Hi Birders
I have crunched the numbers and it was not as bad as i thought, most species were at or near our count average and there were a few that made star rating.
Here are the main figures:
Individules: 26,484
High Counts
Anna’s Hummingbird 169 up from 143 last year
Eurasian-collared Dove 92 up from 49 last year
Bird of the day Ring-necked Pheasant on Koksilah Road west
Big misses this year were Harlequin Duck, Red-throated Loon and Black Oystercatcher.
Highest count area was Quamichan Lake with 72 species, where Ruddy Duck numbers were down at #359, i was lucky to find 1 on Somenos Lake.
American Coots and Spotted Towhees were second highest ever counts and Peregrine Falcon and Merlin at 7 apiece was a nice showing.
Long-billed Dowitchers #3 are always nice addition on count day.
Duck numbers took a bit of a tumble and the very dry conditions had much too blame for this.
My area Somenos Marsh was very low in duck species and our total of 47 species total was a record low for me in 25 years.
Finch numbers were down with both Red Crossbills and Pine Siskins going on vacation this year, although we did get a few Evening Grosbeaks to add the totals.
One really good thing about the count this year were the arrival of some new counters, which pushed our total foot soldiers in the field up to 48, we haven’t had this many people for some time. Add to that about 8 feeder watchers, which sadly could be a lot better.
Once again we failed to put a boat out on the water, which kept our species total down from some of our good years.
A really big thank you to all participants and to all those helpers at the roundup who spoiled us rotten once again this year.
Good Birding
Derrick Marven
North Cowichan, BC