Happy New Year! It Should Be a Fun, Big Year.

So today, the first day of 2013, I went birding (as I do most new years days). But today was different. As a few of you may know, but not all of you, this year, 2013, I am doing a mini, Lambton County Big Year. This mean I am going to try to see / find as many species of bird, in my home county of Lambton Ontario, in a calender year. I am very excited to do this, I think it will be a great challenge, loads of fun, and a fantastic learning experience. The reason I have decided to make this year my Big Year is because, it is pretty much the only year where I plan to be home the whole year. For half of 2014, I plan to be in College, so I wouldn't have a full year birding in the county, and after that, there is a good chance that I will be living and working somewhere else. So that is why I have chosen this to be my big year. I am very excited and hope to learn lots. I don't know if anyone has ever done a Lambton Big Year, but that doesn't mean I don't have a goal to aim for. But if anyone knows if there is, please let me know! And Wish me luck!!

Surf and White-winged Scoters, Scaup, and more? (photo not by me)

So today, mid-morning, I head to Sarnia for a day of birding. On the way to my first destination, I saw 5species, one of which was my first species of 2013!, and that was, Horned Lark, too bad my #2 wasn't the first, because a Merlin would be an awesome first bird of the new year! Oh well, still a good #2! So soon enough, I found myself at the Point Edward Lighthouse, only to find about 3 Thou. Redheads, 1.5 Thou. Long-tailed Ducks, 12 Lesser Scaup, and 2 distant White-winged Scoters being the bests. I decided not to stay there to long because firstly, my hands were Freezing! And second, I wanted to move around a bit so I can clear some species off my need4year list. So next up, was the bridge looking for the Peregrine's, but after a little search, I could not find them, I guess they will have to wait for another day. 

Next was the Sarnia Marina and Area, which gave me my biggest surprise of the day! I counted 6 Lesser Black-backed Gulls in the area! 1 Fly-by and 5 sitting on the ice with all the other Gulls. I was crazily surprised at this number for I have never seen more then 1-2 at a time in the county! Also in the area, 15+ Greater Black-backed's, 1 Glaucous Gull, and a Green-winged Teal (found by Paul Carter previous day).

After the Marina, I headed to Canatara for a walk around. Surprisingly, it was very quiet in the park, not very much to be seen or heard, but one of the few birds I did see, was a White-throated Sparrow, which is a fairly good bird for this time of year!

This little guy was just sitting and staring, so I figured it'd be a shame not to take a picture!

So after that, I decided to head downriver till Couruna, seeing what was in the river, then headed to Perch Creek. In this time, I found 12 Hooded Mergansers, at they are Shell Docks as most years. At one place, there was a tree, with a Red-tailed Hawk sitting no more then 2m away from a big female Cooper's Hawk! Was very surprised that they were so close to each other, was also very surprised that there was a flock of 300+ Mourning Doves!, no more then 100m away on the road, which is a crazy big flock of this species! Also between the two locations, found a group of 3 Red-tailed Hawks circling together! Here is a crappy pic that you can hardly tell their hawks:

 

As I said, very crappy pic.

In between Perch Creek and home, I added a couple more birds for the day, including: Golden-crowned Kinglet, Hairy Woodpecker, another Red-tailed, Am. Kestrel, and Merlin, more Snow Bunting and Horned Larks, and, a single Lapland Longspur.

So, by the time I got home, I was up to a grand total of 40 species for the day! But, my day wasn't quite over yet, once it got dark my dad and I went outside and played Eastern Screech-Owl call-back, and got 4 to respond! That's #41!

So day 1, off to a great start in my opinion. Hopefully I can keep the luck!

Good Birding!