Keeping track of bird species in the winter months, from December 1 to February 28.
Posted by Bob Lefebvre, 2 December 2024.
Once again I will be assisting Caroline Lambert with tracking all bird species recorded in the Calgary Count Circle in the winter months. I have been doing this for Calgary for a few years, and Caroline tracks the Bow Valley list. There is also an Edmonton List, and a Provincial one that has been going for many years.
The Calgary list got off to a great start, with the highest December 1 species count yet – 65! Many birders challenge themselves to keep a winter list and I think quite a few people went out on Sunday to get a good start to their winter birding. All 65 species were ones we get every winter, although in some years it takes quite a while to find some of these! We are more than halfway to our usual species total in one day, but it gets much harder to add species from here.
Click here for the complete Calgary list. You can tell at a glance which species are usually found but have not yet been seen this winter.
I will quote below from Caroline’s post about the winter lists on the Albertabird discussion site:
The winter birding season starts Sunday, Dec 1. As in previous years, various lists of winter birds seen in certain areas in Alberta will be maintained from Dec 1 to end of February. Alberta has some really good winter birds – there are just not many of them! And each year there are surprises. Links to all of the lists, with area maps, can be found at albertawinterbirds.org.
Calgary: this will be compiled again by Bob Lefebvre. The count area is the 80km radius count circle centred on Calgary, the same one used for the May species count. It is preferred that sightings during this count period and in the count area be reported to the Albertabird site (keeping in mind that certain sensitive species should not be openly reported), but we will also include species reported to eBird and elsewhere, if we can find them.
Bow Valley: this area includes both the Bow River and Kananaskis River watersheds, as far east as the Stoney Nakoda casino and Seebe Dam. Most sightings for this area are taken from the Bow Valley Birding Facebook group, but we will record sightings reported on Albertabird, eBird, Christmas Bird Counts, rumours on the street, etc. The Bow Valley has the lowest species count of any area, so we’ll accept any reputable report!
Provincial list: Andy Ross is again taking care of the Alberta-wide list. The list has been cleaned up, simplified for easier reading, and sorted to the most recent taxonomic order (following the Clement’s/eBird taxonomy). Andy will collect sightings from the usual sources (eBird, Albertabird, the other winter lists, the Alberta Birds Facebook group, etc.).
The Edmonton list as shown on the albertawinterbirds.org site is not the official one; I simply copy their list from the Edmonton Nature Club’s groups.io discussion group. The links are there mostly to have one jumping off spot to find all the winter list info should anyone be interested.
Good birding,
Caroline Lambert
Canmore