Finishing up the Great Backyard Bird Count 2023 — thanks to all the backyards I borrowed.
A house sparrow on the Etobicoke Creek Trail, let me know it was there by song, and then stuck around for a portrait.
According to Birds Canada, the 2023 Great Backyard Bird Count was a huge success. The count took place worldwide over four days around last weekend, February 17-20. Through the Cornell Lab’s two birding apps, eBird and Merlin Bird ID over 290,500 lists of birds were registered (and I assume accepted) over GBBC2023, and over 361,000 individual bird IDs were recorded. Combined, all of that bird-spotting identified a total of 7,291 species.
Knowing that the world’s bird population has been in serious decline for over five decades, it is wonderful to see such large numbers attached to GBBC. There is, clearly, so much work to be done to bring population levels back, but an event like the Great Backyard Bird Count is heartening. See this article on the Cornell site that lists seven simple things you can do to help take the strain off bird populations, and maybe even start to turn these numbers around. Note that just watching and being interested in birds is one of the simple things.
A Bufflehead getting ready to dive into frigid Lake Ontario.
My own GBBC2023 list numbers 21 species, and for winter in Canada I’ll count that as a big win. I managed to see, photograph and/or ID by song the following birds – some individually, and some in large groupings. Based on my eBird lists, I managed to hang out with several hundred birds over the weekend:
Canada goose — Dark-eyed junco — Northern cardinal — Hairy woodpecker — Mallard — Mute swan — Herring gull — House sparrow — Chickadee — Long-tailed duck — Bufflehead — Greater scaup — White-breasted nuthatch — Carolina wren — Song sparrow — Merlin falcon — Rock pigeon — American crow — House finch — Red-tailed hawk — Downy woodpecker.
An American robin from one of my early morning walks through Etobicoke streets.
Next up, the spring migrations. Looking forward to seeing bunches of visitors resting and foraging on the northern shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Huron after their long flights over water. Stay tuned as well for a conversation I’m having with a birder who helped me get stuck in to this delightful obsession. Sign up with your email below to get more bird content from me directly into your in-box.