Category: Christmas Bird Count

Christmas Bird Count 2024

Headwaters Nature has been participating in Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count since the club’s inception.  It is exactly what it sounds like: participants travel around their specifically assigned area observing, counting and recording numbers and species of birds on one designated day.  This year, that CBC will be on Saturday, December 28. Our “circle” has always been located around Orangeville and environs, and including Caledon East, Erin, Hillsburgh, and Alton as well as fields and forests within the boundary.

As our membership has grown, more members (and others) have become interested in participating, and we have divided and sub-divided the 6 areas within our circle to incorporate everyone.  The result is that this year, we are doing a trial run on a second circle, on a different day.  There are fairly specific requirements that have to be met in order to officially register a “circle” for the CBC, and they suggest a pilot the first year (without registering) to test whether we have enough personnel, whether the location of the circle works, and various other bits and pieces, so this will be our test run—hopefully resulting in registering a new “circle” with Audubon after minor tweaking.

Our new “circle” is located to the west of our Area #1 and incorporates Luther Marsh and environs, an area which surprisingly has not already been claimed by any other local club for the CBC.  We are very excited about this and look forward to testing it out on Thursday, January 2, 2025.  

Following each day, we will have a pot-luck gathering to compare notes, tell stories about our best finds, and just generally socialize.  It is a lot of fun, and a fitting end to what is always an interesting day!

One of the great things about the Christmas Bird Count is that there is a place for anyone who is at all interested.  If you are not a birder per se, you could offer to drive (and count).  If you no longer drive, you could observe and count.  If your eyesight is not so great for observing distances, you could offer to be the recorder.  Although there may be walking involved in some areas, there are certainly some which are mostly observed while driving, and stopping by the side of the road.

The maps for both of our circles—Orangeville and Luther Marsh—are included with this note.  If you are interested in joining us, contact Ron Jasiuk at rjasiuk6@gmail.com for all the details to join the CBC on either Saturday, December 28 or on Thursday, January 2..

Also included is a link to a terrific article by Don Scallen in In the Hills about the Christmas Bird Count.  https://www.inthehills.ca/2024/11/two-in-the-bush/   Do look it up if you are at all reticent about joining us for this year’s annual Christmas Bird Count . . . err CountS.

Christmas Bird Count 2023

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 »

Preventing the introduction of Invasive Species

Julia Ruhl will be presenting “Preventing the Introduction of Invasive Pests into Canada“. Think Emerald Ash Borer … for which she was the outreach and media spokesperson when the invasive Emerald Ash Borer was introduced into northern Ontario. What else are we aware of? Hemlock Adelgid? Lantern Fly? Lyme Disease and the other associated illnesses? Julia will talk about: the role of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in respect to preventing the introduction of invasive plant pests into Canada rules and regulations of importing plants and plant material into Canada what are invasive pests and their significance to the environment, economy and trade examples of regulated pest introductions what can we do to prevent such potential introductions Julia Ruhl has an Honours B.Sc. in Biological Sciences from the University of Guelph. She worked for the federal government for 30 years in a variety of scientific positions including inspection, auditing and… Read more »

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