Late Sunday night a post came in that 2 Barnacle Geese had been photographed a day or two before in Bowmanville. Birders were prepared to head out at first light to see if they were still in the same marsh. I was hesitant to take the drive knowing that in the past Barnacle Geese are one-day wonders and they are not always accepted as wild because there are farms that keep Barnacle’s. BUT, it would be a super get for us, a Lifer, and a rare European vagrant. I opted to not leave first thing and instead I was awake early and ready to should there be a ding on Discord saying the geese were still there. No ding! Just updates that a number of birders were looking. By 11:30 I resigned myself that they were gone and we made the decision to head to our planned lunch with birding friends in London. And then they were found! We quickly changed direction (our birding friends were understanding thankfully!) and headed down the 401 hoping that traffic would not be crazy (it wasn’t) and at 2:00 I was looking at two Barnacle Geese, a lifer, rarity #14 and bird #157.
Sightings of this Goose have to go to the Ontario Birds Record Committee who will ultimately decide, when they meet in February 2025, if they are accepted as a wild record. Evidence in favour of them being accepted is the date – it is bang on for migration dates from previous records, two, they were in the company of Canada Geese and three, they were not re-found the next day suggesting they had continued on their migrating journey. If they are not accepted as a wild record then I will have no choice but to remove them from my list this year. In the meantime I am going to enjoy a great lifer and addition to the list.
The rest of the week was a mix of bad weather, family commitments and very few new birds arriving. We still checked local ponds and flooded fields when we were out for other things but there was nothing new to add. We put a checklist in every day even if it is just a checklist from the backyard with the same birds as I do want to try and maintain putting in a list every day of this year. We also want to make sure we bird every county in Ontario this year and we currently have only 3 counties left without a checklist, Parry Sound, Grey and Kenora. Those will be summer trips. We are missing pictures for only 13 birds currently and Jerry is working hard to get better pictures of other species as well. Don’t forget to check the 2024 Gallery and click on each picture to view it enlarged. While some are not great, Jerry has managed to get some nice shots of some of the birds we have seen. We are almost a quarter of the way through and I am very happy with how it is going except we still have to get out of the car more! In my mind I assumed that I would be birding most days of this big year and out in the woods but the reality of winter birding is driving past fields and water, driving to chase rarities, driving to a spot and getting out for 10-15 mins. And many days with nothing to go after. I know this will change in the coming weeks as the forest birds start to return and by May we will be walking 15-20Km a day, every day. It cannot come soon enough LOL, we are itching to start adding birds in big numbers. I am sticking to my plan of not chasing common birds I know I will see in abundance later just because they keep showing up on my Needs Alert every hour mocking me! LOL. I’m talking about you, Winter Wren and Gray Catbird!!! I am also resisting the need to be number 1 on the top 100 birders in Ontario list, Jerry and I are currently #2. The only number that matters is on December 31 and it was never an intention to be the top birder. If it happens, great but my personal goal is what is important to me. I’ve been saying at the end of each post for 3 weeks now that next week it will start to get birdier and then it doesn’t, but maybe, just maybe, the tide will turn next week as the temperatures move up and we get some sun and south winds. Shorebirds come on!
Week 12 1 new species #14 rarities seen 157 species J&E