Nearly 250 birds were spotted flying through Chestermere on Dec. 15, during the second annual Christmas Bird Count.
“Overall, we were pretty happy when we totalled up the birds, it’s nice to see more feathers,” said the Christmas Bird Count Organizer Don Cassidy.
“The sparrows were way up from last year, magpies were at least double, and the ravens also took a monstrous leap as well,” Cassidy said.
There were a couple of surprise sightings for participants of the Christmas Bird Count.
“It was nice seeing some new birds like the Bohemian Waxwing,” Cassidy said.
At one point throughout the day, Cassidy had a group of about 60 birds in his backyard.
“Then we had a group of about 44, and another group came in to join it was hilarious,” he said.
Having the Christmas Bird Count in December as opposed to in January like it was last year could have had an impact on how many species were in the Chestermere area, along with different weather conditions.
“There wasn’t really any wind, and it was nice and sunny. It was a little nicer and warmer,” Cassidy said.
“Sometimes when it’s colder, you actually get more birds showing up at the feeders,” he said.
Cassidy was completely surprised when he saw a Northern Shrike sitting on the top of a power wire outside of Chestermere.
“We stopped and backup up slowly, we wanted to get a picture, but it was suspicious and took off,” Cassidy said.
A surprise bird sighting was the Bohemian Waxwing, which tends to gravitate to areas with a lot of berries, mountain ash trees, and spruce trees.
“They do tend to like spruce trees. There a good tree where they can hang out,” Cassidy said.
He added, “We had one fly into the backyard, take a look around, and then go over to the spruce trees.”
Another surprise for Cassidy was seeing a Ring-necked Pheasant that was about 5 km south of Langdon.
“It was sitting in a farm field surrounded by snow, that was a pleasant surprise,” Cassidy said.
“Everybody saw Northern Flickers, which was really good,” he said.
During the Christmas Bird Count, Cassidy and his spouse drove almost 100 km to see what kinds of species were in the Chestermere area.
“We did come across places where there were more rock pigeons on some of the farm properties,” Cassidy said.
Adding, “Overall, the total numbers were certainly better, which was great.”
