Hello everyone,
The 23rd Wallaceburg ON CBC took place on Saturday, Dec. 27. The count
circle is located just north of Wallaceburg and includes much of Walpole Island
and a good part of the St. Clair River. Temperatures ranged from 6 to 12
degrees Celcius, but the warm temperatures and snow cover created a very dense
fog for much of the day, reducing visibility for most of the circle and
creating treacherous driving conditions on the icy back-roads. Waterfowl and
land hunters were everywhere, trying out their new Christmas toys. Despite the
negatives, winds were light, allowing good hearing and a total of 83 species
were seen or heard, right at the 10 year average, but 5th highest. Total
individuals were way down, however, at 17511, the past 10 years' average being
26217. We added 3 new species for the count, and only had 1 new high
individual total.
New Species(3):
LONG-TAILED DUCK (13)
HARRIS'S SPARROW (1 found on Walpole Island by Jim Burk and seen 2 different
times)
WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL (1 seen closely on Walpole Island by myself)
New High(1):
Northern Pintail (46) previous high was 14 in 2005 (part of this year's
"spring" influx)
Other Notables:
1 BLACK SCOTER (3rd record), 1 MERLIN (3rd record), 1 SNOWY OWL (5th record but
first since 1994), 63 TUFTED TITMICE (we usually lead the country with this
species), 1 BREWER'S BLACKBIRD (9th record, all of them on Walpole Island)
Count Week Species(6):
PIED-BILLED GREBE, HORNED GREBE, RING-NECKED DUCK,WHITE-WINGED SCOTER, RUDDY
DUCK, PEREGRINE FALCON (all of these hampered by the fog)
*for those wondering, we did NOT find any Northern Bobwhite - these have not
been found since 2003
Once again, a very special thanks goes out to Larry and Wendy Cornelis for
providing their house for the compilation and the fantastic meal.
Steve Charbonneau
Erie Beach in Chatham-Kent, ON
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