I'm going to write several wrap up posts about my big year, I just have so much that I want to talk about! First off I want to talk about some statistics and stuff from 2022. As some of you may have noticed from reading along for these past 12 months, I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to numbers and stuff ; )
So as you may know, all Ontario birds are broken down into a code system from 1 to 6, with 1 being the easiest and 6 being the hardest. For a recap on that check out this post. Here is a breakdown of the how many birds I saw in each code:
Code 1s - 203/203, 100% of Code 1s
Code 2s - 73/73, 100% of the Code 2s
Code 3s - 43/46, 93% of Code 3s
Code 4s - 25/41, 60.1% of Code 4s
Code 5s - 12 (kinda pointless including % for 5s and 6s, they’re just too rare).
Code 6s - 3
I ended up seeing every code 1 and 2 bird, though this was pretty expected because missing even 1 of those would be terrible. I had all but two of these birds by late August, then I added Parasitic Jaeger and Brant in the fall.
Code 3s are the swing species on a big year, and the number you see will seriously effect how well your year turns out. I did very well with 3s, and I only ended up missing 3 of them! Those 3 were Black Guillemot, Smith's Longspur and Western Kingbird. The former two I never really had a shot at, because I didn't go to Hudson/James Bay during the right time. The kingbird hurts a bit, but it was really a tough year for them!
I managed to track down over half of the code 4s, which I'm quite happy about because these are all tough rarities. I also saw 15 code 5 and 6 birds, this also really helped my total for the year. As far as I know there were 375 species seen in the province in 2022, so I saw 95.7% of them!! Not too bad!!
What about self found birds? I mentioned in January that I was going to keep track of that, and ideed I did. My original goal was to get to 300 for self found, however I didn't go to James Bay so that became pretty tough. Also there was no good hurricane this year, so that hurt my chances as well. I could have done better for sure if I targeted some of the birds I needed, but with more pressing big year birding to do I never really did that! As such I missed dumb things like Brant, Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Purple Sandpiper and Sabine's Gull. I seemed to be the only one who didn't find a chat at Point Pelee... I still hit 288 though, which I'm quite pleased with : ) I mean that's still 18 higher than my previous highest Ontario yearlist (with chasing). This also brings my all time self found list over 300. What about highlights? I didn't find as many OBRC birds (2) as I had hoped, but I found a lot of code 3/4 birds, including some that were just removed from the review list...
Here were some of the rarer ones ones! Favourites highlighted
- King Eider, Barrow's Goldeneye (female),Willow Ptarmigan, American Avocet, Marbled Godwit, Willet, Western Sandpiper, All 3 Jaegers, Razorbill, Black-legged Kittiwake x 8, Franklin's Gull (in Ottawa), Arctic Tern, Pacific Loon, Little Blue Heron, Swainson's Hawk, Cave Swallow, Lark Sparrow, Worm-eating Warbler, Summer Tanager, Blue Grosbeak x2, Dickcissel x2...
Not too shabby!
Now lets talk about missed birds for a bit, just because why not? The list of missed birds is as follows;
Curlew Sandpiper - One observer wonder in Ottawa, reported late and not seen the next day
Painted Bunting - One seen in morning flight at Long Point, 2 others at feeders and not shared
Chuck-Wills-Widow - One of the more annoying ones. For the last decade the Prince Edward birds had returned, but 2022 they were absent. Also there was only one at Point Pelee, heard a few times at night and then never again.
Western Kingbird - A few were seen in Rainy River in June, but 2 weeks before I went there. Then one unchaseable bird in eastern Ontario. I was hoping I could get it in the fall, but the only two fall birds were morning flight flybys...
Least Tern - Seen only once in Lambton on a lakewatch, not chaseable.
Wood Stork - 12 birds were seen flying over Point Pelee in early September, then a few were seen by another observer the next day. Also on that same day one was seen beside a river in Stratford! I was working during the first day, but I don't really think it would have made a difference because they were slippery...
Cassin's Kingbird - 2 Birds were seen by single observers in Algoma and Thunder Bay. Again, not chaseable.
Say's Phoebe - One in Thunder Bay in early May, then William found his own in Sudbury in June! Unfortunately his was just before sunset and wasn't seen the following day.
Northern Wheatear - One observer wonder in Algoma
Smith's Longspur - None were seen out of range in 2022, but lots were on breeding territory on Hudson Bay... So I could have had this bird for a several thousand dollar plane flight...
Swainson's Warbler - Long Point (inaccessible area) and Pelee Island (one day wonder) in May...
Gray Flycatcher - An annoying bird in Brant. Misidentified as a Willow Flycatcher and reported after sunset... not seen the following day... annoying. This would have been an easy chase if posted same day.
Atlantic Puffin - Several people had flybys in Ottawa, but they were never seen on the water and thus, not chaseable.
Black Guillemot - William, Ezra and the other folks who went to James Bay in October got a guillemot, so I could have seen this bird if I went on the trip.
Barn Owl - A suppressed bird in January, rip. No others were seen this year as far as I know.
Burrowing Owl - My most annoying miss of the year... This bird was refound at TTP in Toronto in early January, while I was up by Thunder Bay. I tried the next day and dipped. Then after that I spent a whole day and it was seen an hour and a half after we left. A big snowstorm hit later that week and most people assumed it was dead, but apparently it was seen in April by a TRC employee?!?
Anyways yeah, I don't dwell on my missed birds, it's just not possible to see everything during a big year and there will always be ones that got away. Overall I'm thrilled with the way things went. As I said above, almost all of the species I missed weren't chaseable. For arguments sake though, I'll calculate how I would have ended up if I did things "perfect".
To start, let’s say I delayed my first northern Ontario trip and connected with the Toronto Burrowing Owl (360). Then I went to Rainy River in early June and saw Western Kingbird (361). Then if I had an unlimited budget I could have flown to Hudson Bay and got Smith’s Longspur in the summer (362). If I wasn’t working in early September I could have spent more time on Wood Stork, although honestly I likely would have still missed it. But let’s say I got super lucky and got one of them (363). I really felt like going to James Bay in mid October was the wrong call because the weather was promising for rarities in the south, of which there didn’t turn out to be any. To clarify I’m still ok with this decision, but if I did go I would have scored Black Guillemot (364). I’m not comfortable giving myself any other species on the list, because the rest weren’t chaseable in my opinion. So yeah, IF I was at Long Point on the right day I would have seen a Painted Bunting fly by, and IF I was on the right trail at night in Pelee I could have heard a Chuck-Wills-Widow, but that’s just fantasy land. So yeah, the best that I could have possibly gotten is 364, 5 more than my actual list… but that’s the way the cookie crumbled. The way it went I smashed the old record of 346, so definitely not complaining! On my budget too some of those things weren’t really attainable. I mainly just wrote that to show what was possible, not what I would have done differently.
Favourite eBird list of 2022? This one
Anyways those are the stats! I'll do another post sometime soon with a less number orientated look back on 2022. If anyone has questions about other list stuff, just message me or ask in comments!
Ontario yearlist @ December 31 - 359
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| - Cerulean Warbler from May |
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