Christmas bird count in Frontenac Park

Jan 16, 2019

The Frontenac Park Christmas Bird Count took place on an unseasonably warm day on December 15th. There were a record 59 participants out enjoying the weather this year, 53 field surveyors and 6 bird feeder watchers hiked 85 kilometres of laneway/trail and drove 385 kilometres of road.

Despite many surveyors describing this as a slow year, the 2018 count tallied 3,346 individual birds from 49 different species – almost three hundred more birds than the previous record (3,053 birds) in 2017. And although the total number of species was unchanged from last year, the group added seven new species on count day plus one new species on count week to the Frontenac Circle list.

The new species included: merlin, peregrin falcon, evening grosbeak, field sparrow, hoary redpoll, pine grosbeak, and redhead. The commonly sighted species were blXK capped chickadee (550) closely followed by Canada geese (538). Among other plentiful birds were European starlings (245) blue jays (240) wild turkeys (172) rock pigeons (151) and morning doves (147).

The 2019 Christmas Bird Count is set for December 14th.