Birding

65th Long Point Christmas Bird Count

Photo, above: Orange-Crowned Warbler, taken by Stu Mackenzie Story by Stu Mackenzie The 65th Long Point Christmas Bird Count (CBC) was held on Saturday, December 20, 2025, incorporating both the Long Point Family Winter Bird Count and the traditional formalized CBC. The count covers a ~24-kilometre diameter circle centred on the lighthouse south of St. Williams. Over 100 participants surveyed sixteen territories, contributing approximately 120 hours in the field, travelling 400 km by car and more than 110 km on foot. In total 27,710 birds were observed of 108 species. Highlights and Low-lights: Green-winged Teal - First time missed on the count since 2016. Virginia Rail – Tracks of a rail were found on fresh snow from the night before which was determined to be a Virginia Rail. This was the 17th for the count and the first since 1997.…
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35th Fisherville Christmas Bird Count–Report

Photo of Eastern Bluebird by Len Grincevicius Report by Sarah Sharp This year marked Fisherville’s 35th annual Christmas Bird Count, and although the weather was against us, the twenty dedicated counters made an amazing effort to once again document all of the birds in the area. The temperature ranged from -5ºC to 3ºC with wind gusts up to 40km/h from the Southwest. There was drizzle in the late morning turning to snow/freezing rain in the afternoon. A total of 45 collective hours were spent in the field counting birds, with a collective 430km travelled by car and 29km travelled by foot. Thank you kindly to David Maida, Anne Marie Henry, Duane Brown, George Uimonen, Nicole Richardson, Andy Johnson, Jeff Skevington, Ruchard Skevington, Angela Skevington, Tom Thomas, Bill Smith, Amanda Anstice, Hugh McArthur, Julia Wever, Jacob Wever, Randy Wilson, Michael Kirchin,…
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39th Woodhouse Christmas Bird Count Report

Photo: Common Raven, photo by Sue Drotos Article by Adam Timpf, Woodhouse CBC Count Organizer These are the results of the 39th Woodhouse Christmas Bird Count (CBC) held on Sunday December 14th, 2025. The Woodhouse CBC is centred 7 km east of Simcoe, at the crossroads of Highway 3 and Cockshutt Road at Renton, and roughly covers from Port Ryerse and Port Dover to Waterford and from west of Simcoe to east of Jarvis. This year there were 34 field birders covering the count area plus 12 feeder watchers. Conditions were bitterly cold to start the day with temperatures of -15, light west winds (0-15 km/h), plenty of snow cover, and barely any open water away from Lake Erie or moving streams. It "warmed up" to about -7 by the afternoon, but the sun felt nice when it was poking out from the clouds. The cold temperatures leading up to…
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Naturefest

Friday, May 21st to Sunday, May 23rd, 2027 A celebration of Norfolk's nature with a gala dinner and local entertainment, followed by a weekend of birding, nature walks, night hikes, mountain biking, kayak and canoe trips, wildlife shows, family-oriented activities, displays, and workshops throughout Norfolk County. For more details please contact us at info@norfolkfieldnaturalists.org.
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2025 Birdathon–George Pond’s Report

Photo, above: Great Crested Flycatcher Contributed by George Pond Three of us, my son and daughter-in-law David and Heather started “Birdathon 2025” just before 7 a.m. on May 16, an hour or so later than planned because of an early morning storm. Birds in the St Williams forest were mostly back on territory and were actively singing. We had soon identified a number of warblers including Chestnut-sided, yellow, common yellow-throat, hooded, ovenbird, blue-winged, magnolia, yellow-rumped and pine. Rose-breasted grosbeaks, scarlet tanagers, Indigo buntings, eastern towhees, chipping sparrows, a red-breasted nuthatch, wood thrush, catbird, chickadees, red-eyed vireos, great-crested and least flycatchers and a surprise black-billed cuckoo were all found. A field in the Backus woods complex netted field, song, and grasshopper sparrows but no vesper sparrow sang. We walked into the pond in the Backus woods and flushed a pair of…
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Long Point Christmas Bird Count 2024

