vaneramos | Breeding Bird Survey 2006

The marshy stream below Lake Fletcher, stop number 37 on the Breeding Bird Survey

Breeding bird survey stop number 36: I am observed by a fox kit

I usually count about 52 species on the Breeding Bird Survey, but this year I had a meagre 50. Several reliable species were startlingly absent: common loon, rose-breasted grosbeak, and song sparrow. It was a treat, though, to hear a scarlet tanager for the first time in five years. The weather started still and clear, but wind gradually picked up, so strong that noisy trees interfered with my ability to hear and identify birds on five of the last seven stops.

Wildlife sightings, on the other hand, were unusually good (too bad they don't count!). At stop number 36 a curious fox kit came and sat on the opposite shoulder watching me. Cat-sized, it shook its ears at mosquitoes, startled at a passing butterfly, and dashed into the undergrowth every time my camera clicked.

Later I saw my first pine marten dash across the road ahead. It looked like a mink but as big as a cat. I passed a two-point buck bounding into the woods. Not 50 metres beyond, a moose cow stood staring short-sightedly. She was close as the fox kit, but while I scrambled for my camera, she turned and disappeared nonchalantly into the wood, nibbling foliage.

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This time I took my camera along and shot a photo at each of the 50 stop points I visit every year. The gallery on Flickr shows how the scenery changes from 4:54 am at the PetroCanada station in Dwight, to sunrise, to morning mist in the Haliburton Highlands, to some of my favourite scenic stops at Otter Lake, Littlebeaver Lake, and the marshy stream below Lake Fletcher (shown above), to the sideroad leading to my own cottage (if you look closely on the left you can see the Waffle name sign), to the stop near Livingstone Lodge that is usually good for mourning warblers, to the final riverside stop where I observed and heard my first alder flycatcher the first year I did the survey (2000).

I haven't processed the data yet, but once I do, I'll post a full species list.