Fredericton Christmas Bird Count

Fredericton CBC - Douglas Sector

Hairy Woodpecker

The Fredericton Christmas Bird Count took place on Sunday, December 16.  The weather was sunny and plus 3º which made for a wonderful day outside.  We do the Douglas sector, covering an area from upper Nashwaaksis to approximately Grand Pass on the St. John River with all the side roads and subdivisions in between.  It takes a full day to cover this area adequately.  

We set out just after sunrise and spent the next 2 hours covering the open water patches on the river.  Most of the waterfowl was at Grand Pass and below.  Before we got out of the car we could hear the geese.  The sight that awaited us was astounding, one we had never seen on a CBC before.  There were geese everywhere, on the water, on the land and in the air.  Some were feeding, some were sleeping.  Mixed in with the geese were ducks.  

Counting the geese was difficult but with practice one learns how.  We counted 400 geese there that morning.  Mixed in with the flock and also in flocks nearby were about 100 ducks, both American Black Ducks and Mallards.  I checked the flock of geese over at least 3 times searching for something other than our familiar Canada Goose.  Sometimes these flocks contain White-fronted Geese or other rarer species.  This flock was all Canadas.  

Rusty Blackbird

This year there has been an influx of winter finches and the count revealed some of them.  We had Pine Grosbeaks, Evening Grosbeaks, Bohemian Waxwings, Dark-eyed Juncos and a single of each American Tree Sparrow and Common Redpoll.  The Pine Grosbeaks and the Waxwings were feeding on the abundance of fruit still on the trees in the area.  At one place we found 3 Pine Grosbeaks, 4 Bohemian Waxwings and 8 American Robins feeding in the trees and on the ground on crabs and grapes.  What a wonderful sight that was!

Gray Catbird

Occasionally on a count we find something rare.  In this case 'rare' means it is most unusual to find this species here in winter.  On this count we were lucky to find 2 rare species at one stop.  We were standing on the river bank counting waterfowl and the local chickadees and suddenly a larger bird showed itself from the tangle of bushes.  It looked like a blackbird and on closer examination I could see it was a Rusty Blackbird.  But wait, there was another bird there, too.  That one we followed as it moved from bush to bush.  A catbird!  Wow!  Never in 50 years of doing Christmas bird counts have I seen a catbird on a count!  But there it was.  We could see the black cap and watched awhile to see the cinnamon patch on the vent to totally confirm the species.  Unfortunately, it did not 'meow' at us which it normally would do in summer.  See photos above of a Rusty Blackbird and a Gray Catbird.

We had our normal number of woodpeckers, Downy and Hairy.  But at one point we were driving along slowly and I spied movement at the side of the road.  An abrupt stop showed a Pileated Woodpecker on a tree stump immediately beside the road.  It was pecking on the stump and paused long enough for a good look before it moved to nearby trees.  Doing bird counts often offers wonderful treats like that.  On this count we saw 991 individual birds from 30 species.  That is a good day's count!

Bird counters usually also count mammals on their routes.  We saw 21 white-tailed deer.  That is a very high number.  At one place there were 11 deer!  These animals are raiding bird feeders constantly.  They were so tame they were stamping their feet, defying me to come close to the feeders.  How do they get the food out of the feeders?  Easy for them!  They just hook the feeders with their antlers or bump them with their noses and thus dump the seed on the ground.  

The Christmas Count Period runs from Dec. 14 to Jan. 5.  We are interested in recording any new species that were not found on count day.  If you see anything that is not listed here, please contact me by commenting on this post.  Many thanks.  See below for a list of the birds we saw on count day. 

Canada Goose   400
American Black Duck 28
Mallard               94
Common Goldeneye      24
Hooded Merganser       8
Common Merganser      27
Bald Eagle            3
Rock Pigeon        23
Mourning Dove   32
Downy Woodpecker      6
Hairy Woodpecker      6
Pileated Woodpecker        1
Northern Shrike     1
Blue Jay               12
American Crow    39
Common Raven                3
Black-capped Chickadee     121
White-breasted Nuthatch  7
Red-breasted Nuthatch  3
American Robin  10
European Starling  3
Bohemian Waxwing  4
American Tree Sparrow  1
Dark-eyed Junco  14
Pine Grosbeak  19
Common Redpoll  1
American Goldfinch  83
Evening Grosbeak  16
Rusty Blackbird  1
Gray Catbird  1