Monday, January 2, 2012

Linwood CBC


The sixth Linwood CBC was held today, January 2.  Weather throughout the day was quite challenging with near whiteout conditions for a majority of the day, however 35 hardy observers gave the circle perhaps the best coverage yet and as a result many species were recorded in record highs (17(!) record highs vs. 3 record lows). 53 species were found today (not quite beating the 54 in 2008).

2 new species for the count were found: Barred Owl (1 bird near the town of Crosshill), and Merlin (1 bird seen in Glen Allan) bringing the six-year total to 79.

Other unusual species included: Ring-necked Pheasant, Red-shouldered Hawk (present for its ninth winter), Great Black-backed Gull (5, HC), Common Raven (2, HC), White-throated Sparrow, and White-winged Crossbill (4).

Raptors are always one of the highlights of the Linwood CBC and this year was no exception:
Bald Eagle - 6 (HC)
Northern Harrier - 6 (HC)
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 3
Cooper's Hawk - 6
Rough-legged Hawk - 75 (low)
Red-tailed Hawk - 51 (low)
American Kestrel - 6 (lowish)
Merlin - 1 (new)

Other species of interest:
Snow Bunting - 13,932 !!! (this smashes our previous high of 3,187)
Common Redpoll - 1
Pine Siskin - 176 (HC)

Total Individual Birds - 19,830 (HC, previous high - 10,104)

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like a great day.. It's funny the SNBU count surpassed the previous "total birds" high count!

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  2. Haha ya, crazy weather man, really too bad the visibility was so poor, would've likely broken 100 RLHA, 10 NOHA, 15 AMKE, lol oh well, ya pretty good!

    Had 1 flock of over 3,000 birds! Everyone had flocks of several thousand though, so pretty neat!

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