Birding Bonanza Part III – Census

For my 3rd birding walk* with Chris, Bird Whisperer, he invited me to go along while he conducted the census for PEPtBO. I should explain. In addition to catching and banding birds for 6 hours, beginning at sunrise, the station also does two “census” counts, where experienced birders walk a preset path and count the birds they see and/or hear. The first census is a 30 minute count around the net lanes, and the second census is a more extensive 1 hour count through the various nearby habitats, including waterfront. Chris invited me on the 1 hour walk. And let me just say, if Chris invites you on a bird walk, you should definitely go!

The birds were much quieter than on the 72-species day, which meant Chris could point out a bird call and we could wait in the quiet until we heard it again, making it much easier for me to start picking up on some IDs. Also unlike the 72-species day, I can confidently say I witnessed each of the species we found. Surprising to me, given things have been slower at the nets these day, we identified 35 species within the bounds of the census, and one exciting bonus that came after!

Bonus Bird

I have been dying to see a fox sparrow. Funny story: I was going through old photos of my very first season volunteering at the Observatory, back when I didn’t even know “warbler” was a type of bird, and wouldn’t you know it, there is a photo of me actually holding a fox sparrow. So my modified goal was to see a fox sparrow while knowing what it was! As luck (“destiny”!) would have it, we passed a couple of birders who casually mentioned seeing one in the bushes and we managed to find it! Score!!

The even bigger bonus was that the very next day, while volunteering once again, we caught one in the net and I was able to extract it. You just have to put it into the universe for it to manifest. This is totally true. Tomorrow I am planning to manifest a million dollars.

At the risk of boring you to death, here’s the list, along with a few notes to make it marginally more interesting.

Water birds: We saw all of these at the harbour, pretty basic water birds, except that this was my first Greater Yellowlegs, and I only saw it as it was flying away, thanks to our appearance on the shore. (sorry, GRYE!!) So I still await the day I can see one walking along the shore.

• Common Merganser
• Greater Yellowlegs
• Ring-billed Gull
• American Herring Gull
• Double-crested Cormorant

Raptors/Hawks: Let’s just say for sake of argument that my ability to ID hawks in flight was about, mmm, zero. It’s now about 0.2, in that I now know Sharp-shinned hawks look like they are hunching their shoulders when they fly and Coopers hawks stretch out their necks and look like a cross. Pro tour time!

• Sharp-shinned Hawk
• Northern Harrier

Birds I can (sort of) ID by sound: I added some mnemonic hints for the ones I’m really just learning.

• Blue Jay
• Black-capped Chickadee
• Common Raven
• Golden-crowned Kinglet – very high pitched somewhat like the opening of Beethoven’s 5th: “see see see me“
• White-breasted Nuthatch – sound like they are laughing at you – “har har har har“
• European Starling
• American Goldfinch – squeaky calls that sound like dolphins to me
• Chipping Sparrow
• Eastern Towhee – “drink your teeeaaa“
• Common Grackle
• Red-winged Blackbird
• Eastern Phoebe – it says it’s name: “feee-beee“
• American Robin

Flying in large flocks overhead

• Cedar Waxwing (72)
• House Finch (2)
• Purple Finch (22)
• Rusty Blackbird (4) – these were seen in larger flocks of other blackbirds

Spotted in the trees

• Dark-eyed Junco
• Carolina Wren
• Hairy Woodpecker
• Blue-headed Vireo
• Ruby-crowned Kinglet
• Hermit Thrush
• American Pipit
• White-crowned Sparrow
• White-throated Sparrow
• Song Sparrow
• Yellow-rumped Warbler

*on October 16, 2025