A shorter post this time around, I figured I would share an update about what I've been up to!
After finishing up a work contract with Birds Canada in mid August, Alessandra and I headed off on a 35 day journey exploring western Canada. We saw so many cool places and I got lots of lifers... But I want to save that for several longer posts to give it the justice it deserves... should get to that soon : )
We arrived back in Ontario just in time for the annual OFO convention in Peterborough, driving straight there from Sault St. Marie. Alessandra had to do emceeing on Saturday night (killed it of course) and I introduced my new bird of the year program. We did some birding with William Konze, seeing over 90 species and scoring a lot of county ticks in the area. Fun times...
Once we got back home on the peninsula, we rested up for a few days and took a much needed break after living in my chevy cobalt for such a long time. I spent a few days birding around the yard, which turned out to be surprisingly productive... highlights include yard lifer Blue-winged Teal, nearly 500 morning flight Yellow-rumped Warblers and some other fun things. My best list of the week linked here. As October started to draw near I started getting really hyped up for rarity season, and my favourite month of the year to bird. One thing that has bugged me slightly over the last number of year of birding has been the lack of rare birds I've found during the month of October. It's arguably the best time of the year to find good birds in the province, but the list I have of rarities to show for my effort is relatively low.
After giving it some thought, the main issue that's been hurting my chances is kind of funny... I like fun birding too much. Previous to 2022, I mainly birded my yard/local patch during the fall, focusing on morning flight and hawkwatching. Both of those forms of birding are very enjoyable to me, but the rarity yield is quite low. Hawkwatching in general has low yield in Ontario, maybe a Swainson's Hawk or Black Vulture if you put in enough effort, but other than that it would have to be something pretty mega. As far as vismig goes, there's definitely potential there for rarities there, but the type of stuff I get here turns up rarities quite infrequently (that could be a whole other post). I definitively don't want to give the impression that I'm complaining, I'm not! Sometimes rarities just aren't the vibe, and I find it just as enjoyable seeing large numbers of migrants pass through in a morning.
Anyway, I want to try and do things a bit differently this fall. My goal is to try and find rarities, and bird as frequently as I can and see what happens! Because the more you're out looking in productive areas, the more you'll find. After I decided to do this, I was trying to come up with ways to motivate myself and get others on board for some hardcore rarity hunting... Then I remembered reading something awhile back on Brandon Holden's blog, a challenge that he ran with some friends called "50 days of rare". If you want to check out that post click Here, but to sum it up the idea was to motivate birders around the Great Lakes region to get out and search hardcore for vagrants and blog about it. Basically right what I was going for! I then decided that I would try restarting this challenge, with a few tweaks and changes of my own (mine starts on Oct 1. instead on late September, mainly because I had the idea a bit late). I drafted up a post and then threw it up on some of the provincial birding servers... That post below..
" Here’s how I’m going to do it. Since it’s later than mid September, I we will do it from today (October 1) until November 20th. Birds you saw today can count. Rules and information can be found below…
1. The bird has to be self found (check out Punk Birders Self Found rules. Posted on the Facebook group I made).
2. The bird has to be in Ontario during the dates I mentioned above.
3. The winner of our friendly competition will be determined by who finds the rarest bird (rare is a bit subjective, but it will default to the rarest at a provincial level. More discussion in the group).
4. Unlike Brandon’s version you don’t have to have a blog to participate. The aspect of telling people your birding plans is kind of fun though! So we can still do some of that if people are interested.
5. The winner will receive bragging rights… and a free T-shirt, with artwork of their winning rarity done by Alessandra Wilcox 🙂
The idea is to have some fun/see what other people are finding in the province and have some motivation to get out birding a lot during peak rarity season. I’ve made a Facebook group where people who can join can post their finds/discuss (that way the server won’t get cluttered). So to sign up like this message and I’ll message you information on how to join the group
Here’s the link (everyone who asks to join will be accepted).
https://m.facebook.com/groups/3640031096241766/?ref=share&mibextid=S66gvF "
So there you have it! So far 35 people have joined and some folks seem hyped up... I'm excited to see what's found! A few people (coughHoldencough) were a bit hesitant to join up at first, but came around after they discovered a T-shirt was on the line. Maybe if this is popular we can get a plaque or something, but I think it would be fun if it became an annual thing. It really isn't about prizes though, but having some community motivation and comradery to get out there and find cool birds. If you want to join then just click the link above!
I'll try to post here a fair amount this month about the progress, so stay tuned!
Here's a Swainson's Hawk photo from out west to end off the post 
No comments:
Post a Comment