Backyard Bird Count

[kastern]

Just a reminder if any of you need an excuse to get out and look for birds, this coming Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday are the Great North American Backyard Bird Count dates.

If anyone isn't familiar with this count you can just google in the above and find out all about it.

Kathy

[Gord]

Thanks for the reminder, Kathy!

I look forward to participating again this year. I hope others do as well!

[Gord]

I enjoyed getting out and recording my sightings for this event. Makes it a little more fun!

It was really nice to see so many locations from within our checklist area participating. We contributed over 40 checklists and saw lots of great birds. I see 'our' Slaty-backed Gull made it to the list. I know Stan was working hard on making that happen. In all of North America only one other was recorded on the East Coast.

You can view the results for BC here.
gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/report?cmd=showReport&reportName=AllSpeciesCity&species=all&state=CA-BC&year=2009&sortBy=count&order=desc#listTable

[Deleted]

I'm glad someone got the Slaty-backed Gull for the Great Backyard Bird Count. I tried a couple of times but didn't see it. There were always others there looking too, from such places as Chilliwack (yes, that was Gord), New Westminster, Coquitlam, and Arizona.

I was a bit disappointed in the meager GBBC results reported for Abbotsford. I submitted half of the 8 lists that were reported for Abbotsford over the four days, three of them for my yard for different days. I hope more Abbotsford birders will participate next year. As a case in point, there have to have been more than 2 Trumpeter Swans in Abbotsford last weekend!

But I have to confess that my only serious birding session during the four count days was not in Abbotsford but in Mission, where Lynn, Brian and I spent Saturday morning at Hatzic Lake and Nicomen Island, casing out Lynn's square and my square for the BC Breeding Bird Atlas. So Mission got a boost on the GBBC with our list.

Despite extensive searching, I was unable to find one Bald Eagle nest in my atlas square last year, but of course I didn't get the square until the trees were in leaf. I was determined to get out and locate potentially active eagle nests before the leaves come out this year, and we did fine one on Nicomen Island. I hope it will be active to confirm nesting for Bald Eagles in my square.

Stan Olson
Abbotsford

[Gord]

Hehe, Stan, after I saw you on Sunday I did a little walk and got the two swans in addition to a few others. I focused on Chilliwack but would have loved to have did some surrounding areas as well.

Good luck on the Bald Eagle nest. Hope you get a breeding record.