Friday, May 29, 2015

THE GREAT CANADIAN BIRD-A-THON

Getting some much needed food & coffee at Cora's after birding almost 5hrs straight. 
Rob and I did The Great Canadian Bird-a-thon on Tuesday, May 18th. We had just started our 2 week "stay-cation" and knew we had already missed a lot of the migrating birds. We decided to stay local for our bird-a-thon for two reasons; 1. It stayed with our stay-cation theme.  2. We were curious how many species we could get staying local.

Our day started at 5am and we did most of our birding at Colonel Samuel Smith Park, which is less then 8km from our home. After we left there we refueled at Cora's and hit a few green spaces within walking distance of our house. We set a modest goal of 50 species for ourselves, and were pleasantly surprised to end the day with 66 species. Remember, we didn't travel far from our west end Toronto home. We could of easily hit the 70 mark if some of the birds we were expecting to see had of shown themselves; Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Great Blue Heron, Cedar Waxwing and our local Eastern Screech Owl. We hit our 50 species goal at our first stop, Colonel Samuel Smith Park, after birding close to 5hrs straight. 

Our first bird of the day was a Red-winged Blackbird, and our last birds of the day were Wood Ducks. My highlight bird of the day was a Canada Warbler because I had not seen one in a few years and I got great looks at him. Rob's highlight birds were Great Crested Flycatcher and Indigo Bunting, simple because they were seen within easy walking distance of our house, and it gave him hope that he would one day be able to add them to our "Backyard Bird List".  

Please see species count list below and enjoy a few pics from our day. Click on the pics to enlarge.

 1. Red-winged Blackbird
 2. American Robin
 3. Tree Swallow
 4. Ring-billed Gull
 5. Mourning Dove
 6. Chickadee
 7. Yellow Warbler
 8. Grackle
 9. Brown-headed Cowbird
10. Warbling Vireo
11. Baltimore Oriole
12. Chestnut-sided Warbler
13. Downy Woodpecker
14. Hairy Woodpecker
15. Redstart
16. Gray Catbird
17. Canada Warbler
18. Black-and-white Warbler
19. Philadelphia Warbler
20. Northern Parula
21. American Crow
22. Veery

Female Redstart
Baltimore Oriole
Yellow Warbler
Tree Swallow
  
23. Least Flycatcher
24. Wilson's Warbler
25. Willow Flycatcher
26. Magnolia Warbler
27. Cormorant
28. Northern Cardinal
29. Great Crested Flycatcher
30. Canada Goose
31. Yellow-rumped Warbler
32. Blackburnian Warbler
33. Swainson's Thrush
34. European Starling
35. Blue Jay
36. Chipping Sparrow
37. House Sparrow
38. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
39. Song Sparrow
40. Mute Swan
41. Common Tern
42. Eastern Kingbird
43. Orchard Oriole
44. Barn Swallow

Magnolia Warbler
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
45. Red-necked Grebe
46. Eastern Wood-Pewee
47. American Goldfinch
48. Coopers Hawk
49. Mallard Duck
50. Common Yellowthroat
51. Chimney Swift
52. Turkey Vulture
53. Peregrine Falcon
54. Killdeer
55. Northern Flicker
56. Red-tailed Hawk
57. Northern Mockingbird
58. Kingfisher
59. Indigo Bunting
60. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
61. Rock Pigeon
62. House Finch
63. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
64. Red-eyed Vireo
65. Purple Finch
66. Wood Duck
Red-necked Grebe
Peregrine Falcon at our local nest site, they have 4 chicks this year.
Wood Ducks, for "Wood Duck Alfie!"
Alas, no Eastern Bluebirds on our species list, but we weren't expecting to have one. But, the real point of the bird-a-thon is to raise money for Bird Studies Canada, and we did! Thanks to you we raised over $1000!!! And a quarter of the funds raised will go directly to the Ontario Eastern Bluebird Society. 

Thanks again for helping us, help the birds.  

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Great showing! Really impressed with your warbler sightings.