The Sunshine Coast Natural History Society conducted its 41st annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC) on Saturday, Dec. 14, covering the area from Port Mellon to West Sechelt. The 29th Pender Harbour count, covering the Middlepoint to Egmont area, is organized by the Pender Harbour Wildlife Society and was on Wednesday, Dec. 18. The weather for the Gibsons-Sechelt count was overcast with increasing precipitation towards Howe Sound. Conditions were generally calm on the water so overall it was a decent day for counting birds. The Pender Harbour count was blessed with gale force winds in the morning, which necessitated the cancellation of a boat party on the Strait.
The Gibsons-Sechelt area was covered by about 10 parties with counting from dawn to dusk. One party even put in extra time before dawn by looking for owls and it was a successful search with a barred owl found. At the end of the day the species count was 88, the third consecutive year with 88 species. In the count-week (three days prior and three days after count day), an additional seven species were found for a total of 95 species.
This number gives a good indication of the high species diversity on the Sunshine Coast in mid-winter. Despite the 95 species found, there were no real highlights in terms of rarities and all were species we expect to record.
The species count is only one aspect of the exercise and perhaps even more important is recording the long-term numbers of common species. Numbers go up and down for a host of reasons so the long-term trend is critical. This winter there have been high numbers of two waterbirds – red-necked grebe and red-breasted merganser – and the count verified this.
Anna’s hummingbirds are now common year-round residents of the Sunshine Coast and 95 were recorded. Hummers are well known for their feisty, belligerent attitude but two different counting parties noted extreme behaviour with a peregrine falcon dive-bombed by a hummer in Porpoise Bay and a merlin similarly hassled in Sechelt. We admire their attitude, but this is totally useless behaviour!
The Pender Harbour count recorded 73 species, below the usual count, as 14 of the previous 28 counts have recorded between 80 to 84 species. As with the Sunshine Coast count there were no highlight species to report.
For your sightings or questions, contact [email protected] or 604-885-5539.
