October Global Big Day 2018

Yesterday was the eBird event called October Global Big Day. Data is still coming in. The following stats were relevant at 9:00 pm MST Sunday October 7.

Colombia had the most species, of course, getting 53% of there all-time species count on one day! Congratulations Colombia! 

Canada did pretty well, too, getting 47% of our all-time species! What is especially cool is that the East Kootenay contributed first records for a couple of species in Canada. From what I can tell, based only on the names of contributors I recognize, the East Kootenay contributed the first Barrow's Goldeneye and American Avocet and...

And last but not lesser, the only record so far of Lesser Goldfinch!  This is my personal motivation for checking out these stats and writing this post, because, of course, I and birding buddy Joe, are the ones who found it! Haha.  This is a first for the East Kootenay and a lifer for me!  I haven't found a new bird for my region since the Tufted Duck back in 2013.  I was so excited when I saw it my heart was pounding and I almost fell over.

We would have missed it if we hadn't turned right instead of left or called it quits. It was a beautiful autumn day so why not check out just one more spot.  I have been waiting for one of these to be recorded in the region for some time, since the rest of the southern part of BC seems to have them quite regularly now.  (I am also waiting for Crested Caracara, long shot but you never know).

Anyway, just a happy little Big Day story.

View the Canada list here on eBird.

Shorebird Identification Aid

East Kootenay Shorebird ID Guide by shape and size

Threw this together today for the field trip I am leading tomorrow.  It is the Rocky Mountain Naturalists annual "Shorebird" field trip.  We always do it the second week of August, hoping to get a good mix.  However, the shorebirds seemed to have started trickling in a bit earlier this year.  We never get many and love to spend hours studying them.

These are the species most common to the East Kootenay in August.  Feel free to download.  Perhaps you find a better quality photo on Flickr at https://flic.kr/p/MSaNo1

It is still a draft, really.  My intention is to go through O'Brien and tabulate id tips.  The sizes are relative and done mostly by eyeball but the ruler over the Greater Yellowlegs is to show that I am somewhat acurate in my photoshopping.

Thanks!  Enjoy!

More on Junco "Erruption"

Yes, I think we can call this an erruption of Dark-eyed Junco ... and it continues ( see previous post robin junco flip).

Let's see if eBird observations support that; let's compare this year (on the right) to last year, and then to previous years combined.

 Comparison of "Total" Dark-eyed Junco, East Kootenay, spring 2017 to spring 2018:

check out the scale on the left: 2017 upper limit = 420, 2018 upper limit = 1000

Comparison of "Abundance" of Dark-eyed Junco, East Kootenay, spring pre-2018 and spring 2018

again, check out the scale on the left: pre-2018 upper limit = 2.6, 2018 upper limit = 6.5

There are over twice as many juncos this year as we normally record.  What's up with that?  Are they coming here rather than heading to places that were burned up in forest fires last year?  Was it a good winter further south for them?

And they seem to be staying around a bit longer, rather than dispersing quickly to breeding territories.  Maybe because the snow is on the ground later and melting not so fast?

I know they are "thick" in my little yard - a dozen hanging around every day for the past two weeks.  There are still a couple of patches of snow back there but they seem happy and sing most of the day until late afternoon.

And yesterday I had quite a strange mix of birds.  Besides the juncos, and usual American Robin, there was a Mourning Dove,  a couple of Clark's Nutcracker, a Pileated Woodpecker, and a dozen Common Redpoll still!  AND a Varied Thrush later in the day.  (Redpolls seems to be holding back a bit this year.  Someone else reported a hundred of them out on a prairie.)

Nature! Always interesting!

And thanks! to all eBirders for reporting!  With so many more eBirders, we are going to be snowed under by volumes of data at this rate!

Solar veered

Long-billed Curlew "Solar" changed his mind on returning here, maybe. He was headed this way from California but veered East to Kalispell.

I posted on the Montana birding yahoo group in case anyone there could go look for him and low and behold someone did! They saw him, and maybe his new mate, and got pics of him eating a fat worm. Sweet! Thanks, Dick Walker! Great to know he is fine and has company. We shall see if he returns here or tries out a different place.

Meanwhile, Pine and Mojo were snapped on Skookumchuck Prairie and pics posted on eBird. Remote stalking is awesome! Getting out there and seeing for yourself is fun, too! Argyle is out there somewhere.