2022 Fall Yardbirding and More Rarities
September fall birding started off a bit slow for me this year, but I managed to get a few new birds for the year.
A few of my First Of Year (FOY) Philadelphia Vireos showed up as usual a few days into the month.
A very wet Northern Mockingbird was a one day yard wonder, my second of the year and fifth ever for Bruce County! They definitely appear to becoming more common visitors to the county.
I managed to stay awake long enough to do some Nocturnal Flight Call Counts (which is listening to the birds migrating under the cover of dark). I managed to pick up the calls of a few of the usual thrushes including a few of my FOY Grey-cheeked Thrush's. A really nice surprise though was a migrating Black-crowned Night Heron calling overhead, a new yard bird and an overdue lifer for me!
Later in the month I managed to finally get a Hermit Thrush for the yardlist, bringing my total total yard count to 188 bird species for the year, just 2 short of lasts years total of 190.
This October was probably my best October yet for yard birding. It started of with a few White-winged Crossbills flying over on the first day of the month, a species that is always nice to see. A Merlin falcon flew by a few minutes later with one grappling in its talons which was a very interesting sight! In the end it appeared to have escaped death, as a few seconds later the Merlin flew off empty handed.
On October 17th, woke up to a rainy day. Luckily the wet weather ceased for just over half an hour in the morning, and I decided that I may as well see what birds the rain had grounded around the yard. Soon after walking out the door I spied a gull with a black back in the field with a few Herring Gulls. I almost shrugged it off as a Great Black-backed Gull, a bird I see fairly occasionally, but luckily I took a photo and after zooming in I could see that it looked off for a Great Black-backed Gull. Immediately I approached closer to the bird, and managed to get some better shots showing that it was indeed not a Great Black-backed Gull but a rarer Lesser Black-backed Gull!! It is a bird I had never seen before, and have long been hoping to get for my yard!
The next day I had my lifer Black-bellied Plovers fly over the yard! Another species I had long been hoping to get for the yard.
Other usual fall birds were starting to show up, and sparrows and blackbirds numbers at their peak with hundreds foraging along the edge of the field for leftover corn. I also counted a personal high of at least 24 Eastern Meadowlarks, though couldn't turn up the very similar looking but much rarer Western Meadowlark with the flock... but a few days later on the morning of October 19, I was doing my usual walk around the yard when suddenly I spied this meadowlark making an odd "Chup" call I had never hear the Eastern Meadowlarks do before. Instantly I pulled out my phone and got a recording, and then managed to get some nice close up shots revealing traits that seemed to point this bird to being the Western species. I posted the photo on a Bird Identification Chat and got multiple confirmations that this bird was indeed a Western Meadowlark!! Bruce County has many older records of Western Meadowlark, but the last report I know of was in 2009, so quite I good find for the county! Because of the good field habitat surrounding my yard, I had been predicting for a few years now that this species would turn up here, definitely one of my top birding highlights for the yard!
While watching the Western Meadowlark, I also had a female Evening Grosbeak fly over and land in the yard for a few minutes, my first of the year and final yardbird of the year bringing my total yearly yardbird count to 192 which surpassed my previous yard high of 190 from last year!
Throughout the rest off the fall I had plenty of Evening Grosbeaks flying overhead or visit the bird feeder in flocks ranging from a few birds to over one hundred. This year was the third irruption year for them in the past 5 years.
November birding wasn't particularly exciting, but I still had some interesting birds including Common Redpolls, Red Crossbills, Pine Grosbeaks, and one of my favourite winter birds, the Bohemian Waxwings which have been quite abundant in Bruce County this winter!
December has been fairly busy, so not much time for birding, but a few highlights of the month include a Golden Eagle, more finches and waxwings, and a late Rusty Blackbird that was lingering around the yard for a few days. I also chased a rare Mountain Bluebird that was frequenting an area in Owen Sound with a small flock of Eastern Bluebirds and goldfinches. Despite checking the spot a couple times during the day, we ended up not getting it. You can imagine how I felt after leaving and seeing report that the bird had been seen there in between of the two times that we had checked the spot that day 😢
In other news, we will be moving a kilometre up the highway to a new house sometime in the next couple months. Of course it is somewhat disappointing to leave this yard after 5 years of birding it, but it will be a nice change to explore a new area! So as of now I have racked up a total list of 218 species for my yard over the past 5 years! I doubt I'll hit 220 before we move, but we shall see.
My next post will be a recap on my birding highlights of the year. As usual, here's some of my favourite photos from the past few months...
Awesome list!
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