Photo (above): Sandhill cranes in flight (photo by Larry Monczka) Report by Stu Mackenzie The 64th Long Point Christmas Bird Count (CBC) was held on Saturday December 14. This count includes the Long Point Family Winter Bird Count and the traditional formalized count. The count covers a ~24-kilometre circle centered on the lighthouse south of St. Williams. Over 120 participants surveyed sixteen territories in the count circle, dedicating 154 hours in the field, covering 400 km by car and more than 140 km on foot. Together we counted an astounding 40,556 birds of 112 species tying the fourth highest species count ever! Counts were on par with the most recent 10-year average of ~42,000 birds of 107 species, and well above the long-term average of 29,543 of 102 species. Highlights are summarized below which include a number of record high…
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Results of the 2024 Fisherville Christmas Bird Count

Photo (above): Northern Shrike (photo by Sarah Sharp) Report by the Haldimand Bird Observatory (Sarah Sharp) The 24th Fisherville Christmas Bird Count was held on Saturday, December 28th, 2024. Every year there are fluctuating high counts and low counts with a varying species composition, and this year was no different! Last year the Haldimand Bird Observatory took over the coordination and compilation of the count and we were happy to do so again this year! Without further ado, here is a summary of this year’s count… Participants: First and foremost a big thank you to our dedicated returning and new volunteers who collected this valuable data! Cody Bassindale Diane Salter Duane Brown Greg Salter Audrey Heagy Bill Smith Anne Marie Henry Tom Thomas Elizabeth Kirchin Adam Timpf Micheal Kirchin Matthew Timpf Dave Maida Jacob Wever Hugh McArthur Julia Wever George…
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Woodhouse Christmas Bird Count Report

Featured Photo (above): Horned Lark (photo by Sue Drotos) Article contributed by Adam Timpf The 38th Woodhouse Christmas Bird Count was held on Sunday, December 15th, 2024. The Woodhouse CBC is centred seven kilometres east of Simcoe, at the crossroads of Highway 3 and Cockshutt Road at Renton, and roughly covers from Port Dover to Waterford and just west of Simcoe to east of Jarvis. Thirty-seven field birders covered the count area. Eleven feeder watchers also contributed data. Conditions were comfortable to start the day with temperatures above 0, light southeast winds (11-16 km/h), zero snow on the ground, and plenty of open water with little ice cover. Some light rain after lunch made for a quiet afternoon, but didn't affect the count to a huge degree. The mild temperatures leading up to the count meant waterfowl diversity and numbers…
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Book Review: The Red-winged Blackbird

The Red-winged Blackbird: The Biology of a Strongly Polygynous Songbird, by Les Beletsky Reviewed by Jeff Hiebert An excellent overview of the biology of a much studied and common bird. The book focuses on Red-winged Blackbirds' breeding biology and the studies most focused on are for a particular population in Washington state which the author has studied for years. One of the interesting points the book puts across is that Red-winged blackbirds are common across the United States, southern Canada, and Mexico but they exhibit different behaviours in different populations/regions. This is sort of a rule across animal species, but it was interesting to see it demonstrated and explored with this familiar bird. Lots of interesting discussions of how animal behaviour research is done and how we know so much about a species because we've studied them for so long…
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George Pond’s Birdathon Report for 2024

(photo, above: Chipping Sparrow. Photo taken by NFN member George Pond) By NFN Member George Pond May 21 turned out to be a beautiful, but very hot day, a wonderful day to be in the “Great-out-of-doors.” I met my son David and daughter-in-law Heather at their rural home, south of Simcoe at 6 a.m. We ticked off the Great Horned Owl fledglings that had been begging for food throughout the night and headed for the St. Williams forest. It was already quite hot but there was enough song to keep us interested and we had soon ticked off Scarlet Tanagers, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, and Yellow, Common Yellowthroat, Hooded, Mourning, Chestnut-sided, Blue-winged, Pine, Ovenbird and Magnolia warblers. Red-eyed Vireos were common as were Eastern Towhees, Song and Chipping sparrows, Indigo Buntings and House Wrens. A Red-breasted Nuthatch was the only one of…
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