Ducks and geese might show up in this year’s Christmas Bird Count if recent super-warm weather sticks around St. Albert, says one of the county’s organizers.
Count co-organizer James Fox put out a call for volunteers Dec. 3 for the 2023 St. Albert Christmas Bird Count, which this year happens Dec. 26. Now in its 32nd year, this annual event sees birdwatchers spend 24 hours scouring a 24 km zone centred on the old St. Albert Airport to count every bird that they can find.
Fox said this year’s St. Albert count is being organized by himself, St. Albert’s Steve Knight, and newcomer David Grinevitch, a “young whippersnapper” who has mapped out all of St. Albert’s hottest birding zones and compiled them onto a Google Map.
“We’ve gone through the city and we’ve found all the parks and cemeteries we think are good for birding,” Fox said (cemeteries have the old trees that cone-eating birds love, he explained), and divided the city into zones you can easily patrol in a half day.
Volunteers can sign up to either patrol a zone or watch a feeder anytime on count day, Fox said. Some bush-beaters will roam the countryside in cars, while others will stay up late (or get up early) in search of owls.
“We do have one guy who cross-country skis every year,” Fox said.
Fox said the bird count team hopes to get more people out for this year’s count to try and bring participation numbers back up to pre-pandemic levels.
“You don’t have to live in St. Albert to participate,” he noted, and you don’t have to be an expert on birds.
Fox encouraged counters to bring warm clothes and binoculars to the count, as well as the Merlin Bird ID app to identify some of the trickier species. In the event of horrible weather, bush-beaters will be asked to patrol in cars instead of on foot. Count results will be compiled and sent to Birds Canada for analysis.
Wait, ducks?
This year’s count comes amidst unprecedented warmth and snow-free conditions, with above-zero temperatures and a whisper of snow on the ground in St. Albert as of Dec. 5. (2023 is on course to be the warmest year on record due to record high levels of greenhouse gases, the World Meteorological Organization projects.)
Fox said Canada geese, goldeneyes, and even a blue-winged teal were spotted at Big Lake as recently as Nov. 23 as it still had open water.
“If the water is open (on count day), we could end up with some ducks or potentially geese,” he said.
Ducks and geese are a rare sight in the St. Albert Christmas count, count records show, with ducks (four mallards) last spotted in 2012. You have to go back to 1997 to find a Canada goose, and that goose was the only one spotted in the count’s history.
St. Albert birdwatcher Percy Zalasky said St. Albert has seen virtually zero snowy owls so far this season, which could be due to a lack of snow. The spring drought also led to a shortage of mountain ash berries, which could mean a shortage of berry-loving bohemian waxwings in this year’s count. Mild conditions could also let some normally migratory species, such as redpolls and snow buntings, stay up north instead of coming to St. Albert.
Zalasky said he expected fewer birds overall for this year’s count, adding that the warm weather could cause some odd ones to show up.
Questions on the count should go to [email protected].
