Get your binos and warm clothes ready! Our annual Christmas Bird Count will be on Thursday December 28th, 2023! Ron Jasiuk and Russ McGillivary are organizing this year’s event. We will shortly be sending out details and invitations, so if you miss them, Contact us! Across North America naturalists have been participating in Christmas Bird Counts for well over 100 years. The first Headwaters Nature Christmas Bird Count was conducted on 12 Dec 1987 when the club was know as the “Upper Credit Field Naturalists.” The citizen science data gathered by volunteers is used to track changes in populations and ranges of bird species. Searching for birds is a great way to spend the day. It’s fun often exciting and you get to spend part or all of your day with fellow bird nerds. The circled area on the map is our “count area.” We only count birds that are within… Read more »
Steve Burrows, the author of seven Birder Murder Mysteries, will be back speaking with Headwaters Nature telling us about his latest story of DCI Dominic Lejuene, a Canadian birder working as a detective. Lejeune uses his advanced birding knowledge to help him solve (at least one) murder in the quiet countryside of Norfolk, UK. His latest book is called A Foreboding of Petrels. (I’m going to read up on Petrels before Steve speaks … and before I read his book. By the way, BookLore will be attending this meeting to sell his books. Join us Tuesday evening, 7:00 – 9:00 P.M., October 24th, at the Orangeville Seniors Centre at 26 Bythia Street. Free Admission, Everyone Welcome, Refreshments provided, Bring your own mug. Burrows is a wonderful storyteller and an entertaining speaker. He says he’s happiest talking to groups such as ours who instinctively understand the nuances of bird behaviour that he weaves… Read more »
The Christmas Bird Count was on Dec 28, a calm day after a week of bitter cold, snow and howling winds. The temperature was from -2ºC to +3ºC. Unfortunately waterways were frozen from the prior cold spell. The area that Headwaters Nature and friends cover for the annual Christmas Bird Count is officially labelled ‘ONCD’. It covers much of Caledon as well as parts of Orangeville and Erin. This is the 31st count, beginning in 1987 with a few missing years. We had a total of 11 teams, each with part of or the whole of the various Areas outlined in the above map. There were also 4 Project FeederWatch reports submitted to Headwaters Nature. We had 48 species which is the best since 2005 (average 39.4 the last five years), but a number of these species are only represented by one or two birds. Our total count of 3135 is… Read more »
