The 54th. annual Hamilton Christmas Bird Count was held on December 26th
2006.
Although it takes the traditional twelve days of Christmas for the
reports to filter in, unlike that proverbial Christmas ditty there were no
Partridges in our Pear tree this year.
The Hamilton C.B.C. is confined to a twenty four kilometer circle
centered on Dundurn Castle.
94 birders took part in what was a rather mixed day of weather
conditions. Those whose count area was at the west end of Lake Ontario, and
the East Hamilton Mountain area had to endure 0-3 degrees of temperature
with strong winds, snow and rain showers. Veteran birders had a difficult
time spotting and identifying duck species in the pelting rain and strong
winds around the lake, which resulted in the high numbers of unidentified
duck species recorded........10,000.
For many others the weather conditions were more pleasant, with
an average temperature of 4 degrees and no precipitation.
The count this year was relatively low with a preliminary total of
55,146 birds counted. The average count over the last ten years is -71,154.
I personally found the birds hard to find, which was echoed in comments
from many other reports.
The total species count was 101, one below the record of 102 set
in 2004.
New records set this year were as follows:
American Coot -167, previous record -156 in 2001.
Red-bellied Woodpecker -33, previous record -29 in 2005.
Carolina Wren -35, previous record -28 in 2005.
Low numbers were recorded for American Crow with only 471 counted,
the lowest total since 1959 when 315 were counted.
Most Gull and Duck species numbers recorded were low, but with little or
no winter ice conditions far to the north, these species are probably still
wide spread.
So far this year no significant sightings of Winter Finches have been
reported in the Hamilton area, and this is reflected the absence of them in
this years count.
The Nashville Warbler previously discovered at Princess Point was seen
on count day.
We had four count week species :
Rusty Blackbird.
Eastern Towhee.
Harlequin Duck.
Black-legged Kittiwake.
I would like to thank all our participants for being generous with
their time and effort for making this years count a success.
The full report will be submitted to the Hamilton Naturalist's
Clubs publication The Wood Duck and to Audubon.
Tom Thomas -Hamilton C.B.C.compiler.
