January 2nd, 2011

On December 18th, I participated in the Kitchener Christmas Bird Count with outdooredguy Al, and another birding buddy, Josh. The Christmas Bird Count is an annual event during which volunteers count birds all day. It’s not highly scientific, but it gives people an idea of what is happening to bird poulations over time. In the old days there used to be a Christmas bird hunt. People would compete to shoot as many birds as possible.  Counting works better for me.  Anyway, the Kitchener count turned up 67 species this year, and 25,500 individual birds. Our party spotted 32 species. 

We started out calling for owls at Laurel Creek at 6:30 am. We heard one screech owl while it was still dark, and while the sun was coming up, we heard a bunch (murder) of crows mobbing something in the back forest. Often a good way to find hawks and owls is to listen for crows harassing them. As we approached the crows, we could hear a great horned owl calling. It seemed close and very clear, and we suspected that perhaps we were listening to a fellow bird-counter calling for owls. We cut into the forest from a corn field, and sure enough, about 10 metres away, 6 or 7 metres up in a tree was a great horned owl. The crows had since left, and the owl paid no attention to us. Every minute or so it would lean forward so that its body was almost parallel to the ground, pause for a moment, and let out an indignant, “HOO-hoo-HOOOO, HOOO-HOOO.”

You can hear a great horned owl call here: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/great-horned-owl.html

Perhaps 75-100 metres away, another great horned owl returned the call. We stood there for about 10 minutes, appreciating the show. Finally the owl flew off in the direction of its rival (mate?). This proved to be the highlight of the day. We spent the balance of the day touring around Laurel Creek, Camp Heidelberg, and St. Jacobs, while scanning the roads in between. Another neat sighting was 120 snow buntings in a field south of St. Jacobs. The Christmas Bird Count is always a fun event, and every outing turns up some memorable bird.  Go here for a more detailed summary of the Kitchener count:

http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Mail/Ontario_Birds/833195