (3 several times)
49 Ruddy Duck (40 in 2023)
9 Merlin (6 in 2021) Even if a few wandering birds were double counted, this species does seem to be increasing)
5 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers (2 several times)
6 Pileated Woodpecker (5 in 2021)
46 Carolina Wren (25 in 2020)
16 Winter Wren (12 in 2019)
157 Golden-crowned Kinglet (79 in 2008)
3 Ruby-crowned Kinglet (ties high from 2006)
7 Hermit Thrush (4 in 2005)
Other Notable Finds:
1 Double-crested Cormorant (infrequent)
1 Snow Goose (1st since 2015)
1 American Wigeon (2nd time in last 10 years)
2 Canvasback (2nd time in last 10 years)
1 White-winged Scoter (1st since 1990)
1 Red-shouldered Hawk (1st since 2016)
1 Gray Catbird (2nd time in last 10 years)
Lowlights and Misses:
0 Northern Shrike (missed for 2nd time in last 10 years)
1 White-crowned Sparrow is unusually low
0 Red-winged Blackbird (missed for 2nd time in last 10 years)
Below is the full species list:
Horned Grebe 11
Double-crested Cormorant 1
Great Blue Heron 10
Mute Swan 3
Trumpeter Swan 8
Tundra Swan 50
Canada Goose 7095
Cackling Goose 17
Snow Goose 1
Wood Duck 5
Mallard 1415
American Black Duck 141
Gadwall 32
American Wigeon 1
American Green-winged Teal 7
Canvasback 2
Redhead 1581
Red-necked Duck 18
Greater Scaup 1714
Lesser Scaup 882
White-winged Scoter 1
Common Goldeneye 152
Bufflehead 199
Hooded Merganser 49
Common Merganser 283
Red-breasted Merganser 458
Ruddy Duck 49
Bald Eagle 12
Northern Harrier 10
Sharp-shinned Hawk 2
Cooper’s Hawk 8
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 67
Rough-legged Hawk 3
American Kestrel 13
Merlin 9
Wild Turkey 36
Bonaparte’s Gull 153
Ring-billed Gull 541
Herring Gull 99
Great Black-backed Gull 4
Rock Pigeon 376
Mourning Dove 735
Eastern Screech-Owl 6
Great Horned Owl 1
Belted Kingfisher 6
Red-bellied Woodpecker 4
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 5
Downy Woodpecker 85
Hairy Woodpecker 23
Yellow-shafted Flicker 15
Pileated Woodpecker 6
Blue Jay 448
American Crow 529
Common Raven 8
Horned Lark 2
Black-capped Chickadee 502
Eastern Tufted Titmouse 4
Red-breasted Nuthatch 5
White-breasted Nuthatch 114
Brown Creeper 24
Carolina Wren 46
Winter Wren 16
Golden-crowned Kinglet 157
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 3
Eastern Bluebird 19
Hermit Thrush 7
American Robin 12
Gray Catbird 1
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 681
Cedar Waxwing 6
American Tree Sparrow 446
Field Sparrow 2
Song Sparrow 32
Swamp Sparrow 36
White-throated Sparrow 62
White-crowned Sparrow 1
Slate-colored Junco 1649
Northern Cardinal 241
Rusty Blackbird 1
Common Grackle 2
Brown-headed Cowbird 47
Purple Finch 4
House Finch 86
Pine Siskin 2
American Goldfinch 185
House Sparrow 275
Total 88 Sp
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