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Post by Gord on Dec 13, 2020 20:23:27 GMT -8
The annual event continues despite the challenge in the world. I've done Christmas Bird Counts without missing a year for about 30 years and it's turned into a special holiday tradition. Not only does it contribute to a valuable citizen science initiative, I also like the format that causes one to focus on a particular area, and it's fun to track down what is likely a common species but hasn't been tallied on the day. I'm always an advocate for the common bird species. Agassiz-Harrison count is tomorrow on December 14, 2020. "Count Week" is Dec 11-17. I'm looking forward to tomorrow but will miss Murray and Brian for our annual outing that sometimes winds up discussing fishing more than birds, but that's a fantastic diversion especially since I don't get a chance to do it much so have to live through my angler friends for that. Chilliwack is December 19 with "Count Week" Dec 16 - 22 ("Count Week" means birds found in the count circle on those days can go towards the count totals) Abbotsford is December 29 and "Count Week" is Dec 26 - Jan 1. The count circles can be viewed on this interactive map www.birdscanada.org/apps/cbc/mapviewer.jspIf you are not able to go out and bird a route, a feeder/yard count works just fine. Keep track of the total time you watched your yard. Record every species you see. For a number of each species, put down the maximum number of a species you saw at the same time. If you saw 10 juncos during a 15 minute watch, write down 10. Later in the morning you saw eight juncos during a 20 minute watch. Still leave the number on your tally sheet at 10. Don't add 8+10!. Later in the afternoon you watched for 10 minutes and count 12 juncos at the same time. Write down 12 now on your tally sheet. To submit them, get in touch with me via the forum or email gordfvb at gmail dot com. A note on eBird and the Christmas Bird Count data that will be collected. The data collection protocol for the CBC are valuable and useful. However, they are not so much for eBird's use. EBird relies more on smaller-scale data collection. Tomorrow, I plan to bring my field note book and use it to collect sightings at sites of interest. If I walk a trail, I'll do an eBird list for that trail. The data collected on the trail will go onto the CBC master list that keeps a running total of the bird encountered on the entire day. I will likely do several of these. Later, I'll add the field notebook lists to eBird, but I will not add the total sheet that I'll submit to the CBC (as I admit I've done in the past). Have a great day tomorrow for those participating. Let's hope the rain isn't too bad.
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Post by kenneth2019 on Dec 13, 2020 20:36:10 GMT -8
I am out in Hope and this the first year I have entered any data to anyone. ebird the first records I have submitted. Where do I go from here?
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Post by Randy on Dec 13, 2020 21:43:02 GMT -8
I am out in Hope and this the first year I have entered any data to anyone. ebird the first records I have submitted. Where do I go from here? So glad you're interested! To help answer your question, what are you interested in doing? Backyard list? Part of a count circle? Normally we can go out in groups for the CBC by sadly this year is not a year we can do that. Let us know what you're interested in and we can certainly give some advice. Hopefully next CBC we are back to group birding!
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Post by Harrier on Dec 19, 2020 16:08:20 GMT -8
Here's my very boring backyard list! (Hope it's okay to post it here)
Backyard List: Time: Approx 2 hours
Species: Glaucous-winged gull - 42 American Crow - 17 House Finch - 1 Dark-eyed junco - 7 Pine Siskin - 115 (impossible to count because they were flying in every direction all day. That's my best attempt) Bald Eagle - 3 American goldfinch - 2 Anna's hummingbird - 2 Cackling goose - 23 Trumpeter swan - 6
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Post by Dave on Dec 19, 2020 20:51:33 GMT -8
Greetings Birders,
We covered areas 5 & 8 again this year. Area 5 was blessed with dry weather and lots of walking coverage. Area 8 was demoted to rain and car driving and a lot less birds other than gulls and swans. We ended with 66 species. It is always amazing to me that in two little areas we tallied 6,617 individual birds. And just think of how many more we didn't see tucked behind houses etc!
We started the day on the west end of Camp River Road where a Greater White-fronted Goose was among the Canada's. The first of several Peregrine Falcon's flew by. At the end of Carey Road was an Orange-crowned Warbler. Many ducks were attempting to land among the hunters and we were counting them quickly before they dropped! Northern Pintail seemed to be represented in higher numbers than usual. Our only Varied Thrush was spotted on the dyke walk from Jesperson to McSween (not enough snow in the mountains yet?), along with a few Lincoln's Sparrows among the more common species. Jon's sharp eyes picked out a Snipe at the end of the dyke walk. Walking along McSween between Balaam and Bell was our first flock of Bushtits as well as Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Cackling Geese flocks seemed ever present and Fairfield Island had plenty of swans including a few Tundra Swans. The afternoon was spent in the vehicle in the rain, and we focused more on gulls, but only spotted 1 California Gull and 10 Herring Gulls among 538 Glaucous-winged Gulls & hybrids. 2 Rough-legged Hawks sparked some excitement to a dreary afternoon. Totals for the day below.
Mallard - 1451 American Wigeon - 579 Gadwall - 8 Northern Pintail - 35 Wood Duck - 29 Ring-necked Duck - 70 Lesser Scaup - 58 Bufflehead - 17 Green-winged Teal - 13 Hooded Merganser - 32 Common Merganser - 22 Common Goldeneye - 18 Pied-billed Grebe - 16 American Coot - 2 Canada Goose - 153 Cackling Goose - 1,134 Greater White-fronted Goose - 1 Trumpeter Swan - 357 Tundra Swan - 5 Double-crested Cormorant - 2 Great Blue Heron - 26 Bald Eagle - 70 Peregrine Falcon - 4 Merlin - 1 Red-tailed Hawk - 7 Rough-legged Hawk - 2 Snipe - 1 Killdeer - 10 Glaucous-winged Gull - 538 Herring Gull - 10 California Gull - 1 Rock Pigeon - 69 Eurasian Collared Dove - 37 Belted Kingfisher - 4 Pileated Woodpecker - 1 Downy Woodpecker - 7 Hairy Woodpecker - 1 Anna's Hummingbird - 10 Northern Flicker - 29 Stellar's Jay - 26 Crow - 315 Raven - 7 Black-capped Chickadee - 83 Brown Creeper - 1 Red-breasted Nuthatch - 4 Pacific Wren - 4 Bewick's Wren - 1 Bushtits - 54 Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 3 Golden-crowned Kinglet - 4 American Robin - 18 European Starling - 432 Varied Thrush - 1 Spotted Towhee - 65 Fox Sparrow - 5 Song Sparrow - 99 Lincoln's Sparrow - 3 White-crowned Sparrow - 98 Golden-crowned Sparrow - 33 Dark-eyed Junco - 218 Red-winged Blackbird - 25 Brewer's Blackbird - 20 Pine Siskin - 216 House Finch - 31 House Sparrow - 23 Orange-crowned Warbler - 1
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Post by Harrier on Dec 20, 2020 12:38:04 GMT -8
Thanks for the list, Dave! It looks like you had a great day and that adds a bunch of species to the Monthly Challenge.
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Post by ed on Dec 23, 2020 7:27:58 GMT -8
Joel, John, Larry and I had a good day in areas 13 and 14. The rain held off as Dave mentioned until mid afternoon. Probably our only bird of note was a flock off 80 snow geese as a flyover. The Glaucous Gulls were reported by us as well (one was seen 100’ inside our area). We managed to find a good number of species fairly early on, then just a trickle in the pm. We found 48 species, the same as last year, so pretty average. We shut it down at 2:15 as we are wimps in the rain😂 Ed
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