{"id":3351,"date":"2025-10-25T14:23:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T21:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mynerdyfriend.com\/?p=3351"},"modified":"2025-10-25T14:23:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T21:23:04","slug":"birding-bonanza-part-iii-census","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mynerdyfriend.com\/?p=3351","title":{"rendered":"Birding Bonanza Part III – Census"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonus Bird<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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October 2022 – Love how I used to hand-write notes on the photos to remember the birds!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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October 2025 fox sparrow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

Water birds<\/strong>: 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n